Since the beginning of the decade, 21 counties in North Carolina agreed to use experimental programs for county welfare programs. As a result, they hoped to reduce county spending. The rest of the cou

Since the beginning of the decade, 21 counties in North Carolina agreed to use experimental programs for county welfare programs. As a result, they hoped to reduce county spending. The rest of the counties stayed with their old policies, similar to each other and following a state model.

Using the datafile, separate the data into two groups - those with the experimental policies and those without (the counties are identified in the variable in Column 38). This is similar to the Minitab assignment for Chapter 2. You'll be using C38 as the 'group' variable.

Use these data to answer the following questions:

1. How do the variables Human Services Expenditures (C33) and Medicaid eligibles (C15) vary across the counties that participated in the experimental program (C38) and those that did not? Are there differences?

2. If there are differences, do you think participating in the program led to the differences? What else might account for the differences? If there are no differences, are you surprised? What might explain the lack of differences?

3. Can a researcher generalize from these findings to other states considering similar experiments? Why or why not?

4. What type of study might you recommend to another state interested in reducing its Human Services or Medicaid expenditures by experimenting with welfare reform at the county level? 

Your report must include:

1. Report your results for each variable (Human Services Expenditures and Medicaid eligible) by experimental program (C38: yes or no) in a table. See Table 2.1 and Table 2.2 for examples of ways to show results in a table. You can include Minitab output in a table format.

2. Answer each of the four questions above, at least one paragraph per question.