The experience of Wisconsin is commonly cited as evidence of the capability of states for reforming welfare. Wisconsin's welfare caseload declined 22.5 percent between December 1986 and December 1994. This paper argues that the decline is primarily associated with restriction of eligibility and...

We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of income and employment data in national surveys, in unemployment insurance (UI) wage records, and in tax returns. The CPS, SIPP, NLS, and PSID surveys provide valuable information on the behavior of the low-income population. They have broad and fairly...

Currently, income is the only resource that the government takes into account when measuring poverty. But in order for a family to maintain an adequate standard of living, its members must not only have money, but the time to do certain kinds of work in the home: child care, food shopping, meal...

The number of persons in the United States without health insurance, particularly those lacking private health insurance, is increasing. Although there is a large body of research documenting the insurance status of people in poverty at a point in time, the duration of spells without health...

The poverty of Appalachia is not the product of modernization. Nor is it a unique phenomenon. An examination of the history of farming in Beech Creek, Kentucky, reveals that this community, which was prosperous in 1860, owed its fall into poverty to a number of factors that had impoverished...

This paper assesses the association between migration (both international and internal) and the employment status and earnings of young noncollege-educated native white, black, Hispanic, Asian, and immigrant white-collar and blue-collar workers in the United States during the decade from 1980 to...

The trend in national policy over the past two decades has emphasized self-reliance and a reduced role of government in society. Given this ideological shift, the official poverty measure, which is based on the premise that all families should have sufficient income from either their own efforts...

The research presented examines the role of private versus public food assistance programs in alleviating food shortages among poor households. First, multinomial probit models are used to examine which factors affect four alternative food assistance choices poor households make: (a) to use Food...

Since the passage of Mills v. Board of Education in 1972, school district spending on special education has increased dramatically nationwide. Are the high expenditures on special education justified in order to improve school performance? To shed some light on this question, we looked at the...

This report analyzes different approaches to measuring food problems among impoverished households. Researchers investigating what public policy analysts refer to as hunger have sketched out alternative conceptual spaces within which these food problems can be measured. The narrower conceptual...