Skip to Main Content


Impact of the South Carolina Family Independence Act: 1998 to 2000
August 2000

REPORT (PDF)     SUMMARY (PDF)

S.C. Code §43-5-1285 requires the LAC to address three specific questions related to program outcomes of the Department of Social Services’ Family Independence Program.

  • Number of AFDC families and individuals no longer receiving welfare.
  • Number of individuals who have completed educational, employment, or training programs under the act.
  • Number of individuals employed and the duration of their employment.

The goal of the South Carolina Family Independence program is to enable families to become economically independent. Finding employment, however, does not mean that recipients will be self-sufficient. About one-third of the employable adults on welfare have at least a part-time job but still qualify for assistance because their earnings are too low to support a family. Only about 5% of all case closures were for income not requiring a subsidy, and, on average, about 20% of the households that had cases terminated due to earned income returned to the program within 12 months.

The LAC conducted a survey of DSS self-sufficiency case managers, county directors, FI supervisors, work force consultants, and FI specialty staff working with the FI program in the county DSS offices.

Our findings include the following:

  • As of May 1, 2000, 38% of the cases in overdue sanction status (meaning they should have had their benefits terminated because they were not participating in the program as required) had been recorded in that status for over 100 days. Clients may be continuing to receive benefits for which they are not eligible while using up their federal and state time limits.
  • Statutes allow DSS to grant exceptions to the FI time limits. DSS policy also requires these clients to be referred to Welfare-to-Work (WtW). However, DSS client data systems do not code for these activities and DSS staff, therefore, cannot monitor compliance with these requirements without referring to individual case files in the county offices.
  • Although the state met federal participation rates, many clients are not meeting requirements of their individual self sufficiency plans (ISSP), and many are not completing employment and training programs. In addition, one-third of the case managers responding to our current survey indicated there were not enough available components.
  • DSS minimally assesses the extent to which clients have personal barriers to employment, and does not measure the effectiveness of their training components in moving clients to self-sufficiency.
  • Some South Carolina counties have no one performing the job development function. Approximately 27% of the Work Force Consultant (WFC) respondents to our survey indicated there are not enough available local jobs for FI clients, and some counties are experiencing unemployment rates more than twice the state average.
  • DSS is not referring all eligible clients to the Employment Security Commission (ESC) for the WtW program. DSS estimated that there were 19,662 eligible clients as of January 1998 who could be referred to WtW; however, only 3,899 clients had been referred as of February 2000.
  • DSS no longer performs county-based reviews that can help ensure accountability for end results, and does not use performance goals, as required by law, to guide counties’ performance and ensure they are meeting their responsibilities.
  • DSS cannot identify, in total, the amount of funds spent for specific services for clients after they have left FI. For the first two years, DSS reported no expenditures, and reported $724,660 for the first six months of the current fiscal year.
  • A majority of 16 nonprofits that provide services to poor women and families indicated that better coordination and communication with DSS were needed. One organization providing services to the homeless reported a 55% increase in clients from the first 8 months of 1998 to the first 8 months of 1999. They attributed some of this increase to shrinking resources from DSS for clients.
  • Child care continues to be one of the biggest barriers to self-sufficiency. The lack of communication between DSS and DHHS concerning child care services adversely affected the working poor. Services to the working poor declined due in part to DHHS’s refusal to accept new applications after November 1998. However, there were substantial fund balances accumulated in each of the child care funding sources.
  • Transportation continues to be a barrier to self-sufficiency. Many clients in DSS’s closed case survey interviews reported they left the FI program due to transportation problems. DSS cannot readily identify the services funded with its transportation funds. Without more detailed information, DSS cannot adequately evaluate the availability and affordability of services.
  • DSS has surpluses from the "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" (TANF) allocation because welfare caseloads have rapidly declined. South Carolina awarded $22.2 million in surpluses to various contracts; almost one-half was given in support of and/or coordination with the Governor’s First Steps program. The General Assembly appropriates all TANF funds, but we found no evidence it was involved in planning for the spending decisions.