Hardships and Survival Strategies After Welfare:  A Pilot Study
                Presented by: Human Services Coalition of Dade County, Inc.

       This descriptive report of the study’s findings was written for the reader interested in gaining some depth of understanding and insight into the cumulative statistics that tell us overall what is happening to the welfare population of Miami-Dade County, but not necessarily how or even why it is happening. The report first offers a summary of the hardships experienced by the women in this sample. The rest of the data reported concentrates on individual variation in circumstances and behaviors of the respondents. Not reported as a hardship, but clearly demonstrated as an obstacle to nearly all respondents is their relationship with the WAGES program. Lack of information about transitional benefits and low levels of provision of these benefits have confounded the attempts of most of this sample to move from welfare to work.