From the abstract:
This issue brief provides nearly "real-time" tracking of the recession's impact on children, with state-by-state data through 2012 on children with an unemployed parent and individuals receiving SNAP benefits, as well as the authors' predictions of state child poverty rates for 2012. There has not been much change in children's economic well-being over the past year, but there has been a sharp deterioration compared with conditions before the recession. Compared to 2007, more children today live in families with an unemployed parent, families that turn to SNAP benefits to help pay their grocery bills, and/or families below the poverty threshold.
The first in a three-part series about state child care subsidy policies from the CCDF Policies Database. Tomorrow: Assistance for Unemployed Parents Searching for Jobs
The high cost of child care can be a significant obstacle to finding and keeping a job, especially for low-income parents. Child care subsidies can help low-wage parents pay for high-quality care, allowing them to continue working or looking for work, but whether subsidies are available and how much support they provide depends in part on which state families call home.
]]>From the abstract:
A growing economics literature establishes a causal link between in utero shocks and health and human capital in adulthood. Most studies rely on extreme negative shocks such as famine and pandemics. We are the first to examine the impact of a positive and policy-driven change in economic resources available in utero and during childhood. In particular, we focus on the introduction of a key element of the U.S. safety net, the Food Stamp Program, which was rolled out across counties in the U.S. between 1961 and 1975. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to assemble unique data linking family background and county of residence in early childhood to adult health and economic outcomes. The identification comes from variation across counties and over birth cohorts in exposure to the food stamp program. Our findings indicate that the food stamp program has effects decades after initial exposure. Specifically, access to food stamps in childhood leads to a significant reduction in the incidence of "metabolic syndrome" (obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes) and, for women, an increase in economic self-sufficiency. Overall, our results suggest substantial internal and external benefits of the safety net that have not previously been quantified.
From the abstract:
The stated goal of the nation's largest workfare program, New York City's "Work Experience Program" (WEP), is to provide welfare recipients with adequate training and relevant job experience so that they can successfully compete for work in the private sector. When it became apparent that the program was not living up to its stated ideals, the workfare workers began a union organizing drive late in 1996. However, the city administration formally opposed the unionization campaign on economic grounds and by arguing that workfare workers were not employees per se. In this article, I argue that workfare workers are a type of contingent public sector employee, discuss and analyze the New York City WEP worker unionization campaign and provide recommendations how this drive could have used the idea that workfare workers are contingent public sector employees in pursuit of a potentially more successful outcome.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it is willing to waive certain federal work participation standards under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant to permit states to experiment with "alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families." The major provision that HHS would waive is the numerical performance standards that states must meet or risk being penalized through a reduction in their TANF block grant. HHS announced this initiative on July 12, 2012.
The TANF statute provides that 50% of all families and 90% of two-parent families included in a participation rate are required to be engaged in work, though few states have ever faced the full standard because this percentage is reduced for certain credits.... The new waivers would permit states to have welfare-to-work initiatives assessed using different measures than the TANF work participation rate. Thus, states could test alternative welfare-to-work approaches by engaging recipients in activities currently not countable without risk of losing block grant funds. States would have to apply for waivers, which must be approved by HHS and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). States would also be required to monitor performance measures and evaluate the alternative welfare-to-work program. HHS also indicated it might waive some requirements that apply to states for verifying work activities.
]]>From the abstract:
An estimated 85.1 percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2011, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.9 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security--meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. The prevalence rate of very low food security increased from 5.4 percent in 2010, returning to the level observed in 2008 and 2009. The change in food insecurity overall (from 14.5 percent in 2010) was not statistically significant. The typical food-secure household spent 24 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition. Fifty-seven percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs during the month prior to the 2011 survey.
