Taylor & Francis

The Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) is an alternative to the Food Stamp program on Montana's seven Indian reservations. FDPIR is the main anti-hunger program on these reservations which have poverty rates, on average, that are three times higher than the state average. Of the 1,356 FDPIR households studied on the seven reservations, 56% have experienced hunger, as measured on a five-item index. Six out of 10 households rely on FDPIR as their main or only source of food.

This paper examines the relationship between various types of child care during the first year of a child's life and the child's language and social development measured at age three. A unique contribution of the paper is the estimation of a general selection-correction model that accounts for non-random selection of children into different types of child care. The analysis uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), a birth cohort of children born to predominantly low-income single mothers.

Offenders face a number of significant challenges upon reentry into the community, including securing employment, locating housing, and accessing adequate substance abuse and mental health treatment. These and related issues, if neglected, only bolster rising recidivism rates which have prompted renewed interest in rehabilitation initiatives such as inmate reentry. Many jurisdictions have implemented programs designed to improve offenders' success after prison, but jail reentry programs are far less common.

This article considers how some individuals and families who are low-income think and dream about their futures and compares their thoughts with classic notions of the American Dream. Drawing on intensive interviews with individuals and families, the authors analyzed interviewees’ observations about their hopes and thoughts for the future. Five main themes emerge: stability, agency, and control; ideal home life; values about the home; aspirations for children; and obstacles to achieving dreams.

This study examines the association between financial access, unemployment, and household food insecurity during the economic recession (N = 14,417). The unbanked lack financial access to smooth their consumption during times of financial stress. The dependent variable is food insecurity, the independent variable is banked status, and unemployment experience is a moderator.

The secondary data analysis examined low-income families’ use of Food Stamps and how it related to receipt of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits and other financial help. It employed a nationally representative sample of 54,703 nonelderly adults extracted from a longitudinal data set.

This article examines low-income parents’ monetary investments in their young children, asking how low-income families are able to afford spending on children. We investigate parental spending on child care and on goods in the home that may provide enrichment for young children. We find little evidence that households make spending trade-offs for either type of good. Instead, our results suggest that low-income households that can afford child care may be poor only temporarily and that they spend primarily when they are unable to avoid doing so because of family work patterns.

This article examines Care-Not-Cash, a welfare reform measure that replaced cash General Assistance payments for homeless people in San Francisco with in-kind social services. Unlike most welfare reform measures, Care-Not-Cash was framed by proponents as a progressive policy, aimed at expanding social services and government care for poor people. Drawing on primary and secondary documents, as well as extensive interviews, this article examines the historical and political context leading to the passage of Care-Not-Cash.

The potential for career guidance to impact on well-being has received insufficient attention in the UK. There are both conceptual and empirical reasons to expect that the impacts may be positive, but a lack of evidence directly testing this proposition. Career guidance has commonalities with therapeutic counselling suggesting analogous effects, and it promotes positive engagement in work and learning, which may be associated with health benefits. There are implications for services in reconciling health and employment objectives.

The study uses a multivariate time series approach (Vector Autoregression) to compare the relative effects of government transfer spending versus macroeconomic change on poverty reduction. The analysis disaggregates transfer spending among federal budget subcategories and poverty rates among different demographic groups. The analysis also tested for the possibility that spending on government programs is adjusted in response to changes in poverty.