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Recent research finds that there is a growing class gap in levels of civic engagement among young whites in the United States. Much of the literature on civic engagement focuses on individual– and family–level factors related to civic engagement. Our evidence suggests that it is critically important to consider variation and change in community–level factors as well, and that such factors may play a key role in facilitating or inhibiting civic engagement. To explore the puzzle of the growing class gap among young whites in civic engagement, we conducted two–generation in–depth qualitative interviews in white working class neighborhoods in Philadelphia and its inner suburbs, with companion interviews among Philadelphia–area youth living in middle class communities. We complement these interviews with quantitative measures of institutional and demographic changes in these neighborhoods over time. Our evidence suggests that a withdrawal of institutional investments in working class neighborhoods (and relative to middle class neighborhoods), along with an increase in population turnover and racial and ethnic heterogeneity, which has disproportionately impacted working class neighborhoods as well, may be important factors in understanding the growing class gap in civic engagement among white youth.

How the EITC supports working families without imposing stigma.

Eviction affects a substantial share of U.S. children, but its effects on child health are largely unknown. Our objectives were to examine how eviction relates to 1) children's health and sociodemographic characteristics at birth, 2) neighborhood poverty and food security at age 5, and 3) obesity in later childhood and adolescence. We analyzed data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal cohort of children born in 20 large U.S. cities. Children who lived in rental housing with known eviction histories and measured outcomes were included. We compared maternal and infant health and sociodemographic characteristics at the time of the child's birth. We then characterized the associations between eviction and neighborhood poverty and food security at age 5 and obesity at ages 5, 9, and 15 using log binomial regression with inverse probability of treatment and censoring weights. Of the 2556 children included in objective 1, 164 (6%) experienced eviction before age 5. Children who experienced eviction had lower household income and maternal education and were more likely to be born to mothers who were unmarried, smoked during pregnancy, and had mental health problems. Evicted and non-evicted children were equally likely to experience high neighborhood poverty at age 5 (prevalence ratio (PR) = 1.03, 95% CI 0.82, 1.29) but had an increased prevalence of low food security (PR = 2.16, 95% CI 1.46, 3.19). Obesity prevalence did not differ at age 5 (PR = 1.01; 95% CI 0.58, 1.75), 9 (PR = 1.08; 95% CI 0.715, 1.55); or 15 (PR = 1.05; 95% CI 0.51, 2.18). In conclusion, children who went on to experience eviction showed signs of poor health and socioeconomic disadvantage already at birth. Eviction in early childhood was not associated with children's likelihood of neighborhood poverty, suggesting that eviction may not qualitatively change children's neighborhood conditions in this disadvantaged sample. Though we saw evidence supporting an association with low child food security at age 5, we did not find eviction to be associated with obesity in later childhood and adolescence., Highlights • Children who experience eviction have health and socioeconomic disadvantages at birth. • Eviction was not associated with neighborhood poverty or childhood obesity. • Evicted children (vs. not) had over twice the prevalence of food insecurity at age 5. • Interventions to prevent eviction can protect children from hunger and adversity.

Men who have children with several partners are often assumed to be “deadbeats” who eschew their responsibilities to their children. Using data from the nationally representative National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort (NLSY-97), we show that most men in complex families intensively parent the children of one mother while being less involved, or not involved at all, with children by others. Repeated qualitative interviews with 110 low-income noncustodial fathers reveal that men in complex families often engage with and provide, at least to some degree, for all of the biological and stepchildren who live in one mother’s household. These activities often exceed those extended to biological children living elsewhere. Interviews also show that by devoting most or all of their resources to the children of just one mother, men in complex families feel successful as fathers even if they are not intensively involved with their other biological children.

This study documents an increase in the prevalence of extreme poverty among US households with children between 1996 and 2011 and assesses the response of major federal means-tested transfer programs. Extreme poverty is defined using a World Bank metric of global poverty: $2 or less, per person, per day. Using the 1996–2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), we estimate that in mid-2011, 1.65 million households with 3.55 million children were living in extreme poverty in a given month, based on cash income, constituting 4.3 percent of all nonelderly households with children. The prevalence of extreme poverty has risen sharply since 1996, particularly among those most affected by the 1996 welfare reform. Adding SNAP benefits to household income reduces the number of extremely poor households with children by 48.0 percent in mid-2011. Adding SNAP, refundable tax credits, and housing subsidies reduces it by 62.8 percent.

