Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF FIGURES -- LIST OF TABLES -- PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION -- PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- Looking at the Facts -- A Note About the Definition of Poverty -- CHAPTER 1: The Changing Face of Poverty -- 1.1 Who Is Poor in America Today? -- 1.2 Moving In and Out of Poverty -- 1.3 The Location of Poverty: It's Closer than You Think -- 1.4 Why Don't They Just Get Jobs? Work Behavior among the Poor -- 1.5 Teen Moms and Out-of-Wedlock Births: Changing Fertility and Marriage Behavior in the United States -- 1.6 Poor Single Mothers: What Problems Do They Face? -- 1.7 Absent Fathers: Why Don't We Ever Talk about the Unmarried Men? -- 1.8 Drugs, Gangs, and Illegal Activity: Crime and Poverty -- CHAPTER 2: A Changing Economy -- 2.1 The Death of "Trickle Down Economics": Why Economic Growth No Longer Reduces Poverty -- 2.2 Jobs: As Available (or as Unavailable) as Ever -- 2.3 One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Fifteen Years of Falling Wages -- 2.4 Work Follows Wages: Changing Work Effort among the Poor -- 2.5 Cities Down/Suburbs Up: The Changing Geography of Jobs -- 2.6 Outside the Mainstream: The Underground Economy and the Poor -- 2.7 "Get A Job": How Far Out of Poverty Will It Take You? -- CHAPTER 3: Changing Policy: America's Efforts to Provide a Social Safety Net -- 3.1 New Directions for Policy -- 3.2 The Social Safety Net in Operation -- 3.3 Cash Assistance Programs -- 3.4 In-Kind Assistance Programs -- 3.5 Earnings Subsidy Programs -- 3.6 Job Search and Job Training Programs -- 3.7 Family-based Programs: Child Support Efforts -- 3.8 Targeting Youth: Educational Enrichment Efforts -- 3.9 Improving Neighborhoods: Economic Development Efforts -- CHAPTER 4: What Do Antipoverty Programs Do? -- 4.1 Do Cash Transfers Reduce Poverty?

Rebecca M. Blank offers the first comprehensive analysis of an economic trend that has been reshaping the United States over the past three decades: rapidly rising income inequality. In clear language, she provides an overview of how and why the level and distribution of income and wealth has changed since 1979, sets this situation within its historical context, and investigates the forces that are driving it. Among other factors, Blank looks closely at changes within families, including women's increasing participation in the work force. The book includes some surprising findings--for example, that per-person income has risen sharply among almost all social groups, even as income has become more unequally distributed. Looking toward the future, Blank suggests that while rising inequality will likely be with us for many decades to come, it is not an inevitable outcome. Her book considers what can be done to address this trend, and also explores the question: why should we be concerned about this phenomenon?.

"Rebecca M. Blank offers the first comprehensive analysis of an economic trend that has been reshaping the United States over the past three decades: rapidly rising income inequality. In clear language, she provides an overview of how and why the level and distribution of income and wealth has changed since 1979, sets this situation within its historical context, and investigates the forces that are driving it. Among other factors, Blank looks closely at changes within families, including women's increasing participation in the work force. The book includes some surprising findings-for example, that per-person income has risen sharply among almost all social groups, even as income has become more unequally distributed. Looking toward the future, Blank suggests that while rising inequality will likely be with us for many decades to come, it is not an inevitable outcome. Her book considers what can be done to address this trend, and also explores the question: why should we be concerned about this phenomenon?"--Provided by publisher.

"This paper investigates the response of young people in the United States to state laws dictating the minimum age at which individuals could marry, with and without parental consent. We use variation across states and over time to document behavioral responses to laws governing the age of marriage using both administrative records from the Vital Statistics and retrospective reports from the U.S. Census. We find evidence that state laws delayed the marriages of some young people, but the effects are much smaller in Census data than in Vital Statistics records. This discrepancy appears to be driven by systematic avoidance behavior of two kinds. First, some young people marry outside their state of residence, in states with less restrictive laws. Second, many young people appear to have evaded minimum age of marriage laws by misrepresenting age on their marriage certificate. This avoidance was especially pronounced in earlier years, when few states required documented proof of age and when there was greater gain to marrying out of state because of wider variation in laws. Our results have important implications about the quality of administrative data when it is poorly monitored; about the effect of laws when agents can avoid them; and about the validly of estimates using cross-state variation in laws as an instrumental variable. By contrasting two data sources, we achieve a more complete picture of behavioral response than would be possible with either one alone"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

