National

The purpose of this study was to examine employment predictors for women of color with psychiatric disabilities who received serves from state and federal vocational rehabilitation agencies and women of color with psychiatric disabilities who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits and services from state and federal vocational rehabilitation agencies using logistical regression regarding data from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) dataset. Demographic variables and vocational rehabilitation (VR) services were used to predict employment outcome.

The current welfare law mandates participation in designated work activities at the expense of education for welfare recipients, particularly discouraging pursuit of higher education while, at the same time, emphasizing marriage. On the eve of the 2010 reauthorization of welfare reform, this article challenges the assumption underlying the 1996 welfare law and its 2005 reauthorization that work and education are wholly distinct concepts and activities.

In 1996, part of the creation of TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) required minor teen parents to live in an adult-supervised household in order to receive cash assistance. This literature review discusses the positive and negative consequences of coresidence. Research has suggested that coresidence may be beneficial for the educational and financial success of teen mothers. However, there is some evidence that coresiding teen mothers have poorer parenting skills than teen mothers who do not coreside. Implications for policy implementation are discussed.

Although the economic effects of divorce have been well studied, a similar exploration of cohabitation has not been conducted. For this analysis, the authors use a sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 2,372) documenting changes in economic well-being at the end of a cohabiting relationship and comparing these results to a sample of divorced respondents. After dissolution, formerly cohabiting men's economic standing declines moderately, whereas formerly cohabiting women's declines much more precipitously, leaving a substantial proportion of women in poverty.

This brief relies on data from the National Survey of America's Families, a survey of 44,461 households, to examine the extent to which children receive money from and spend time with their nonresident parents. Part of the Assessing the New Federalism project, the brief also examines how much child support contributes to family income, whether child support reduces child poverty and income inequality, and whether additional child support enforcement efforts would really increase child support receipt among poor children.

With a new administration and Congress due in place at the beginning of 2009, this year; is a critical time to rethink the nature and extent of services funded under WIA, and especially; how they serve disadvantaged workers—both; adults and youth. What are the primary limitations; of the current approach? Are funding levels adequate for the required goals of the system? How might the many other federal, state, and; local sources of funding for workforce development be used more effectively? In a tight budgetary environment, what can be realistically expected?

This paper considers four programs—Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), food stamps, child care subsidies, and the earned income tax credit (EITC)—that form the core work support system for low-income working families in the United States. These programs potentially provide health insurance, assistance with food purchases, assistance with child care expenses, and an earned-income supplement to low-income working families that meet certain eligibility criteria.

Policymakers have started examining the long-term impacts of housing assistance on families. In particular, policymakers want to determine whether assisted housing can act as a barrier or a bridge to economic self-sufficiency. In this article the authors use a longitudinal data set of households receiving housing assistance and compare their trajectories on three outcomes—income, earnings, and employment—across types of housing programs and household characteristics.

Testimony on the strengths and weakness of the federal housing voucher program. The testimony reviews the importance of the Housing Choice Voucher Program and the benefits it provides, and describes challenges facing the program. The author argues that the administration's proposal to convert the voucher program into a state block grant does nothing to address these challenges and indeed could make them harder to overcome. The author suggests three strategies that could strengthen the basic voucher program design, substantially improving outcomes for families.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the nation's primary safety net program for families with children, is due for reauthorization this year. The Urban Institute held a roundtable of experts from federal and state governments, academia, and policy organizations to discuss the program's current status and effectiveness. Experts agreed that TANF's goals need to be better articulated and that many key features of the program, including funding, work requirements, and its place within the broader safety net, should be reexamined.