This article offers strategies for education programs to sustain and grow, despite diminishing funding. Authors review challenges for States regarding this issue and supporting worker advancement. Successful strategies include focusing on local…

The TANF Seventh Annual Report to Congress has been published, reporting on FY 2003. Since the enactment of TANF, millions of families on the TANF caseload have achieved stable employment. Employment among low-income single mothers has increased…

This report was completed by the Program Review and Investigations Committee on Connecticut’s Welfare Reform Initiative. Authors describe the Jobs First program in detail as well as provide caseload trends, recipient demographics, and funding…

This report from the Government Accountability Office seeks to measure the success of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) in terms of helping low-income workers find jobs in a streamlined manner as well as engaging employers in the process. In…

This paper focuses on poverty in the last 40 years in the United States, focusing on policy and poverty in the African American community. Between 1968 and 2005, the black poverty rate fell from 35 percent to about 25 percent. However, in 2005,…

From the Welfare Policy Research Project, this research article reviews a study in California on the effects of the 60-month TANF time limit. As a result of 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, all adults receiving welfare are…

This paper, from the National Poverty Center, analyzes current housing policy with relation to the recent trends of the low income population becoming decentralized. Authors seek to investigate if this strategy equates to increased economic…

From Mathematica Policy Research, this report outlines the implementation of the TANF in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and provides the different approaches across the States. Authors examine how the approaches have affected caseload…

From the National Center for Children in Poverty, this speech by author and policy expert Lisbeth Schorr outlines challenges and opportunities in creating systems change. Schorr offered lessons and recommendation for how to improve service…

The welfare reform of 1996 granted states more flexibility in spending for TANF by receiving block grant funding. This policy brief from the National Poverty Center reviews TANF spending, and found that state spending on public welfare programs…