This report summarizes the findings of a long-term evaluation of Opportunity NYC--Family Rewards, an experimental, privately funded, conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to help families break the cycle of poverty. Family Rewards was the first comprehensive CCT program in a developed country. Launched in 2007 by New York City's Center for…

In the contemporary United States, marriage is closely related to money. Men and (perhaps to a lesser extent) women with more education, higher incomes, larger stocks of wealth, and more stable employment are more likely to marry than are people in more precarious economic positions. But is this relationship truly causal? That is, does economic…

The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program is growing at an unsustainable pace. Over the past 40 years the number of disabled worker beneficiaries has increased nearly sixfold, rising from 1.5 million in 1970 to 8.2 million in 2010. Rapid growth in the rolls has put increasing pressure on program finances. The rapid rise in SSDI…

This paper examined the modes of funding Nigerian universities with a view to assessing their adequacy and effectiveness. The implications of the mechanisms of funding on university performance were investigated. The history of university funding in Nigeria was explored in order to determine the causes of shift in financing the system since 1948…

Since beginning in 1852, few issues in higher education have captivated Americans as much as intercollegiate athletics. Intercollegiate athletics is almost uniquely American. Each year, millions of fans attend games and matches between student athletes who provide fans with entertainment while helping bind together communities. Proponents of…

The purpose of "Focus" is to provide coverage of poverty-related research, events, and issues, and to acquaint a large audience with the work of the Institute for Research on Poverty by means of short essays on selected pieces of research. This issue features articles drawn from four of the conference papers presented at the September 2007 IRP…

Policy options for increasing the earnings of the young welfare recipients were explored by analyzing the incomes of nearly 12,000 young women in Baltimore, Maryland, whose 19th birthday fell between April 1, 1985, and March 31, 1989, and who had at least one spell of welfare dependency between their 19th and 29th birthdays. An analysis of the…