The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996 has ushered in a new era of welfare reform. A work-first approach emphasizes self-sufficiency designed to move welfare recipients into the workforce as quickly as possible. The first of two issues related to the current context of welfare-to-work…

In an effort to shift the focus of employment programs from unemployment to reemployment, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is funding the development and implementation of a one-stop employment system. The DOL has largely left states free to design their one-stop systems provided programs have these features: (1) universality, (2) customer…