Research

There is spirited debate between those who maintain that public assistance to the poor decreases poverty by raising their incomes (an income enhancement effect) and those who contend that welfare increases poverty by discouraging the poor from working (a work disincentive effect). Extant studies have been inconclusive because they have focused on the effect of welfare benefits on the poverty rate, but have not employed designs that allow researchers to sort out distinct income enhancement and work disincentive effects. We develop a model of poverty rates in the American states that permits estimation of these distinct effects based on state-level time-series data observed annually for the years 1960-90 and we find that welfare had both effects during our period of analysis. We also calculate the net impact on the poverty rate of an increase in welfare benefits (taking into account both income enhancement and work disincentives), and we conclude that it has varied across states and time. In general, however, the ability of marginal increases in welfare spending to reduce the poverty rate by enhancing incomes has declined since the 1970s.

As labor markets tightened in the last half of the nineties, economic development and community leaders sought to identify more locally available workers than were indicated by published statistics. Using results from commissioned surveys, they pointed to large numbers of part-time workers who desired full-time work, and to full-time workers who were qualified for better jobs. These statistics were often used to negate low official unemployment rates that deterred firms, concerned by the ostensible shortage of workers, from locating in their counties. We have conducted a larger, statewide, survey of underemployment and linked it to the detailed demographic and labor force data from the 2000 Census. We used the results to identify variations in the number and type of underemployed persons around the state, with emphasis on the differences between urbanized and rural areas. Over a quarter of full-time workers reported underemployment, including a third of workers in exurban counties. However, forty to fifty percent of underemployment is reportedly by choice, with the highest rates in the small urban and exurban regions. Of those that are not underemployed by choice, over ninety percent of respondents in some regions cited lack of job opportunities. We find that between fourteen and forty percent of part-time workers prefer full-time work, with the highest rates in rural Appalachian counties. We provide some of the reasons underemployed people cite as constraints to better employment. Also, we used the survey results and the recent Census information to predict the number and type of underemployed persons in each county. The model can be used to update predictions as new local demographic and labor force estimates are released annually from the Census Bureau’s forthcoming American Community Surveys.

This paper investigates how barriers to employment, human capital, and demographic characteristics affect women’s exit routes off welfare. Specifically, I address two questions. First, what are the avenues through which women leave welfare? Second, are mental and physical health problems, domestic violence, and lack of access to transportation, characteristics that have been ignored in other studies of welfare dynamics, associated with different welfare exit routes? Using multinomial logistic regression and data from the Women’s Employment Survey, this project examines the specific exit route chosen in detail and goes beyond general dynamics associated with welfare exit in order to capture the full heterogeneity of outcomes now witnessed in the post-Welfare Reform world. Results indicate that women with physical limitations are less likely to leave welfare either through obtaining a new job or through a non-work exit. Finally, women with transportation problems or with post-traumatic stress disorder are less likely to leave welfare through combining work and welfare.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between the development of obesity in children ages five to ten years, and poverty (the socio-economic status of the family). Because of the associated complications of obesity such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension, this research aimed to determine if obesity, a precursor of these diseases, was related to poverty. The rate of the development of hypertension and diabetes in children and young adults has been steadily increasing over the past ten years (Hines, Fishman, Green, 1999). Therefore, there is an urgent need for continued investigation exploring the multiple variables associated with the development of this major health hazard. The goal of this research was to examine the following objectives: Investigate the relationship between poverty and obesity in children age 5 to 10 years, determine the genetic risk for subjects meeting the criteria for obesity, and communicate findings of this research via referred publications and presentations. The methods used in this research involved collection of secondary and primary data. Secondary data collection involved retrieving information on subjects assigned to the free lunch program, based on household income. Primary data collection included weight, height and Body Mass Index (BMI) of the subjects. Height, weight and BMI were recorded and compared with normal values for age and height, thus determining obesity status. The results of obesity status were correlated with household income. Thirty three subjects (N=33) were studied. The results of the study showed no significant relationship between obesity and poverty. However, the incidence of obesity in the sample according to body mass index was a finding that warrants further investigation. The results showed a higher level of obesity among the subjects who were not from households meeting the definition of poverty.

