This paper assesses the impact of welfare reform's parental work requirements on low-income children's cognitive and social-emotional development. The identification strategy exploits an important feature of the work requirement rules--namely, age-of-youngest-child exemptions--as a source of quasi-experimental variation in first-year maternal…

Speech and language are central to the human experience; they are the vital means by which people convey and receive knowledge, thoughts, feelings, and other internal experiences. Acquisition of communication skills begins early in childhood and is foundational to the ability to gain access to culturally transmitted knowledge, organize and share…

Grounded in person-environment fit theory, this study examined whether low-income mothers' preferences for education moderated the effects of employment- and education-focused welfare programs on children's positive and problem behaviors. The sample included 1,365 families with children between ages 3 and 5 years at study entry. Results 5 years…

Children living in lower-income and poor families are more likely to suffer from poor physical and mental health, engage in risky and delinquent behaviors, fare worse academically, and drop out of school than children from more advantaged backgrounds. Higher income does not guarantee protection from these risks, but is associated with a range of…

Moving toward universal coverage has the potential to increase access to care and improve the health and well-being of uninsured children and adults. The effects of health care reform on the more than 25 million children who currently have coverage under Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are less clear. Increased parental…

When Congress reformed the welfare system in 1996, major goals of the legislation were to increase employment and income of needy families and to decrease child poverty. Another major goal was to improve child outcomes through increased parental employment and earnings along with other provisions of welfare reform. However, there was also concern…

We examined the influence of income source within the context of persistent poverty on children's disruptive classroom behavior at age 12 and whether these associations were mediated by maternal supervision at ages 10 and 11. Using a subsample (N = 1,112) from the Quebec Longitudinal Study, we coded four economic circumstances indicating…

The 1996 welfare reform law restricted immigrants' eligibility for public assistance, although many states have at least partially restored their eligibility. However, about three-fourths of the children of non-citizen immigrants were born in the United States and are therefore eligible for all government benefits. This brief examines whether…

The dramatic decline in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) caseloads in the 1990s has focused attention on the process of exit from, and, to a lesser extent, entry into, the welfare system. This paper charts the process of turnover in the TANF program in three major U.S. cities over an 18-month, post-PWORA period and documents its…

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, changed the philosophical ground and rules and regulations that apply to low-income families with children who seek federal income support. TANF recipients have less flexibility in charting their life courses than…

The authors examined the effects of antipoverty programs on children's cumulative poverty-related risk and the relationship between cumulative poverty-related risk and child outcomes among low-income families. Samples included 419 children ages 3-10 years in the New Hope program and 759 children ages 2-9 years in the Minnesota Family …

This brief uses data from the first two waves of the National Survey of America's Families to examine how living arrangements for families with children changed between 1997-99. During the late 1990s, welfare reform efforts centered on moving families from welfare to work. Lost in the discussions of declining caseloads and post-welfare employment…

One of a series planned by Child Trends to help inform the public debate surrounding the 2002 reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant, this brief updates a statistical snapshot of working poor families with children that Child Trends published 2 years ago. Findings presented in the brief include the…

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 study estimates the relationship between parental welfare receipt and children's adulthood educational attainment. Data come from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The PSID is a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. families conducted by the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan.…