Family Support Caseloads--Determinants of Kentucky's Division of Family Support Personnel Allocation

Author

David Bachert, University of Kentucky

Year of Publication

2014

College

Martin School of Public Policy and Administration

Date Available

7-31-2014

Executive Summary

This paper is an examination of the determinants of Family Support employee allocation. Specifically, related to Kentucky, the goal of this research is to determine if public assistance caseloads are equitable across nine geographic regions. A review of relevant literature provides a larger context to this topic. Literature primarily suggests three mechanisms by which Family Support resources might be allocated: legal regulations, postcode lottery, and Tiebout migration.

Supported by literature the larger context for this paper leads to the examination of five independent variables: (1) percent of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients \, (2) total population, (3) percent of the population over 65, (4) percent population identified as white, and (5) percent below poverty. The dependent variable for this study is the number of Family Support personnel per region. Since the dependent variable was reported on a regional level an adjustment to the independent variable data. Level f aggregations of the 720 panel observations for the independent variables were collapsed into a regional level of 54 observations. The remaining 54 observations were then subjected to both fixed-effects and between effects regression analyses.

The output of these analyses suggests that Family Support personnel were allocated to each region in a uniform standard. However, the primary factors in this allocation were more related to demographic variables than to the number of public assistance recipients. This means that the variation of Family Support personnel between the regions has a discriminatory effect as regions with younger populations will receive fewer resources.

Recommended Citation

Bachert, David, "Family Support Caseloads--Determinants of Kentucky's Division of Family Support Personnel Allocation" (2014). MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects. 1.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/mpampp_etds/1