Encouraging evidence that welfare-reform legislation enacted two years ago is beginning to work in inner cities comes from the Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. (MDRC), an independent research group in New York. Although earlier studies have shown that the law has been successful in reducing welfare rolls in rural and suburban communities, MDRCs latest study shows that the measure is having a positive effect in urban Los Angeles as well.
The study shows that recipients in 43% of poor families required to participate in the citys welfare-reform program found jobs in the first six months of the program, compared with 32% of randomly selected families still locked into the traditional welfare system. Pay of the families in the new program was found to be 46% higher than those in the control group.
