Taylor & Francis

This study contributes to the debate about tolls’ equity impacts by examining the potential economic costs of tolling for low-income and non-low-income households. Using data from the Puget Sound metropolitan region in Washington State and geographic information systems methods to map driving routes from home to work, we examine car ownership and transportation patterns among low-income and non-low-income households. We follow standard practice of estimating tolls’ potential impact only on households with workers who would drive on tolled and nontolled facilities.

Dual-system families, those involved with the child welfare system and receiving public cash assistance, may be more vulnerable than families connected to only one of the two systems. This study advances our understanding of the heterogeneous and dynamic cash-assistance histories of dual-system families in the post–welfare reform era. With merged administrative data from Washington over the period 1998–2009, we use cluster analysis to group month-to-month sequences of cash-assistance use among households over the 37-month period surrounding child removal.

Recently released prisoners in the United States are increasingly facing the burden of financial debt associated with correctional supervision, yet little research has pursued how-theoretically or empirically-the burden of debt might affect life after prison. To address this gap, we employ life course and strain perspectives and path analysis to examine the impact of child support debt on employment and recidivism, using longitudinal data from an evaluation of a prisoner reentry program known as the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative.

Given the recent economic crisis and the accompanying funding cuts across social service programs, it is helpful to observe the geographic distribution of demographic characteristics and economic conditions that together create a human service needs profile. The authors provide a conceptual framework for a systematic analysis of county characteristics and demonstrate that rural areas of America have higher levels of needs and more complex needs than do metropolitan areas.

We analyzed households that use emergency food assistance (EFA) programs (eg, food pantries, soup kitchens) to better understand the repeated but seemingly anomalous finding that many EFA participants report being food secure.

This article presents a case study of policy practice in action. It reviews the place of policy practice and advocacy in the social work profession and education and reports on a state-level example of collaboration between advocacy groups and academics to promote socially just welfare policies. After years of relatively progressive welfare policies in Maine, a conservative governor and legislature passed the State’s first 60-month time limit law in 2011.

This research examines individual development account (IDA) programs as part of a broader community development strategy for low-income/low-wealth communities, particularly communities of color. Through a review of multiple literatures and detailed case studies, we explore the potential of explicitly creating a community-based, family-centered development account program as a step toward a comprehensive community asset building approach in low-income urban neighborhoods.

The purpose of this article is to offer a brief and concise history of relevant public welfare policies for a discussion of the effects of public welfare reform, and how it impacts families in ways not comprehensively understood. Social scientists' concerns about the potential for the families to be thrust into an “extreme poverty” status due to the forced workforce participation requirement and expiration of time limited benefits is discussed.

This study examined African American women's perceptions of their adolescent children's well-being since gaining employment. This study departed from other studies that focused on the entire Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) population and/or compared subgroups within the population. In this study, the sample population is composed of all African American mothers and all of the mothers who receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families benefits and have gained employment.

While the organizational systems designed to provide cash assistance and child welfare services have been separate since the 1970s, changes wrought by welfare reform in the late 1990s suggest new opportunities for organizational collaboration. This paper examines the link between family poverty and child maltreatment, and the policy levers that can be employed to inhibit or promote child and family well being within the context of welfare reform.