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Over the past two decades, federal and state policymakers have dramatically reshaped the nations system of cash welfare assistance for low-income families. During this period, there has been considerable variation from state to state in approaches to welfare reform, which are often collectively referred to as welfare-to-work programs. This article synthesizes an extraordinary body of evidence: results from 28 benefit-cost studies of welfare-to-work programs based on random assignment evaluation designs. Each of the 28 programs can be viewed as a test of one of six types of welfare reform approaches: mandatory work experience programs, mandatory job-search-first programs, mandatory education-first programs, mandatory mixed-initial-activity programs, earnings supplement programs, and time-limit-mix programs. After describing how benefit-cost studies of welfare-to-work programs are conducted and considering some limitations of these studies, the synthesis addresses such questions as: Which welfare reform program approaches yield a positive return on investments made, from the perspective of program participants and from the perspective of government budgets, and the perspective of society as a whole? Which approaches make program participants better off financially? In which approaches do benefits exceed costs from the governments point of view? The last two of these questions coincide with the trade-off between reducing dependency on government benefits and ensuring adequate incomes for low-income families. Because the benefit-cost studies examined program effects from the distinct perspectives of government budgets and participants incomes separately, they address this trade-off directly. The article thus uses benefit-cost findings to aid in assessing the often complex trade-offs associated with balancing the desire to ensure the poor of adequate incomes and yet encourage self-sufficiency.

A Synthesis of Random Assignment Benefit-Cost Studies of Welfare-to-Work Programs