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Web Resources | Suggested
Reading | Data
on U.S. Poverty Rates | Working
Poor | Children
in Working Poor Families | Useful Links
Web Resources
- New Hope website
- Making It
Work: Low-Wage Employment, Family Life and Child Development
H. Yoshikawa, T. Weisner,
and E. Lowe, editors.
- New Hope
evaluation results, MDRC
- Rewarding the Work of Individuals, Gordon Berlin, president, MDRC
- The Prisoners of Welfare: Liberating America's Poor from Unemployment and Low Wages
(model for New Hope) by David Riemer
The germs of New Hope first appeared in Prisoners of Welfare, where Riemer
sketched out a system in which those unable to work—mainly the elderly
and disabled—would be given cash grants. The able-bodied poor who could
not find work would be given the opportunity for community-service jobs. Full-time
workers, including those in community-service positions, would be entitled
to earnings supplements that would raise family income above the poverty line.
They also would be offered subsidized child care and health insurance. Riemer
envisioned a universal policy; he did not compartmentalize the poor into “single
mothers” or “adult men.”
Suggested Reading
- American
Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare, Jason
DeParle.
- Behind
Ghetto Walls: Black Family Life in a Federal Slum, Lee Rainwater
The
Black-White Test Score Gap, Christopher Jencks and
Meredith Phillips, eds.
- Confronting
Poverty , Sheldon Danziger, Gary Sandefur, and Daniel Weinberg,
eds
- Five
Years After: The Long-Term Effects of Welfare-to-Work Programs,
Daniel Friedlander and Gary Burtless
- From
welfare to work, Judity Gueron and E. Pauly.
- Generating
Jobs: How to Increase Demand for Less-Skilled Workers, Richard
Freeman and Peter Gottschalk, eds.
- Government Matters:
Welfare Reform in Wisconsin, Lawrence Mead
- Growing
Up With a Single Parent, Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur
- It
Takes A Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty, Rebecca
Blank
- The
Invisible Safety Net. Protecting the Nation's Poor Children and Families.
Janet Currie.
- Kids
Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy,
Rebecca Maynard
- Losing
Ground, Charles Murray
- Making
Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work,
Kathryn Edin and Laura
Lein
- Making
It Work: Low-Wage Employment, Family Life and Child Development , H.
Yoshikawa, T.
Weisner, and E. Lowe, editors.
- Making
the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960,
Arnold Hirsch
- The Making of Milwaukee. Milwaukee: Milwaukee County
Historical Society, J Gurda.
- Night
Comes to the Cumberlands, Harry Caudill
- No
Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City .
K. Newman.
- The
Politics of a Guaranteed Income, Daniel Patrick Moynihnan
- Poor
Support, David Ellwood
- Poverty
and Place: Ghettos, Barrios, and the American City, Paul Jargowsky
- The
Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America,
Nicholas Lehman
- Promises I can
keep : why poor women put motherhood before marriage. Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas
- Regulating
the Poor, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward
- Rethinking
Social Policy, Christopher Jencks
- The
Other America , Michael Harrington
- The
Tragedy of American Compassion, Marvin Olasky
- The
Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy,
William Julius Wilson
- There
Are No Children Here, Alex Kotlowitz
- The
Underclass, Ken Auletta
- Welfare
and politics. Confronting poverty in the wake of welfare reform,
edited by F. F. Piven,
J. Acker, M. Hallock, and S. Morgan.
- Welfare
Realities, David Ellwood and Mary Jo Bane
- What
Money Can't Buy: Family Income and Children's Life Chances,
Susan Mayer
- When
Work Disappears, William J. Wilson
- Work Over Welfare:
The Inside Story of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law, Ron Haskins
Data on U.S Poverty Rates
In 2006, 37 million (or 12.6%) American adults were living in families with
incomes below the official poverty line, which was about $15,720 for a family
of three (two adults and one child).
Working Poor
Poverty is surprisingly common among full-time working adults in the United
States. At the inception of the New Hope program in 1994, 6.5 million American
adults, whether parents or not, were working full time but earned too little
to lift their families above the poverty line. In 2004, 5.7 million adults
were working full-time but still living in poverty, affecting 6.8 million children.
- Source: Authors’ calculations from Current Population Surveys, conducted
by the U.S. Census Bureau. Adult data apply to individuals between age 18
and 54. Working-poor adults as those who report working 30 or more “usual” weekly
hours and who live in a family with total income below the poverty line.
Children in working-poor families
Even more American children—6.8 million—lived in families in
2004 in which a parent worked full time but the family was still poor.
- Source: Authors’ calculations from Current Population Surveys, conducted
by the U.S. Census Bureau. Adult data apply to individuals between age 18
and 54. Working-poor adults as those who report working 30 or more “usual” weekly
hours and who live in a family with total income below the poverty line.
Useful Links
Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University
Department of Anthropology, UCLA
Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral
Sciences, UCLA
University of Texas at Austin, Department of Human Ecology
National Poverty Center
Institute for Research on Poverty
University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research
West Coast Poverty Center
Rural Poverty Research Center
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