Unmarried parents have less stable unions than married parents, but there is considerable debate over the sources of this instability. Unmarried parents may be more likely than married parents to end their unions because of compositional differences, such as more disadvantaged personal and relationship characteristics, or because they lack the normative and institutional supports of marriage, thus rendering their relationships more sensitive to disadvantage. In this article, we evaluate these two sources of union instability among married, cohabiting, and dating parents following the birth of a shared child, using five waves of longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Using discrete-time event history models, we find that demographic, economic, and relationship differences explain more than two-thirds of the increased risk of dissolution for unmarried parents relative to married parents. We also find that differential responses to economic or relationship disadvantage do not explain why unmarried parents are more likely to end their unions than married parents.

A large body of nonexperimental literature finds residing in a disadvantaged neighborhood is deleterious for mental health, and recent evidence from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program—a social experiment giving families living in high-poverty neighborhoods the opportunity to move to low-poverty neighborhoods—suggests a causal effect of moving to a low-poverty neighborhood on adult mental health. We use qualitative data from 67 Baltimore adults who signed up for the MTO program to understand how moving to a low-poverty neighborhood produced these mental health benefits. First, we document the vast array of mental health challenges, traumatic experiences, and stressors reported by both experimentals (those who received a housing voucher to move to a low-poverty neighborhood) and controls (those who did not receive a voucher). We then explore how changes in the physical and social environments may have produced mental health benefits for experimentals. In particular, experimentals reported the following: improved neighborhood and home aesthetics, greater neighborhood collective efficacy and pride, less violence and criminal activity, and better environments for raising children. Notably, we also document increased sources of stress among experimentals, mostly associated with moving, making the positive effects of MTO on adult mental health all the more remarkable. These findings have important implications for both researchers and policymakers.

The annual receipt of large tax refunds, primarily due to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), provides households with unusual opportunities to pay old bills and build assets. To examine these opportunities, the study surveys 194 black, Latino, and white parents who received EITC refunds of at least $1,000; in-depth interviews followed 6 months later. The majority of households (57 percent) report that they planned to allocate a considerable portion of their refund to savings, and 39 percent are estimated to accomplish their goal. Although 72 percent of the sample planned to pay bills and debt with the refund, 84 percent are found to do so. The results also suggest that households often readjust planned allocations to meet emergencies, debt, and bills. Despite setbacks, many recipients have significant asset accumulation goals, which they say are fueled by the expectation of ongoing annual tax refunds.

Recent improvements in data collection offer unprecedented insight into the romantic partnerships of disadvantaged men, revealing higher levels of instability, complexity, and commitment than previously understood. Young disadvantaged men are often involved in casual romantic relationships that result in pregnancy. When this occurs, most men remain involved with the mother, are optimistic about the future of their relationships, and are committed to their children. Economic disadvantage, incarceration, conflict, and mistrust undermine the stability of these relationships, however, and most end within several years after the birth. New romantic relationships begin shortly thereafter, creating complex family structures. We know less about the patterns of interaction between couples that produce unstable partnerships or about the nature of romantic relationships that do not involve children. With our growing understanding of the presence of fathers in nonmarital households, policy-makers must adapt their policies to support, rather than undermine, these fragile unions.

Moving to Opportunity (MTO) offered public housing residents the opportunity to move to low-poverty neighborhoods. Several years later, boys in the experimental group fared no better on measures of risk behavior than their control group counterparts, whereas girls in the experimental group engaged in lower-risk behavior than control group girls. The authors explore these differences by analyzing data from in-depth interviews conducted with 86 teens in Baltimore and Chicago. They find that daily routines, fitting in with neighborhood norms, neighborhood navigation strategies, interactions with peers, friendship making, and distance from father figures may contribute to how girls who moved via MTO benefited more than boys.

Because of dramatic levels of economic volatility and massive changes in welfare policies, scholars in this decade worried anew about whether our official poverty measure, adopted in the 1960s, is adequate. Poverty's causes continued to be debated, with demographic factors often pitted against policy and maternal employment changes. Some scholars focused on events that trigger spirals into poverty or poverty exits. The literature on consequences of poverty featured new techniques for identifying underlying processes and mechanisms. Researchers also explored “neighborhood effects” and focused on poverty deconcentration efforts. Finally, scholars produced a voluminous literature on the efforts to reform welfare and their subsequent effects.

