Summary: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not know whether the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program is reducing welfare dependency because it does not gather enough information on critical program outcomes, such as the number of participants entering employment and leaving welfare each year. Also, states are held accountable for the number and type of participants enrolled in education and training but not for outcomes, such as the number of participants finding work. Although little progress has been made in monitoring JOBS outcomes at the federal level, the picture is better at the state level. The current national interest in making welfare more employment focused, as well as provisions in the Government Performance and Results Act requiring performance monitoring to become more outcome oriented governmentwide, indicate that HHS needs to move decisively to ensure that it meets its current schedule for developing outcome measures and goals for JOBS. A critical first step in developing performance goals will be to work the states and others to resolve differences over whether the main objective of JOBS is to help participants find work quickly or receive the education and training needed for better-paying jobs.
