The migration impact of Wisconsin’s AFDC benefit levels: a re-examination
By James Wahner and Jerome Stepaniak
Two basic issues are explored in this report. First, to what degree are interstate in migrants to four southeastern Wisconsin counties – Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Rock – adding to the Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) rolls in those counties? Second, what are the impacts on those counties of the AFDC interstate migration which has occurred? Answers to these questions provide poignant detail at the county level on the make up and effects of Wisconsin’s AFDC population.
This report focuses not on the state but at the more micro level, the county, where trends can be much more sharply felt. Four southeastern Wisconsin counties – Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Rock – were chosen for examination. The rationale for selection of these counties for this Report is rather straightforward. The researchers wished to look at urban counties on the border or in close proximity to the border of the state. They were also interested in looking at areas where local officials had voiced concern over in-migration problems.
It is important to note that much of the evidence of community impact that was gathered relates to Milwaukee County, by far the largest county in the state and home to almost 40 percent of the state’s AFDC recipients. Although time did not permit specific verification, similar service demands exist in the Counties of Kenosha, Racine and Rock.
It would be ideal if we could say that the data available are clear and consistent. Unfortunately, as with many issues related to welfare, that is not the case. The state and counties do not necessarily define new AFDC cases in the same manner. Data are not always available on the topics or in the form that would most neatly answer what are seemingly simple questions. Because of that, data from different sources, from slightly different time periods, and created in response to different definitions have been assembled. Together they generate a clearer picture than heretofore available of the impact of interstate migration on the AFDC roles of four of the state’s most urbanized counties.
In order to get as precise an estimate as possible on the proportion of out-of-state applicants for AFDC, a definition of what a new AFDC applicant is had to be created. The broadest definition, all newly-opened cases each month, is not appropriate because it includes a number of persons who were previously on AFDC and who may have been off for as little as one or two months.
There are also a number of persons referred to as “flip-ons”, persons already on Food Stamps or Medical Assistance who report some change in family status or income that automatically “flips” them onto the AFDC roles. They are not seen as appropriate new cases either because they may also have been on AFDC, moved off, and “flipped” back on. Thus, for the state counts an exclusionary definition was devised. The definition counted as new cases only those cases in which the head had not been on AFDC in Wisconsin in the previous 11 months, with the exception of those persons (few in number) who both left and then came back to Wisconsin within the previous 11 months. This refined definition of a “new case” is especially important for Milwaukee County, where “flip-ons” account for two of every three new cases. In all other counties about half of all cases are “flip-ons”.
