LITTLE ROCK, ARK. - For years, state welfare offices like the one here alongside Interstate 30 have drawn the unemployed. But these days, the red-brick building is also attracting poor, working parents with an unexpected offer: $204 a month in cash.

Shelly Thomas, a stockroom clerk and single mother, is using her windfall from the state of Arkansas to tune up the old Chevrolet she drives to work. Talia Greenwood, a day-care worker with four children, uses her money for gas, diapers and baby formula.

The women are pioneers in an emerging social experiment as states across the country try to go beyond simply moving people off welfare. Over the last two years, officials in Arkansas and more than a dozen other states have announced plans to extend the safety net -- through monthly cash payments -- to thousands of low-income workers struggling to gain a foothold in the work world.

Most states focus on people who have left welfare for low-wage jobs.

"The goal had been getting parents off of welfare," said Jack Tweedie of the National Conference of State Legislatures, who counsels states on poverty issues and has advised Arkansas officials. "The emphasis now is much more on work and helping parents stay in work."

The new strategy reflects, in part, a growing concern about the challenges facing the poor nearly 12 years after Congress overhauled the nation's welfare laws. While states have drastically reduced their welfare caseloads, research suggests that they have been far less successful in helping people find and keep jobs that lift families out of poverty.

State officials believe that the new programs, which typically combine several months of cash assistance with career counseling, health insurance and subsidized child care, will help low-wage workers weather family illnesses and cash shortages and deter them from cycling back onto the welfare rolls.

The trend has also been driven by new federal rules that require states to engage 50 percent of welfare recipients in work-related activities. By offering payments to people already working, states are also trying to ensure that they meet federal mandates and avoid steep fines.

By October, at least 11 states will offer cash assistance programs for working families. Two others plan to start next year, and an additional three states, including California, are weighing plans. Most rely on federal welfare money to finance the programs.

Payments vary widely

The programs differ considerably. While Utah offers $474 a month for two months and $237 for a third month for a family of three, Michigan provides $10 a month for six months. Massachusetts gives $7 a month to more than 13,000 food stamp recipients.

Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the human services department in Massachusetts, acknowledged that the benefit was "modest." But she said it would increase the work participation rate.

Sidonie Squier, director of the family assistance office in the federal Administration for Children and Families, criticized what she described as accounting tricks to meet federal mandates.

Because the programs are new, it remains unclear whether they will help poor parents keep jobs and advance beyond low-wage work.

But the timing of the relief has been fortuitous with food and gas prices soaring and a sagging economy making good jobs hard to find.

Thomas bubbles with enthusiasm as she envisions graduating from college next year and leaving her $10-an-hour stockroom job at a clothing store for a career in computer programming.

She says the payments from the Arkansas Work Pays Program help enormously -- with gas, groceries and car repairs -- as she juggles college courses and work.

"I need that extra help, even though I'm working," said Thomas, 24, who has two sons and receives free child care from the program.

Dropout rate high

But if the experiences of Work Pays participants like Thomas and Greenwood highlight the promise of such programs, they also underscore the challenges.

About a third of the 2,334 people who have participated since the program began in 2006 have dropped out because they lost jobs, failed to work enough hours or opted out of the program, state statistics show. (Participants must complete at least 30 hours of work-related activities each week, and 24 of those hours must involve paid work.) So far, only 7 percent of participants have left because their jobs pushed them above the program's income limit. Nearly half worked in jobs that paid less than $500 a month.

Officials say clients struggle to find and keep good jobs because of limited education and work experience. The current economic climate makes it harder.