       GUIDE TO USING THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

           NATIONAL EVALUATION OF WELFARE-TO-WORK STRATEGIES (NEWWS)

                    TWO-YEAR CLIENT SURVEY PUBLIC USE FILE


I. INTRODUCTION

This memo briefly describes the public use analysis file and accompanying
documentation for research on the two-year effects of 11 welfare-to-work
programs on outcomes calculated from survey responses. The 11 programs were
operated during the early- to mid-1990s in seven sites: Atlanta, Georgia;
Columbus, Ohio; Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma;
Portland, Oregon; and Riverside, California.  The survey was administered
around the 2-year anniversary of the date in which the sample member first
showed up at a welfare-to-work program office to enroll in the program and
attend an orientation session.   Sample members were randomly assigned on that
day, either to a program group, whose members were eligible to receive
welfare-to-work services and were subject to the program's mandatory
participation requirement, or to a control group, whose members were precluded
from services and were not subject to participation mandates.  The embargo on
program services for control group members lasted from 3 to 5 years, depending
on site, date of random assignment, and other factors. (See RES_MEMO.TXT for
details).

All respondents to the 2-Year Client Survey were selected from the NEWWS Full
Impact sample (N=44,569).  In addition, 3,018 respondents also responded to the
2-Year Child Outcomes Study (COS) Survey.

The files contain the sample and outcome measures analyzed for three reports
published in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office
of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and Administration
for Children and Families; and U.S. Department of Education, Office of the
Under Secretary and Office of Vocational and Adult Education:

Evaluating Alternative Welfare-to-Work Approaches: Two-Year Impacts for Eleven
Programs.

Impacts on Young Children and Their Families Two Years After Enrollment:
Findings from the Child Outcomes Study.

Do Mandatory Welfare-to-Work Programs Affect the Well-Being of Children?
A Synthesis of Child Research Conducted as Part of the National Evaluation of
Welfare-to-Work Strategies.

NOTE: Most measures for the Child Outcomes Study report are stored in the
Two-Year COS Survey public use data file (CD #3).

The reports and public use files were prepared by the Manpower Demonstration
Research Corporation (MDRC) and Child Trends as part of the National Evaluation
of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (formerly known as the JOBS Evaluation).  MDRC is
conducting the NEWWS Evaluation under a contract with the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS), funded by HHS under a competitive award,
Contract No. HHS-100-89-0030.  HHS is also receiving funding for the evaluation
from the U.S. Department of Education.  The study of one of the sites in the
evaluation, Riverside County (California), is also conducted under a contract
from the California Department of Social Services (CDSS). CDSS, in turn, is
receiving funding from the California State Job Training Coordinating Council,
the California Department of Education, HHS, and the Ford Foundation.

As part of the NEWWS Evaluation, Child Trends is conducting the Child
Outcomes Study under subcontract to MDRC.


II. DESCRIPTION OF THE DATA

N2PS1717.TXT contains outcome measures from the 2-Year Client Survey in 7
sites (N=9,675). It is organized into 18 records:

RECORD 1:  INTERVIEW DATE, LENGTH, MODE

RECORD 2:  PARTICIPATION: JOB SEARCH, ABE, GED, AND HIGH SCHOOL

RECORD 3:  PARTICIPATION: POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION, VOCATIONAL TRAINING,
           WORK EXPERIENCE, OJT, ANY ACTIVITY

RECORD 4:  PARTICIPATION: DATE AND HOURS MISSING DATA FLAGS

RECORD 5:  ADDITIONAL BASIC EDUCATION VARIABLES

RECORD 6:  DEGREE RECEIPT

RECORD 7:  EMPLOYMENT: SOURCE VARIABLES

RECORD 8:  EMPLOYMENT: CREATED VARIABLES

RECORD 9:  EMPLOYMENT: DATA PROBLEM FLAGS

RECORD 10: CHILD CARE FOR EMPLOYMENT

RECORD 11: HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION

RECORD 12: INCOME FOR HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS 1-9 YES/NO VARIABLES

RECORD 13: INCOME AMOUNTS FOR HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS 1-9 $ VARIABLES

RECORD 14: INCOME SUMMARY VARIABLES

RECORD 15: INCOME DATA PROBLEM FLAGS

RECORD 16: TRANSITIONAL AND NON-CASH BENEFITS AND HEALTH CARE COVERAGE

RECORD 17: CHILD OUTCOMES (ALL CHILDREN)

RECORD 18: ATTITUDES TOWARD WORK AND WELFARE AND INFORMATION ON SANCTIONS


IMPORTANT!!!:  Values on a small number of measures have been changed to
protect sample members' confidentiality.  (See codebook for details).
Researchers interested in analyzing the original values should use
N2RS1221.TXT, which is available (on a restricted access basis) at the National
Center for Health Statistics.

See www.aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/newws/data-info.htm for more information.

Each record contains a unique sample member IDNUMBER, which varies from 1 to
44569.  For any sample member, the same IDNUMBER is used on each public use
file from the NEWWS Evaluation.


III. USING THE DATA

The 2-Year Client Survey data file should be merged (by IDNUMBER) with the
Five-Year Full Impact Sample public use data file (CD #1). This file contains
(for all 44,569 members) background characteristics needed to calculate program
impacts and define key subgroups and outcome measures calculated from
administrative records.

These data sets may also be merged (by IDNUMBER) with other NEWWS public use
data sets:

2-Year Child Outcomes Study (COS) Survey (CD #3)

2-Year Literacy and Math Test Scores (CD #4)

5-Year Client Survey  (CD #5)

5-Year Child Outcomes Study (COS) and 5-Year Teacher Surveys (CD #6)

Indicators for the key subsamples are stored on the Full Impact Sample file:

FULLSAMP:  Full Impact sample

SRV2RESP:  2-Year Client Survey respondent

COS2RESP:  2-Year Child Outcomes Study Survey respondent

SRV5RESP:  5-Year Client Survey respondent

COS5RESP:  5-Year Child Outcomes Study Survey respondent


The research design for the NEWWS Evaluation is complicated. So are
the sample selection strategies for the 2-Year Client and Child Outcomes
Study surveys.  We strongly suggest that users of this file do the
following before conducting any further analyses:

1. Read the _README files which give a brief description of all files
included in this set.

2. Read the reports, including chapters which describe the research designs,
samples, and data sources.

3. Review the codebooks, file layouts, output, tables, and memos.

4. After reading the data into SAS or another statistical or econometric
software package, replicate the sample sizes and means.

NOTE: Researchers will obtain slightly different impact results from
those displayed in report tables. (The tables on this CD were copied from
Evaluating Alternative Welfare-to-Work Approaches.)  These differences
result from small changes to some background characteristics measures used as
covariates in the impact regression model. MDRC implemented these changes after
work for the 2-year impact report was completed. Changes include (1) updating of
pre-random assignment earnings and welfare payment data (used as covariates) for
some sample members, following receipt of more recent source files; and
(2) small changes made to values of these and other covariates to protect
sample members' confidentiality.

