This book provides new estimates of the private costs and public effects of childhood disabilities among welfare recipients. Based on over 2,000 interviews conducted between 1992-96 with household heads in 3 California counties, the estimates cover direct expenditures by families and indirect costs from employment reductions. The study finds that…

This is an annotated resource guide for those interested in recent hunger and food insecurity studies. Objectives, methods, and key findings of each study are summarized, and contact information for obtaining the report is given. Studies are grouped by survey location and listed chronologically by publication or release date within each geographic…

This longitudinal study investigated two issues regarding child poverty dynamics: whether long-run transitions out of poverty have changed and whether the events associated with exits from poverty have changed over time. The study contrasted mobility patterns of young children over the 1970s with patterns over the 1980s, examining which poor…

This study examined the fatherhood experiences of 50 low-income, urban, African American fathers and father figures whose children were enrolled in an Early Head Start Program. Information was gathered via qualitative interviews conducted within participants' homes and communities and participant observation. Quantitative methods were used to…

Both social scientists and politicians agree that the way poverty is measured in the United States is inadequate. Noting that this metric influences our understanding of the extent of economic deprivation and influences the provision of social supports, this report presents various options to the current measurement and suggests a replacement for…

This paper discusses some of the ways in which state tax systems affect low-income families. The focus is on the working poor. Why state tax policy matters for these families is explained, describing some general trends in state tax structure among the 50 states. Attention is then paid to details on personal income and sales taxes in a subset of…

This report describes family centered employment strategies. It begins with a look at the economics of families in poverty and provides a brief outline of the many ways in which employment and training programs have begun to work with families. The report then examines the work of four employment programs now offering employment services to…

Despite recent scholarly concern with "neighborhood effects" on children, no study to date has measured the cumulative exposure of children to poor and affluent neighborhoods. This study constructed multi-state life tables to estimate racial and ethnic differences in "childhood expectancy" in five neighborhood types, ranging from affluent to…

Noting that high-quality preschool increases the ability of low-income children to profit from elementary and secondary education, thereby increasing their high school graduation rate and generating economic and other returns for taxpayers, this report articulates and analyzes the economic benefits of providing a high-quality preschool education…

This paper examines whether marriage is effective in reducing child poverty and notes the comparative effects of marriage and maternal education on combatting child poverty. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth indicate that marriage plays a powerful role in lifting children out of poverty. While both marriage and maternal education…

This report provides an overview of research designed to dispel myths about performance in high poverty and high minority schools. It identifies schools that have had high performance on a particular state assessment for at least 2 years in a row. The results are based on an analysis of high performance over multiple years in any of six possible…

This brief presents 10 key findings about welfare reform, using research from the Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism project. Welfare reform has taken hold, and, in the immediate aftermath of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), states have made major changes to their welfare systems that…

This paper revisits 1997-98 findings that indicated that during the first years of state implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), states were most likely to implement the environment theory, which claims that children benefit socially and psychologically from being part of a household in which caregivers have jobs, and…

Asserting that 13 million U.S. children live in households with limited or uncertain access to sufficient food, this report highlights recent findings showing the adverse consequences of hunger and food insecurity for children. The findings are grouped into three broad areas: health consequences, psychosocial and behavioral impacts, and learning…

This paper describes what new Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) data can show about U.S. schools, states, and public education. All achievement data in this report are taken from school report cards available on state education agency web sites. Demographic data are taken from school report cards, school web sites, the U.S. Department of Educations…