<span>The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is the culmination of recent efforts to convert welfare from an entitlement program to a reciprocal obligation between government and recipient, in which the recipient must work in return for benefits. In addition to the federal legislation, many states are experimenting with similar and related reforms. All programs require that current welfare clients ultimately make the transition into the labor force. However, very little is known about the ability of the local labor market to fully absorb those who reach their welfare time limits. At the local level, policy makers will need to dramatically increase the scale of job search assistance, training, and possibly public employment. 1 As we move toward full implementation of welfare reform and the first welfare recipients reach their time limits, local labor markets may exhibit either short- or </span><span>long-term unemployment. A spatial disconnect between inner-city welfare recipients who depend on public transportation and the increasing suburbanization of job opportunities may limit the labor market potential of some populations. Little comprehensive local labor market information is available to policy makers trying to assess local options and constraints. The Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change at Case Western Reserve University has developed extensive data relevant to these and other questions related to the implementation of welfare reform. This article describes efforts to develop a local labor market information system to assess the local labor market effects of welfare reform. The focus is on the Cleveland-Akron Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA) as an example of how this information can be assembled and used for policy analysis and program planning and implementation at the local level.</span>
