This study examines the status and operation of performance evaluation systems in three welfare offices across the country. Welfare offices provide an interesting and auspicious arena for such an examination because of the changes to the goals of welfare policy under recent federal mandates for reform. The study finds that although there is clarity around the performance criteria on which public employees in welfare offices are evaluated, the measures are not linked to one of the principal goals of welfare reform—“welfare-to-work”: moving people off welfare and into jobs.
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