The Keystone Education Yields Success (KEYS) program is a welfare-to-work program in Pennsylvania meant to promote financial independence through education. Across the community colleges in the state of Pennsylvania, the KEYS program has often allowed financially disadvantaged students to succeed on par with - and often surpass - their non-KEYS…

Television advertisements, packaging regulations and health warning labels (HWLs) are designed to communicate anti-smoking messages to large number of smokers. However, only a few studies have examined how high smoking prevalence groups respond to these warnings. This study explored how socioeconomically disadvantaged smokers engage with health…

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…

The cost effectiveness of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act was evaluated in terms of moving economically disadvantaged individuals toward financial independence. Data analysis indicated small savings in welfare payments for female recipients, but not males. Data deficiencies in the Continuous Longitudinal Manpower Survey were also…

Research on the results of welfare-to-work programs is both encouraging and sobering. On the one hand, it provides evidence that states can effectively implement various work-oriented programs to encourage large percentages of the welfare caseload to prepare for and enter the labor market. These programs range from rather low-intensity programs…

This paper evaluates the effect of Federal resettlement policy on Southeast Asian refugee women's employment training programs and describes the extent to which this training contributed to the refugees' economic mobility and acculturation. The report is divided into three major sections. Part 1 introduces the study by discussing its background,…

Applying for public assistance can be a difficult, long, and humiliating process. Administrative practices can prevent applicants from receiving their lawful benefits from agencies handling Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). To examine these problems, Project Fair Play recruited graduate social work and law students as advocates for…

This publication consists of materials from a conference session on creative programming for the children of low-skilled individuals who are usually labeled as "at risk," as well as the replicability of such programs. Contents consist of handouts and/or transparency masters that provide the following: (1) information on the Personal…

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with block grants to states, called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Consistent with TANF's philosophy and goals, Los Angeles Jobs-First GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence) emphasized job search…

A study focused on results from seven of the earliest state welfare reform initiatives with some form of welfare time limit. Four programs--Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, and Wisconsin--- included benefit-termination time limits triggering cancellation of a family's entire welfare grant. Arizona and Indiana imposed benefit-reduction time limits,…

The number of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) cases has fallen in the past 4 years, and there is disagreement over the cause. Credit has been given to "waiver" programs that resembled Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and to the growing economy. This sort of confusion over program effects is partly a…

This report describes the first 2 years of Connecticut's Jobs First program operation. Chapter 1 describes the following: the policy context; the program's three main features--time limit, earned income disregard, and mandatory "work first" employment services; the evaluation and implementation analysis; and the research sites and target…

A study used data on the characteristics, Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) program activities, and quarterly earnings of about 6,500 adult female Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients who enrolled in JTPA programs in 11 states during Program Year 1986. The study tracked the experiences of the women in the JTPA programs and…

The inadequate literacy skills of some individuals in Australia: (1) restrict their ability to exercise informed citizenship, participate in their local communities, and use their abilities and talents; (2) damage their development as autonomous, competent, and confident individuals within families; (3) may be repeated in successive generations,…

In 1998, the Illinois statewide coalition Work, Welfare and Families, in partnership with the Chicago Urban League, undertook a study to assess the effects of welfare reform on low-income families and children across Illinois. The findings were derived from three sources: a self-administered survey of 2,166 low-income clients of Illinois social…