We evaluated the effects of participation in an extended program of compensatory education for a large sample of inner-city black children up to the seventh grade. The intervention is the Chicago Child-Parent Center and Expansion Program. Groups included 426 children who participated in the...

As a result of changing welfare policies, large numbers of children of poor, uneducated mothersare likely to receive care from others as their mothers enter the workforce. How will this change affect <p>inequality in cognitive skills among young children? One view suggests that inequality will...</p>

We report here on the design and first application of an interactive computer-administered personal interview (CAPI) survey eliciting from high school students and college undergraduates their expectations of the income they would earn if they were to complete different levels of schooling. We...

The 1996 welfare reform legislation establishing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program marks a significant change in U.S. social and economic policy. This legislation represents the ascendance of the view that individuals and families need to be self-reliant and that...

Central to the debate about why some poor people remain poor is the enduring question of what role values play in behavior patterns as observed in chronically impoverished families and communities. Young black women who grow up in impoverished families in urban ghettos face some similar...

This paper discusses the potential labor market prospects of AFDC recipients who will be required to work under the new welfare legislation. Various characteristics of available low-skill jobs are compared with those of long-term AFDC recipients, and more general evidence on the labor market...

The typical indicators used to assess a school's performance - average and median achievement test scores - are highly flawed. Simulation results indicate that these indicators provide a severely misleading portrait of changes in school performance over time and differences in performance across...

Delivery of assistance to the poor has changed drastically in the past 20 years. While the availability of cash assistance has decreased, the availability of food assistance has widened. The most substantial change in assistance available to the poor may have been the emergence of food pantries...

The process of national welfare reform has been overtaken by local reform as states implement experimental programs under federal waivers. Most of these initiatives attempt to enforce work or otherwise control the lives of the dependent in return for support. Research, which traditionally...

An issue central to the life-cycle theory of consumer behavior, and to many policy questions, is asset accumulation and decumulation. One of the main implications of the life-cycle model is that assets are decumulated in the last part of life. Most empirical studies of asset accumulation use...