Establishing public cash assistance as a time-limited benefit was a key and controversial feature of the 1996 welfare reform legislation. Many advocates and practitioners consider the formalization of program flexibility through time-limit exemptions and extensions to be critical in helping the most vulnerable families. Despite these options, including states’ ability to exempt up to 20 percent of their caseloads due to hardships without penalty from the federal government, uptake varies considerably over time and across states. Using multiple data sources, including federal caseload data and the Urban Institute’s Welfare Rules Database, we examine time-limit extensions and exemptions in the 50 US states from fiscal years 2002–16. Fixed-effects, negative binomial models test four theoretical models: state need and capacity, state politics, policy implementation strategies, and federal incentives. Findings indicate that states strategically respond to federal incentives and that implementation strategies matter, particularly for time-limit extensions.

中文翻译：

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联邦福利时限延长和豁免：为什么各州和时间的利用情况不同？

将公共现金援助确立为限时福利是 1996 年福利改革立法的一个关键且有争议的特征。许多倡导者和从业者认为，通过时间限制豁免和延期来正式化计划灵活性对于帮助最脆弱的家庭至关重要。尽管有这些选择，包括各州有能力免除高达 20% 的因困难而不会受到联邦政府处罚的案件量，但随着时间的推移和各州的情况，采纳情况差异很大。我们使用多个数据源，包括联邦案件量数据和城市研究所的福利规则数据库，研究了 2002-16 财年美国 50 个州的时限延长和豁免。固定效应、负二项式模型测试四种理论模型：国家需求和能力、国家政治、政策实施策略和联邦激励措施。调查结果表明，各州对联邦激励措施做出战略性回应，实施策略很重要，尤其是延长期限。