Summarizes data from 1990 Current Population Survey supporting three general conclusions: (1) parental employment and children's poverty are linked in married-couple and female-headed families; (2) child poverty rates are insensitive to parental employment; (3) black-white differences in child poverty are not result of racial differences in…

Census Bureau data, 1970-90, indicate that families of nonmetropolitan poor children relied more heavily on parental earnings and less on public assistance than their metropolitan counterparts, but reliance on public assistance rose sharply during the period, especially for nonmetro children. Welfare's ability to ameliorate poverty was modest and…

Analysis of census data indicates that the proportions of children in both the wealthiest and poorest families increased during the 1980s, associated with increasing female-headed families and changing patterns of maternal employment. Moreover, increasing racial differences in family structure exacerbated income inequality between African-American…