Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and South Carolina have been awarded three year grants to implement user-friendly and quick-to-deliver public benefit systems. The grants, as part of the "Work Support Strategies:…

From the Urban Institute, this issue brief is part of the Perspectives on Low-Income Working Families series. Author Sheila R. Zedlewski discusses lessons learned since the welfare reform of 1996, which changed welfare from an entitlement program…

This summary is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and provides 2011 data on employment in the United States. In 2011, 11.5 percent of families included an unemployed person, falling from 12.4 percent in 2010. The labor force participation rate…

The Future of Children released a new volume, which is focused on children with disabilities. Authors explore not just one type of disability, but cross-cutting themes of children with disabilities on a broad level. The researchers contributing…

This study, commissioned by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, examines local programs that connect homeless individuals and families with other support services…

MDRC released a policy brief that discusses the issue of low-income, college-ready students "undermatching" – enrolling in colleges for which they are academically overqualified or not going to college at all. Early results from the College Match…

The National Center for Children in Poverty released a policy report offering a summary of the various approaches States are taking or propose to take to balance their budget. The report highlights revenue and spending side approaches that are…

Increasing education among low-income parents is a vital component of policies to improve families’ economic status. Educational attainment matters: between 1979 and 2005, wages for those with college and advanced degrees rose by 22 and 28…

On March 13-14, 2012, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) convened the Promising Pathways Initiative Innovation Institute in Washington, DC. The Promising Pathways Initiative provides technical assistance to state and local TANF programs and…

This paper is from the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and authors use data from the Current Population Survey to summarize labor market trends in the U.S. over the past 30 years. The data show unevenness…