In 1998, some 33,702 (35%) of the 96,300 women who were on Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in Wisconsin in 1990 were not working in Wisconsin. Of the 33,702, some 11,348 (one-third) had never worked in jobs covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI) in Wisconsin. A small portion (600+) had died. The question is what happened to the other 33,100 women who were still alive. If they were not employed in the formal economy, how were they supported? That is what this research hoped to discover.

Not too surprisingly, 8,584 of these women not working in 1998 were still on a form of assistance in Wisconsin in 1998, including almost 2,300 who were on AFDC/W-2. However, these numbers indicate that only 2% of the 1990 AFDC cohort was on AFDC/W-2 in 1998. That is a remarkable switch in lifestyles. The vast majority of the 8,584 women that were on a form of assistance in 1998 were using Food Stamps (FS) (80%) and Medical Assistance (MA) (92%).

The big question is what happened to the other 24,516 women (25% of the original 1990 cohort) that were not working or receiving aid in Wisconsin in 1998. These women had disappeared from these systems. The term "disappeared" is ambiguous, as it must be in this situation. These women disappeared from the work and assistance roles, the two most likely ways they can be supported. If these options are out, then the remaining ones, such as receipt of Social Security benefits, marriage or cohabitation, incarceration, and the like, are the options in the state. The other option is a move out of state. The move out is likely for a substantial portion of these women, especially those who left the welfare roles and employment early in the decade. It seems less and less likely these women could survive without aid or work over the decade. This fact strongly suggests that many of these women left Wisconsin. But there is no way to know for sure.

When other studies of why recipients have left welfare are reviewed, employment is given as the largest reason (25-54%). Yet none of these missing 1990 recipients are working in Wisconsin in 1998, at least in employment covered by Unemployment Insurance. So it must be other reasons. In part, a segment has received more Social Security or other non-AFDC support. That is valid for maybe as many as 15% of these women. Some got married. But in a Wisconsin study of recent welfare leavers, only 1% claimed this as a reason to leave welfare. Even if it were 5%, it does not explain where most of these women are. A few may be working as self-employed, but the self-employed

constitute less than 7% of all members in the work force.

We cannot really determine what happened to these “missing” women. But we can identify their characteristics and work histories. We can say when they left. And we can speculate on where they went.

The vast majority of those who disappeared did so long before W-2 was instituted. Some 3,311 disappeared in 1991, and relatively similar numbers disappeared every year until 1998, when the number increased to 4,638. Thus, 70% had left all program records by the end of 1996. Only 7,400 women disappeared in 1997 and 1998. Since this number is only slightly above the average for the preceding years, it seems that W-2 was not a major force in causing women to disappear.

The modest annual disappearance is puzzling. Most of these women who disappeared had work experience in Wisconsin. These women with work experience left in increasing numbers over the course of the decade. Only 837 disappeared after 1990 while some 2,894 left after 1996 and 4,146 after 1997. There was no mass exodus, but the increasing state emphasis on work for Wisconsin’s AFDC recipients over the mid-part of the decade may have increased interest in moving elsewhere. In contrast, those AFDC recipients who never worked were much more likely to leave early in the decade. More than half of these women had disappeared by 1993. Only 959 left in 1997 and 1998 combined. The changing rules did not seem to scare away those AFDC recipients without work experience.

Those with work experience that disappeared were increasingly unlikely to use AFDC the year before they disappeared. What appears to have happened is that these women tended to have difficulty in the work place. They ended up, on average, earning less the year before they disappeared than they had previously. With greater state pressure to work and less success in doing so in Wisconsin, it seems likely that an increasing proportion of these women also left the state. A decline in annual earnings is one way to identify former or current recipients with a greater potential to disappear.

In terms of characteristics, there are modest differences between those who disappeared without working compared to those who disappeared after working. Both average less than 11th grade education, had an average of two children, their youngest child in 1990 was six-years-old, and they had similar racial distributions. The big differences are between those on assistance, especially AFDC/W-2 in 1998 and those not on assistance. The women on assistance tend to be less educated, had had a younger child in 1990, and were more likely to be African American.

Among those women with work experience, women were more likely to disappear if they had more months of AFDC receipt, less education, received SSI in 1990 and 1994, had older children in 1990, and are a minority. Women are less likely to disappear if they have experienced a positive change in earnings over time. They are also less likely to disappear if they had worked more quarters each year early in the decade or were married with young children.

In terms of policy, it is clear that these women did not disappear because of a particular policy change. They "disappeared" fairly evenly over time. Many are likely to have left the state, making the size of the pool of women from the 1990 AFDC cohort that the state must be concerned with in the future considerably smaller. The state’s emphasis should be on those on assistance and those with similar characteristics more likely to return to assistance among those who are known to still be in the state. Furthermore, tracking all of these women across state boundaries would help all states’ understandings of these populations.