Background: Previous research has demonstrated that children growing up in poor communities have limited access to high-performing schools, while more affluent neighborhoods tend to have higher-ranking schools and more opportunities for after-school programs and activities. Therefore, many researchers and policy makers expected not only that the…

Some observers believe that welfare programs have an urban bias; however, the rate of poverty is higher in rural than in urban areas. This study establishes metro and nonmetro differences in the use of welfare and the degree to which it reduces poverty. Data from the U. S. Census Bureau's March 1987 Current Population Survey are analyzed using…

To learn more about how welfare reform affects children, a child-focused study was conducted as part of the larger Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) evaluation. This study assess the impacts of mothers' mandatory participation in welfare-to-work programs on outcomes for children using a sample of 790 participants. It provides an…

This report presents preliminary recommendations for indicators and predictors of dependence on income from means-tested assistance programs, such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, and Supplemental Security Income. It includes an assessment of the ability of existing data collection efforts to provide the data needed to…

Discusses the struggles of middle- and lower-class black women to use social programs and affirmative action mandates to advance their status. Examines ways their struggles have affected their self-perceptions and relationships with each other. (Author/JS)

This brief summarizes information collected during visits to Hennepin County (Minnesota's largest urban county) in 1999 and 2000 to document changes and progress since 1997. It updates a 1997 report that reviewed the benefits and services in the state and described the economic and political context shaping Minnesota's agenda for serving…

The General Accounting Office was asked by the House Committee on Education and Labor to review state implementation of the Child Care and Development Block Grant to determine the problems states encounter as they integrate the block grant and the other federal child care programs for low-income families into their child care delivery programs and…

The study directs attention away from urban poverty to the nation's rural poor and how they are served by five public assistance programs: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and its Unemployed Fathers Component (AFDC-UF), Supplementary Security Income (SSI), Food Stamps (FS), and General Assistance. The 41% of the nation's poor who…

This Kids Count report presents statewide trends in the well-being of New Hampshire's children. The statistical report is based on 14 indicators of child well being: (1) children in poverty; (2) fatherless families; (3) maternal education; (4) teen births; (5) births to unmarried mothers; (6) low birth weight births; (7) insurance coverage; (8)…

This Kids Count report examines statewide trends in the well-being of Pennsylvania's children. The statistical portrait is based on trends in 17 indicators of child well being: (1) birth weight; (2) early prenatal care; (3) infant mortality; (4) substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect; (5) out-of-home placements; (6) delinquent children…

The Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) began in 1994 as a major welfare initiative that differed from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) by featuring the following elements: financial incentives to work; participation requirements for long-term welfare recipients; and simplification of welfare rules and procedures. In…