This paper reviews the U.S. welfare reform efforts over the 1990s and the effects of these reforms to date. Seven "lessons" of potential interest to European observers are discussed, with particular attention to the conclusions of more recent research. Such research indicates, for example, that more effective programs contain both positive and negative incentives, utilize work-first as well as job training programs, and provide some important supports beyond just job and work skills. The paper ends with some speculations about why European policy-makers are becoming more interested in U.S. welfare reform experiments than they have been in the past.

As the Clinton administration considers major overhauls in health insurance, welfare, and labor market regulation, it is important for economists and policymakers to understand the impact of social and welfare programs on employment rates. This volume explores how programs such as social security, income transfers, and child care in Western Europe, the United States, and Japan have affected labor market flexibility-the ability of workers to adjust to fast-growing segments of the economy. Does tying health insurance to employment limit job mobility? Do housing policies inhibit workers from moving to new jobs in different areas? What are the effects of daycare and maternity leave policies on working mothers? The authors explore these and many other questions in an effort to understand why European unemployment rates are so high compared with the U.S. rate. Through an examination of diverse data sets across different countries, the authors find that social protection programs do not strongly affect labor market flexibility. A valuable comparison of labor markets and welfare programs, this book demonstrates how social protection policies have affected employment rates around the globe.

As productivity growth has slowed and wages have stagnated in the past decade, there is serious concern about the long-term competitiveness of the U.S. economy. This article discusses key factors that affect U.S. economic growth, including the number of workers, their skill level, and the level of innovation and investment in new ideas. There are limited prospects for growth in the number of workers, due to changes in age distribution, immigration, and women's labor force participation. There has been a slow increase in worker skills in the United States, and there are opportunities for further growth in educational attainment. The role of innovation in developing new products and services that improve our wellbeing and drive productivity growth is a key driver of long-term growth, which means that the United States needs to stay at the front edge of basic and translational research. In recent decades, the preeminent U.S. position in the world economy has eroded as other countries have outstripped the United States in the growth of their educated workforce. At the same time, other countries have greatly increased their investments in basic research and innovation while U.S. investments have stalled. If the United States is to retain its long-term economic leadership, it must pay attention to policies that will enhance skills and innovation. The large public research university—an institution largely invented in the United States—has a key role to play.

Rebecca Blank explores a weakness of the welfare reforms of the mid-1990s—the failure of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program to address the plight of so-called "hard to employ" single mothers and their children. TANF has moved many women on the welfare caseload into work, but the services it provides are not intensive or flexible enough to meet the needs of women with multiple disadvantages who find it difficult to get and keep full-time employment. Blank notes that many of these women have lost welfare benefits because of their failure to find work. Increasingly, studies show that the number of single mothers who are neither working nor on welfare has grown significantly over the past ten years. Such "disconnected" women now make up 20 to 25 percent of all low-income single mothers, and reported income in these families is extremely low. Disconnected women are likely to report multiple and serious barriers to work, including low education, learning disabilities, health problems, or a history of domestic violence or substance abuse. Counting both longer-term welfare recipients and women who are neither working nor on welfare, Blank estimates that about 2.2 million women who head families are not able to find jobs or, if they do, cannot keep them. And almost 4 million children are in the care of these severely challenged single mothers. Blank proposes a Temporary and Partial Work Waiver Program to provide more effective employment assistance and other supports for these women and their children. The program she proposes would recognize that some women might be able to work only part-time or be temporarily unable to work. It would supplement their earnings while also offering referral to services that both address their own work barriers and provide help for their children. The support, however, would be temporary. Women would be regularly reassessed for their readiness to return to work or work more hours. Such a program, Blank notes, would require intensive case management. Estimating the cost of such a program is difficult, she explains, because costs would depend heavily on the number of women who participate. But she offers a rough estimate of $2.8 billion, some of which is already being spent as part of the current TANF program.