Summary: Under the Family Support Act of 1988, families trying to work their way off of welfare can receive up to 12 months of child care and medical assistance. Insufficient data prevent GAO from fully analyzing the issue of transitional benefits, including factors affecting their use, and how long families receive such benefits. GAO concludes that evaluating transitional benefits will prove complex and challenging. Unless the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) renews its evaluation planning and data collection efforts, HHS will probably be unable to report to Congress next year on the impact of transitional Medicaid on welfare dependency. In addition, the evaluation of transitional child care will be in jeopardy unless a strategy and schedule for completing it are developed. The number of families receiving transitional benefits grew during the first 15 months of the program. Yet many state policies, despite federal notification requirements, do not require that families be told about benefits when they become ineligible for welfare. Some state policies also prohibit families from applying for benefits retroactively within the 12-month eligibility period. Until these state policies are reviewed and brought into compliance with federal requirements, families in these states will be at greater risk of being uninformed about and have limited access to transitional benefits.
