Welfare reform efforts have been based on crucial assumption: single mothers moving off of AFDC and into the work force will be able to find affordable child care. Two parallel studies of child care supply and its distribution across rich and poor communities inform the debate over child-care availability. In the first study, data from 100…

Welfare reform is unavoidably related to children. The importance of considering children's well-being when governments change the rules of support for poor families cannot be overestimated. Findings in the welfare reform proposal contained in the "Contract with America," and elsewhere, are deeply disturbing because they seek to: deny…

This report presents a context for the consideration of welfare reform, and reviews 10 major poverty programs. A linkage is made between government poverty programs and the full panoply of American economic and social interventions through five major themes: (1) quashing the many myths about welfare leads to a clearer understanding of poverty; (2)…

A project conducted in an adult literacy and basic education program in Pennsylvania proposed to use small group interaction to increase weekly attendance 10 percent from the previous program year, increase students' input into the learning process, and develop better tools to improve the learning environment. The group consisted of 39 adult…

This paper describes preliminary results from a study at the Crisis Control Ministry, a poverty relief organization in Winston-Salem (North Carolina). The intent of the study was to explore the nature of and influences on contemporary urban poverty by having the investigator serve as a volunteer interviewer at the Crisis Control Ministry. Another…

This publication is designed to alert local and state advocates to the presence of the National Coalition on Women, Work, and Welfare Reform. It shares the Coalition's perspective on the welfare employment issue and proposes several initial strategies local advocates or policymakers might use in considering proposed or ongoing welfare employment…

Barriers to the labor force participation of women, particularly in low-income families, are examined in this paper. Reactions of nonworking mothers with dependent children to a hypothetical job offer are analyzed from data obtained in 1967 as part of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Behavior. Multiple regression analysis shows…

Once upon a time in the future, a U.S. president and Congress temporarily suspended the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The results were remarkable. Family cohesion was strengthened; there was a rebirth of social institutions; and AFDC families restructured their lives and learned to cope. (RM)

This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to answer two questions about the effects of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program: (1) Does the length of time that one receives AFDC affect the likelihood of permanently leaving AFDC?; (2) What personal and family characteristics are associated with…

Work requirements for welfare recipients will pressure state agencies to create employment opportunities for parents and arrangements for child care while parents work. This report examines the topic of recruiting welfare mothers to care for children of other recipients. The report highlights research outlining barriers to work in child care and…

An analysis of data from a survey of more than 100 parents residing in emergency shelter in San Diego, California, reveals a portrait of poverty that is prevalent among women and children in the United States today. Homeless families in San Diego, as in the rest of the country, are most often headed by women in their early thirties whose prospects…

This study investigated the potential effects of welfare reform on children in late childhood through adolescence, examining how poverty status and family welfare receipt interacted with current poverty status and welfare receipt during adolescence to influence various outcomes. The study examined how 1998 outcomes varied for adolescents based on…

Information was collected on three issues related to the extent to which states use welfare dollars to provide work support and other services to welfare recipients and other low-income families. They were: extent of caseload decline since welfare reform was implemented and status of families who have left welfare; extent to which states spend…

The Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved a $1.1 billion reduction in the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), a decrease of almost two-thirds of funding. This program has provided a flexible source of funding that enables states to meet the needs of their most vulnerable populations, low- and moderate-income children, and people who…

The General Accounting Office (GAO) reviewed reports published by seven states (Indiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, and Wisconsin) regarding the status of their families who have left welfare. The families discussed in the reports were estimated to account for approximately 8 percent of the number of families to…