This article examines the characteristics and income patterns associated with welfare entry and nonentry in the context of an extended application period for a sample of 1,664 women who applied for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families services in Wisconsin in the fall of 2006. The study uses data derived from the systematic review of caseworker…

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) are long-standing policies that link cash assistance to low-income families to work effort. A new policy being tested in New York City adopts this "conditional cash transfer" principle and extends it to a broader set of family efforts to build their…

There is little research on knowledge of the policy rules that could affect individuals, either in general or in evaluations of new programs. The lack of research is surprising, given that knowledge gaps could limit the effectiveness of reforms or lead to incorrect inferences regarding the effects of a policy change. In this article, we use survey…

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…

One of a series of family impact seminars, the meeting described in this document was held to discuss the child care provisions of the Family Support Act (FSA). This document provides highlights of the seminar and a background briefing report prepared before the meeting. The highlights section summarizes presentations by the seminar's four…

This report examines recent trends in the impact of government safety net programs, such as cash assistance, food assistance, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, on poverty among children. The effect on poverty is determined by comparing the number of children who would be poor if government benefits were not counted as part of their family income…

This conference presentation explores current patterns of public transfer receipt (such as earned income tax credit, public health insurance coverage, food stamps, and public assistance) among single-father families and provides an update on existing census-based research on characteristics of single-father families. Data were obtained from the…

This report describes an array of innovative strategies and practical ideas for helping low-income families with children. There is a window of opportunity for these new strategies as many states have tremendous financial resources available. The Temporary Assistance For Needy Families (TANF) program rules have been clarified, and families are…

Families with incomes between the official poverty level and the minimum economic security level face many of the same material hardships and financial pressures that officially poor families face, partly because as their income grows, they lose eligibility for public benefits. This report focuses on the role that public policies play in…

This paper examines the impact of welfare reforms on several measures of child maltreatment. The authors use state-level data from 1990 to 1998 to examine whether recent welfare reforms have increased or reduced the incidence of reported and substantiated cases of maltreatment, the incidence of specific types of substantiated…

Children are among the poorest of Maine's residents. Nearly 1 in 5 children under the age of 18, 19.3%, lived in families below the federal poverty line in the early 1990s. Most of these poor children lived in working families. The working poor are often missing from policy debates, but their numbers are likely to increase with welfare reform…

This report explores promising welfare-to-work programs and practices of states and localities as they balance supply- with demand-side strategies to help welfare recipients and low-wage workers work their way out of poverty while meeting employers' needs for reliable workers. Chapter 2 describes the new environment created by changes in the…

This packet, which was developed as part of the Earned Income Credit Campaign 2000, contains an information booklet, a guide to outreach strategies, and accompanying materials to raise low-income workers' awareness of the Earned Income Credit (EIC) and other tax credits available to low-income taxpayers. The following are among the topics…

Ohio, like other states, will soon begin implementing parts of a sweeping new federal welfare reform law. These seven 1- and 2-page reports, issued under the general heading of "Ohio Children: Together We Can Help Them Grow," describe various Ohio welfare programs, providing statistics on their costs and usage rates, as well as changes…

This document explains how community work experience programs (CWEP) and publicly funded jobs (PFJ) can be used to help hard-to-serve welfare recipients meet the work requirements imposed by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The document begins with a brief overview of available options for helping hard-to-serve welfare…