Nonrespondents and Nonresponse Bias: Evidence from a Survey of Former Welfare Recipients in Iowa
نویسندگان
چکیده
iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The study of nonresponse in the survey of families that left Iowa's TANF program was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., (MPR) with funding from The Joyce Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We thank these organizations for their support of this study. Several individuals assisted in conducting the study and producing this report. At ASPE, Kelleen Kaye provided overall guidance to the study, was responsible for the business and technical aspects of the study, and reviewed a draft of the report. Four additional people reviewed a draft of the report: provided input into the design of the study and provided comments on early findings from the study. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policies of any government agency. (MPR) conducted a telephone survey of families that had left Iowa's TANF program—the Family Investment Program—approximately one year earlier. That survey was one of 17 surveys of " TANF leavers " conducted across the country with funding from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The surveys were designed to describe the circumstances and well-being of families that had left welfare. MPR selected a random sample of 535 families that left Iowa's TANF program in the spring of 1999, and MPR was able to interview the heads of 405 of these families for a 76 percent response rate. Findings based on these 405 families were presented in a report to the Iowa Department of Human Services (Kauff et al. 2001). Although a 76 percent response rate is quite high, findings from the survey would not accurately characterize families that left Iowa's TANF program if there were large differences between families that responded to the survey, which are called " respondents, " and those that did not, which are called " nonrespondents. " For instance, if nonrespondents faced worse economic circumstances than respondents, the survey data might paint an overly rosy picture of the economic well-being of families that left TANF. Advocacy groups for low-income populations have challenged findings from surveys of TANF leavers and other surveys of low-income populations for this reason, and policymakers, researchers, and the media have also expressed …
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