In the nation today, 4.6 million young adults ages 16 to 24 are out of school and unemployed. More than one-third live in poverty. For these young people, commonly referred to as opportunity youth, building skills and gaining work experience are key to upward mobility. However, they face significant barriers to entering the labor market.…

Since the introduction of workplace computers in the 1970s, policymakers have been racing to outpace the workforce demands of the information age. To address concerns, policymakers have promoted an expansion of skills training to help workers keep up in the changing economy. Because the way people learn, work, and live is transforming, so should…

Higher education is essential to accessing high-demand jobs with family-supporting wages and improving family financial wellbeing. This was true before the COVID-19 pandemic and is especially true now as the nation continues the process of recovering from one of the worst public health, economic, and social crises in modern U.S. history. To…

On the basis of official statistics, poverty has halved in Ghana over the period from 1991 to 2005. Our objective in this paper is to assess how far this fall was linked to the creation of better paying jobs and the increase in education. We find that earnings rose rapidly in the period from 1998 to 2005, by 64% for men and by 55% for women. While…

Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards, an experimental, privately funded, conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to help families break the cycle of poverty, was the first comprehensive CCT program in a developed country. Launched in 2007 by New York City's Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO), Family Rewards offered cash assistance to low-income…

Nearly half of the nation's families with young children struggle to make ends meet. A new KIDS COUNT policy report makes the case for creating opportunity for families by addressing the needs of parents and their children simultaneously. "Creating Opportunity for Families: A Two-Generation Approach" describes a new approach to reducing…

This booklet describes the changing economic conditions in Appalachia and the improved social services for children. According to statistics reported in 1969 nearly 43 percent of all children under 6 in Appalachia were categorized as poor and likely to require some special services, while only 5 percent were receiving such services. The…

Between the summers of 1986 and 1987, the Coalition on Human Needs interviewed 202 low income people to learn about their experiences with employment, education, their families, and various government programs. The interviewees showed a higher level of participation in the paid labor force than was predicted. According to those interviewed, the…

This paper presents a multi-pronged strategy for reducing poverty and unemployment by increasing the number of jobs for unskilled workers and raising their wages. The first component of this strategy is a marginal hours employment tax credit, similar to the recently enacted New Jobs Tax Credit. This would serve to generate an expansion in…

This paper attempts to provide a general equilibrium framework for comparing the merits of alternative methods of raising the income of the employable poor. The strategy is to specify a complete and interacting set of factor markets, parameterize alternative program types in a manner convenient to this specification, and then solve the system of…

At this hearing questions of unemployment compensation, job training, minimum wage, and statistics gathering of the Bureau of Labor Statistics were considered. Points made included the following: while minorities are overrepresented among the poor, most poor people are white; most poor people are also women, possibly because they have less access…

The two papers in this document were prepared in response to requests by the Department of Agriculture and the White House staff for briefs on welfare and poverty issues. The first paper, "The Administration's Welfare Reform Proposal: Impact on Rural Areas" by Robert Hoppe, discusses major provisions of (1) the proposed Welfare Reform…

An overview is given of conditions linked to the causes and perpetuation of poverty. These factors include large family size, unemployment, lack of education, and social and personal disorganization. Family planning services are important but by themselves tend to be ineffective and programs should be launched which would improve the total life…

For many single mothers and displaced homemakers (homemakers who must suddenly enter the workforce), jobs often do not signify escape from poverty. 1990 U.S. Census data indicate that the number of single mothers and displaced homemakers rose dramatically during the 1980s. Workforce participation for this group also rose during that decade, but…

An analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Study (NLS) was conducted to determine whether marital disruption (by death, divorce, or separation) caused poverty in the early years after a marriage ends and whether the poverty was long-term or short-term. The study examined data on women who had experienced a disruption before 1967 and were…