See also:
Report summary
Charts and Graphs
Related:
Southern states have greater risk of hunger / Report says many households have trouble putting food on the table
Source: Larry Conley, American City and County, September 10, 2012
From the abstract:
The Welfare Rules Databook, provides tables containing key Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) policies for each state as of July 2011, as well as longitudinal tables describing selected state policies from 1996 through 2011. The tables are based on the information in the Welfare Rules Database (WRD), a publicly available, online database tracking state cash assistance policies over time and across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Databook summarizes a subset of the information in the WRD. Users interested in a greater level of detail are encouraged to use the full database.
States Perform provides users with access to interactive, customizable and up-to-date comparative performance measurement data for 50 states in six key areas: fiscal and economic, public safety and justice, energy and environment, transportation, health and human services, and education. Compare performance across a few or all states, profile one state, view trends over time, and customize your results with graphs and maps.
]]>From the overview:
Some policymakers have cited the replacement of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant under the 1996 welfare law as a model for how to dramatically restructure other federally funded programs for low-income families. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has proposed converting Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), and other unspecified low-income programs into block grants to states and significantly reducing their funding levels, citing TANF as the model.
A close examination of how states have used their federal and state funds under TANF, however, provides a cautionary tale about the dangers of converting basic safety-net programs to block grants. With the TANF block grant in place, the cash assistance safety net for the nation's poorest families with children has grown weaker, not stronger. Moreover, most states failed to respond adequately in providing assistance to very poor families during the recent recession when the need for such help increased markedly.
]]>From the summary:
Six of the 10 states reviewed by GAO took steps aimed at preventing certain Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) transactions determined to be inconsistent with the purpose of TANF, despite no federal requirement to do so at the time. Restrictions are based on selected states' laws, executive orders, and other regulations, and generally cover certain locations or certain types of purchases such as alcohol. In some cases, states' restrictions are broader than the new federal requirements. These restrictions vary in their degree and means of implementation, including widespread disabling of Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) access at automated teller machines located at certain locations across a state, such as at casinos. The other 4 states had no restrictions because no laws, executive orders, or other regulations prohibited certain transactions based on the location of the transactions or the nature of the goods or services purchased. These states did not implement restrictions due to concerns about cost-effectiveness or technical limitations, according to state officials.
From the press release:
First Focus today released a report finding that, for the first time since the children's advocacy organization began its budget analyses in 2008, "discretionary" spending (the budget decisions made by Congress through annual appropriations bills) on children has declined for two consecutive years. Children's Budget 2012 observes that less than 8 percent of the federal budget is invested in children.... Children's Budget 2012 is a detailed analysis of more than 180 federal investments in children. They range from investments children benefit from every day like education, to acute problems such as child abuse and neglect prevention. The analysis also includes initiatives not traditionally recognized as investments in children, like federal affordable housing initiatives and Social Security. Discretionary spending on children has declined by about $2 billion since 2010....
See also:
Abstract
Slide Show
ChildrensBudget.org
From the summary:
Almost 45 million people, or 18.6 percent of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population, participated in one or more major means-tested assistance programs each month in 2009. These statistics come from a new report that examines the participation and characteristics of people who received benefits from any of the major means-tested assistance programs including: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, General Assistance, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/Food Stamp, Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid and Housing Assistance. The statistics come from the 2004 and 2008 Panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation and cover calendar years 2004 through 2007 and 2009.
From the summary:
The federal-state TANF partnership makes significant resources available to address poverty in the lives of families with children. With these resources, TANF has provided a basic safety net to many families and helped many parents step into jobs. At the same time, there are questions about the strength and breadth of the TANF safety net. Many eligible families--some of whom have very low incomes--are not receiving TANF cash assistance. Regarding TANF as a welfare-to-work program, the emphasis on work participation rates as a measure of state program performance has helped change the culture of state welfare programs to focus on moving families into employment. However, features of the work participation rates as currently implemented undercut their effectiveness as a way to encourage states to engage parents, including those difficult to serve, and help them achieve self-sufficiency. Finally, states have used TANF funds to support a variety of programs other than cash assistance as allowed by law. Yet, we do not know enough about this spending or whether this flexibility is resulting in the most efficient and effective use of funds at this time.