The 1990s played host to the most significant changes in the American welfare system in the last 50 years— in particular, states were granted much wider latitude in deciding who is eligible to receive welfare. Taking advantage of these changes, we examine the linkage between lower class turnout and state adoption of restrictive welfare eligibility requirements after the passage of the historic welfare reform legislation of 1996. We find that in states where lower class turnout was relatively high, lawmakers were much less likely to pass a range of “get tough” welfare rules. Our findings provide novel support for the importance of electoral mobilization in helping the lower class achieve policies consistent with their interests. However, we also uncover evidence consistent with a “group threat” hypothesis in that states with larger lower class populations tended to adopt more restrictive welfare rules.

Low income and working poor families are exposed to tremendous stressors, which in turn can impede their ability to care for their children. In 2000, reports of abuse and/or neglect of more than 5 million children were made to Child Protective Services agencies. These families are often termed “at-risk” because of the possibility that the children could be placed in foster care. One prevention strategy used to help at-risk families is in-home family therapy. In this paper, I offer a qualitative study of in-home family therapy services from the perspectives of the families themselves. Specific objectives of this project were to examine clients' perspectives about the effectiveness of in-home family therapy; and to use the results of this study to inform larger scale quantitative investigations related to preventative treatment for at-risk, low-income families. This study explored the perceptions of 20 low-income and working poor families residing in Northeast Florida who have completed in-home family therapy services. Results indicate that although families unanimously expressed benefits of receiving in-home family therapy, they also found that the length of time services were provided was too brief to meet their long-term needs. Families provided suggestions for the improvement of services. Implications for researchers and practitioners are provided.

The Food Stamp Program provides assistance to households with incomes and assets below fixed thresholds. Although it is the largest entitlement program in the social safety net, little is known about the effect of food stamps on stabilizing fluctuations in household income and consumption. To estimate the volatility of income and the attendant reduction in volatility due to food stamps we use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics over 1980-1999 along with a model of income that admits permanent and transitory components as well as random growth rate heterogeneity. We then specify a model relating income changes to consumption changes for use in a variance decomposition. This decomposition highlights the role of food stamps in stabilizing food consumption volatility. We estimate the income and food consumption models across a host of samples that vary in the degree of ‘risk’ of food stamp takeup, ranging from all families to those families that lie below the gross income threshold for food stamp eligibility. We find that across all families food stamps reduced income volatility by about 3 percent and consumption volatility by about 4 percent, but this stabilizing role is a much more pronounced 12 and 14 percent among families at high ex ante risk of food stamp participation. Despite the positive role of the Food Stamp Program in smoothing income and consumption shocks there was a marked decline of nearly two-thirds in the income and consumption smoothing benefits of the program in the early 1990s relative to the 1980s. This stabilizing role improved only modestly by the end of the 1990s.

Understanding the link between poverty and economic growth is of long-standing interest, but heretofore it has not received much attention within the context of the dramatic changes in recent business-cycle conditions and social policies. In this paper we use state-level panel data from the 1981–2000 waves of the Current Population Survey to examine the impacts of the macroeconomy and welfare reform on family poverty. We estimate models of before-tax and after-tax poverty rates and squared poverty gaps for all families, by family structure, and by race. Our results indicate that a strong macroeconomy at both the state and national levels reduces not only the number of families below poverty, but also the severity of poverty. The magnitude and source of these antipoverty effects, however, are not uniform across family structures and racial groups or necessarily over time. While the gains in poverty eradication are tempered by rising wage inequality, the extent of this offset also varies across demographic groups. We find limited evidence that (after-tax) poverty is lower among female-headed families and black families after the implementation of state-specific welfare reforms, both before and after passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. An auxiliary time series analysis suggests that the expansions in the federal Earned Income Tax Credit of the 1990s accounts for upwards of 50 percent of the reduction in after-tax income deprivation. Simulations indicate that female-headed families and families headed by a black person made substantial gains in the ‘War on Poverty’ in the 1990s due in large part to the growth in median wages.