This study explored marginalized stakeholder feedback by reconstructing the lived experiences of 13 single mothers who completed post-secondary education while dependent on public assistance since the passage of the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). This study utilized a qualitative, hermeneutic…

For many low-income and single parents, employment depends on securing reliable, affordable child care. Yet these parents may face greater challenges than do higher-income and two-parent families in making affordable, appropriate child care arrangements that complement their work schedules. Indeed, the cost, availability, stability, and quality of…

This article explores issues of persistent poverty and income inequality. The major focus is that of the alleviation of poverty. Is there a framework that delineates the roles for government, market forces and self-reliance that can effect a reduction in the level of poverty? The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act…

This brief examines the relationship between increased child support enforcement and frequency of visitation between children and their nonresident fathers. Data come from the 1997 and 1999 National Survey of America's Families. The study emphasizes children of single mothers because children in such households face the greatest risk of long-term…

This three-year longitudinal study investigated whether low-wage employment was associated with improved psychological and parenting outcomes in a sample of 178 single mothers who were employed and unemployed current and former welfare recipients both before and subsequent to the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity…

Public enforcement of private child support obligations transfers income from nonresident parents to resident parents (mostly mothers) or, if the mother is receiving welfare, to the state. This paper reviews and synthesizes existing literature on the effects of this transfer of income and presents new empirical evidence on the effects of stronger…

The child support reform provisions within the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) have been markedly successful in improving child support enforcement efforts. Child support is an important part of the mix of supports necessary to assist welfare recipients to make the transition to work and…

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act requires welfare recipients to look for work and has made it more difficult for nonworking recipients to remain on the welfare rolls. In addition, the economic boom of the 1990s and changes in federal and state policies have raised the net income gain associated with moving…

This analysis examines poverty in families headed by working single mothers, addressing whether and to what degree their economic situations have improved. It investigates the effect of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which moved single mothers from welfare to work. Poverty data from the annual Census…

This study used data from the first and last waves of the 1996 U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation to compare the characteristics and wellbeing of low-income, single parent families before and after passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), noting the characteristics and…

Using data from a sample of 178 single black mothers and their young children who were ages three to five at time 1 and ages five to eight at time 2, this study examined the links between and among low-wage employment, mothers' self-efficacy beliefs, depressive symptoms, and a constellation of parenting behaviors in the preschool years to…

Over the past 30 years, welfare and other public policies for families living in poverty have developed a primary objective of increasing parents' self-sufficiency by requiring and supporting employment, culminating in the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). This legislation gave states considerable…

Since the 1996 passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (welfare reform), impoverished children in single-parent families receive less aid than under the previous system, and the most disadvantaged of these children have slipped deeper into poverty. This research brief summarizes a study that explored the economic well-being…

This paper summarizes changes in key elements of welfare policy and in closely related policies on child support enforcement and sex education and family planning programs. Drawing on a conceptual framework that highlights how incentives created by public policy can affect demographic behaviors, the paper concludes that, as Congress intended,…

A study examined barriers to employment faced by 4,014 welfare recipients in Merced County, California. Ethnic groups differed in the importance of various barriers to workforce entry: educational attainment; family composition; and lack of work experience, vocational training, English language fluency, a vehicle, or driver's license. Asians,…