Taylor & Francis

The massive federal welfare reform effort of 1996 contained an inherent assumption that welfare use negatively affected recipients' sense of self-efficacy. Little research attention has been given to examining this assumption. Using in-depth interviews, I explore economic self-efficacy perceptions of 31 young mothers who have experience receiving welfare. Financial choice, they said, was central to their perceptions of themselves as economic agents and therefore to their sense of self-efficacy.

Placing time limits on benefits was seen by the proponents of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act as a means to encourage welfare recipients to engage in forward-looking behavior so that they can plan for a life without welfare. Current studies provide mixed findings regarding the effects of time limits on welfare participation and focus primarily on the urban poor. In this study, we examine how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants interpret and respond to time limits under different personal and local conditions.

Poverty levels in the Springfield/Greene County/Ozarks area have risen despite substantial increases in allocated funds for resources and programs aimed at addressing the challenges families in poverty encounter. A qualitative study was conducted to identify social service providers’ subjective perceptions of poverty, clients, organizations, and policies. Major themes included stagnation; God and poverty; poverty as mental, psychological, and social disease; and poverty as mind-set.

This paper proposes a new framework for describing well-being and hardship among low-income families. We describe previously unmeasured costs of being poor as latent, those costs that are hidden and not counted in other poverty measures, and sequential, those costs that are consequential and have subsequent cost implications. Using data from in-depth interviews with cash assistance recipients and working poor heads of household, we explore latent and sequential costs of poverty related to health.

This paper examines the disparate social well-being outcomes children experience across states in the United States. The paper seeks to extend the study of child social well-being by examining the extent to which state characteristics influence aggregate child social well-being outcomes. The results indicate that socioeconomic and population characteristics of states influence the magnitude of aggregate child social well-being deficits.

The poverty literature illustrates the significance of race in the politics of U.S. social welfare policy from the inception of the 1935 safety net through more recent assaults on the welfare poor. One gap in the literature is an analysis of how Whiteness might be implicated in this important public arena. This article explores the discursive construction of Appalachia as a homogenous (White) culture and bounded region and the significance of this trope in the War on Poverty.

Understanding how to promote economic self-sufficiency, or the ability to sustain oneself financially, has important implications for programs that help support divorced and separated women and for government agencies hoping to reduce reliance on government aid. The following analysis focuses specifically on divorced and separated women utilizing services from agencies geared toward helping people with financial, career, and other forms of assistance. This study identifies factors that promote or hinder economic self-sufficiency among divorced women.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore clients' perceptions of the in-home family therapy services they received. The sample consisted of 20 low-income families who were at risk for having their children placed in foster care, but who had ultimately retained custody of their children. Results indicate that families view in-home family therapy as a useful intervention. They expressed appreciation for the therapists, their availability, and the support offered. Participants also stated that they wished services could have been more frequent and longer-term.

When people attempt to define poverty it is most often looked at in regards to the Gross National Product (GNP), an interpretation of material exchanges. If one has accumulated a significant amount of material goods, then one is considered wealthy. Any deficiency in such goods, and one would be viewed as poor.

This study analyzes the intergenerational transmission of incarceration in a sample of youth from a Michigan study of youth sentenced to juvenile facilities and adult prisons. The social exclusion framework from Murray (2007) was used to examine the correlates of parental incarceration for youth who themselves are incarcerated. Cluster analysis identified 10 factors that showed significant differences among low, medium, and high rates of parental incarceration.