Welfare reform in 1996 ended more than 60 years of guaranteed cash assistance to poor families. The landmark legislation stressed personal responsibility—requiring recipients to work and setting time limits on benefits. It also turned management of the social safety net over to states. The federal government continued to finance the welfare system thorough block grants, but states now had to design and maintain their own health, employment, and social service programs for low-income families.

The historic shift raised plenty of questions: Would states take to this new authority? How would poor families fare under "work-first" programs? How would programs differ from state to state and which plans work best? And what happens to families once they leave the welfare rolls?

The Urban Institute's ambitious decade-long research project answered those questions. Researchers pooled their expertise under the Assessing the New Federalism project to evaluate the effects of welfare reform and other safety net programs administered by states.

Through our National Survey of America's Families (NSAF), we checked in on more than 100,000 people across the country to provide a comprehensive look at family well-being. Three rounds of NSAF in 1997, 1999, and 2002 yielded detailed information about health care, family stress, and food, income, and housing security among low-income families. We profiled state agencies' capacities and challenges, and our online Welfare Rules Database showed how states were revamping cash assistance.

These vital statistics filled the vacuum created when the federal government cut back welfare monitoring and they informed the debate over reauthorization. Our research helped policymakers draw lessons from welfare reform and define the next steps. As a result, ANF won the first annual Policy Impact Award, presented by the American Association for Public Opinion Research in 2004, in recognition of "outstanding research that has had a clear impact on improving policy." Our findings remain the only comprehensive, nonpartisan history of welfare reform's effect on families.

Reform has largely succeeded in shrinking the welfare rolls, but work doesn't always pay enough for poor families to make ends meet. After completing our work on ANF in 2007, we took the next step—research on the risks, needs, and public and private supports for low-income working families.