Welfare to Work: The Next Generation A National Forum

This paper presents final results from the Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) study of welfare applicants.1 SSP was a Canadian research and demonstration project designed to test a policy innovation intended to make work pay better than welfare. Conceived and funded by Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), managed by the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC), and evaluated by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) and SRDC, SSP offered a temporary financial incentive to single parent, long-term income assistance (IA) recipients who left income assistance for full-time work. The SSP Applicant study recruited single parents who were newly receiving income assistance (referred to in this paper as “Applicants”). These Applicants were told that if they stayed on income assistance for a full year they would become eligible for an earnings supplement. They would start to receive the SSP supplement if they then left income assistance for full-time work within the subsequent 12 months (i.e. their second year on income assistance). SSP offered a supplement paid on top of earnings from employment for up to three years, provided recipients worked 30 or more hours each week and remained of