Finding Employment and Staying Employed After Leaving Welfare

This paper examines the impact of transportation, childcare, and illness on the ability of former welfare recipients to secure employment and to maintain employment once more "distal" or structural factors are controlled. The impact of these variables on gaining and keeping employment is evaluated in a series of probit regression models. The analysis suggests that the current labor market has transformed securing and maintaining employment into two separate events and that most of the factors traditionally used to predict the ability of welfare recipients to gain employment are now more important to maintaining employment. In particular, the absence of an automobile reduces the probability of keeping a job by 24 points.