Study Details | Pathways to Work

3337.03-Alabama's Avenues to

Study quality: Low

Low

Reason for the rating: This study received a low study quality rating because the intervention was always provided in combination with another factor and the effect of the intervention cannot be disentangled from the effect of that other factor.

Intervention: Alabama's Avenues to Self-Sufficiency through Employment and Training Services (ASSETS)

Population and employment barriers:

Cash assistance recipients

Services provided:

Case management

Setting: Urban only

Study design

Design:

Cluster randomized controlled trial

Study group formation:

Evaluators matched six counties into three pairs on a number of economic and demographic characteristics. Within each matched pair, evaluators randomly selected one county to serve as the ASSETS intervention group and the other to serve as the comparison group. The resulting ASSETS and comparison county pairs were Limestone and Chilton, Clarke and Butler, and Madison and Tuscaloosa, respectively. This review focuses on one matched pair of urban counties in northern Alabama (Madison and Tuscaloosa counties). Madison was randomly selected as the intervention group and Tuscaloosa as the comparison group.

Time period of study:

Individuals were enrolled in the study from July 1990 to June 1993. Outcomes were observed until June 1994.

Pathways only reports results from studies with a study quality rating of high or moderate.

Sample characteristics

Participant employment and public benefit status

Were eligible for or receiving cash assistance

100%

Intervention implementation

Implementing organization:

Alabama's Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Food Stamp Program

Intervention services:

The ASSETS program focused on several design features to increase administrative efficiency and recipient self-sufficiency. First, ASSETS restructured Alabama's major income security programs for low-income households. Under ASSETS, the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and AFDC program were consolidated into a single administrative process. This resulted in a more streamlined approach. Benefits from these programs were offered in the form of a single cash grant, rather than as coupons or checks, and financial eligibility criteria and program participation requirements were simplified and standardized. Second, ASSETS broadened the requirements for recipients to participate in employment and training programs. Third, ASSETS required the cooperation of recipients to establish court-ordered child support obligations. Finally, case managers administered all income assistance programs, determined Medicaid eligibility, and provided recipients with access to employment and training services.

Mandatory services:

Nonexempt benefit recipients were required to register and participate in the ASSETS program and could face sanctions for failing to do so.

Comparison services:

The comparison group received services from the FSP and the AFDC program separately in two distinct administrative units, so the form of benefits, the administrative procedures, and benefits calculations were all different in the two units. Participation in employment and training programs and cooperation with efforts to establish court-ordered child support obligations followed the standard requirements of the AFDC program, the FSP, or both.

Study publications

Werner, Alan, David Rodda, Elsie Pan, Lisa Plimpton, Steven Mennemeyer, and Victoria Johnson (1997). Evaluation of the Alabama Avenues to Self-Sufficiency through Employment and Training Services (ASSETS) demonstration: Final report, Montgomery, AL: Alabama Department of Human Resources.

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Study of Alabama's Avenues to Self-Sufficiency through Employment and Training Services (ASSETS)—Madison County