Summary: The welfare reform emphasis on "work first" has prompted a significant rethinking of how best to get welfare clients into jobs. It is still too early to tell what the most efficient and effective model is. For example, all five states GAO visited -- Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin -- were continuing to modify the structure of their workforce development and welfare systems to adapt to the new environment created by welfare reform. Some states, however, are making significant changes to their structure approaches to serving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) clients. For example, Wisconsin has an integrated workforce development and welfare system at both the state and local levels to provide employment and training assistance to TANF clients. Nationwide, states largely provide these services through two different structures. In 14 states, TANF clients receive employment and training services primarily through centers dedicated to serving only welfare clients; 17 states primarily use their local workforce development structure to deliver these services; and the remaining states use a combination of approaches. In GAO's visits to the five states it found similar results. The five states all provide employment and training services centered on getting TANF clients into the workforce as quickly as possible. Training focuses more on job readiness than on acquiring new vocational skills, in some cases using unpaid work experience or community work to teach job-readiness skills. The TANF block grant, rather than workforce development programs, is the principal source of funding for employment and training assistance to TANF clients.