Financial stability depends on emergency savings. Low-wage workers regularly experience drops in income and unexpected expenses. Households with savings absorb these financial shocks but most low-income Americans lack rainy day savings. Therefore, even a small shock, like car repairs, can result in a cascade of events that throws a low-income family into poverty. Nonetheless, existing policies address emergency savings only indirectly. However, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) already functions as an imperfect, makeshift savings tool. This lump sum refund at tax time gives workers a moment of financial slack, but many EITC recipients lack emergency reserves later in the year. By creating a “Rainy Day EITC” component of the existing EITC, policymakers can help low-wage workers build up emergency savings.

This paper examines mobility in the Gautreaux Two Housing Mobility Program, which attempted to alleviate poverty concentration by offering vouchers to residents of highly distressed Chicago public housing developments. In contrast to the original Gautreaux program, placement moves in Gautreaux Two have proven far less durable – most families quickly moved on from their placement neighborhoods to neighborhoods that were quite poor and very racially segregated. Based on in-depth interviews with 58 Gautreaux Two participants and their children, we find that the primary factors motivating secondary moves included substandard unit quality and hassles with landlords. Other factors included feelings of social isolation due to poor integration into the new neighborhood, distance from kin, transportation difficulties, children's negative reaction to the new neighborhood, and financial difficulties. Policy implications include the need for further pre- and post-move housing counseling for families in mobility programs.

Over the past several decades, nonmarital childbearing rates have risen sharply, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. Recent research suggests that disadvantaged Americans may defer or delay marriage in part because of perceived economic barriers. Yet, childbearing is also costly. Few studies have examined low-income parents' motivations for having children in a context of socioeconomic disadvantage. This study deploys qualitative data drawn from repeated, in-depth interviews with a heterogeneous sample of low-income, noncustodial fathers ( N = 171) in which men describe in rich detail the circumstances surrounding the conceptions of each of their children and characterize their fertility intentions. The authors find that “planned” and “unplanned” pregnancies are at either end of a continuum of intentionality and that the vast majority of pregnancies are in intermediate categories along that continuum.

Past child support research has largely focused on cash payments made through the courts (formal support) or given directly to the mother (informal support), almost to the exclusion of a third type: non-cash goods (in-kind support). Drawing on repeated, semistructured interviews with nearly 400 low-income noncustodial fathers, the authors found that in-kind support constitutes about one quarter of total support. Children in receipt of some in-kind support receive, on average, $60 per month worth of goods. Multilevel regression analyses demonstrated that children who are younger and have more hours of visitation, as well as those whose father has a high school education and no current substance abuse problem, receive in-kind support of greater value. Yet children whose fathers lack stable employment, or are Black, receive a greater proportion of their total support in kind. A subsequent qualitative analysis revealed that fathers' logic for providing in-kind support is primarily relational, and not financial.

The Moving To Opportunity randomized housing voucher demonstration finds virtually no significant effects on employment or earnings of adults. Using qualitative data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 67 participants in Baltimore, we find that although the voucher and control groups have similar rates of employment and earnings, respondents' relationship to the labor market does differ by program group. Our analysis suggests that the voucher group did not experience employment or earnings gains in part because of human capital barriers that existed prior to moving to a low-poverty neighborhood. In addition, employed respondents in all groups were heavily concentrated in retail and health care jobs. To secure or maintain employment, they relied heavily on a particular job search strategy - informal referrals from similarly skilled and credentialed acquaintances who already held jobs in these sectors. Though experimentals were more likely to have employed neighbors, few of their neighbors held jobs in these sectors and could not provide such referrals. Thus controls had an easier time garnering such referrals. Additionally, the configuration of the metropolitan area's public transportation routes in relationship to the locations of hospitals, nursing homes, and malls posed additional transportation challenges to experimentals as they searched for employment - challenges controls were less likely to face.

Have poor, unmarried mothers given up on marriage, as middle-class observers often conclude? To the contrary, most of the time they are simply waiting for the right partner and situation to make it work.

In 2002, the Gautreaux Two housing mobility program provided low‐income families living in Chicago public housing with the opportunity to move to more affluent, less racially isolated communities. This article presents findings on their complex search and moving process. Only about one‐third of enrolled families actually moved through the program ("leased‐up"). In‐depth interviews with a randomly chosen sample of 71 families and an additional 20 “likely mover” families showed that movers fell into four groups distinguished by personal characteristics that made it easier for them to move or by residence on Chicago's North Side. Nonmovers faced a variety of obstacles, both external (a tight rental market, discrimination, and bureaucratic delays) and internal (limited experience and program comprehension, large household size, and health problems). Also, some nonmovers were too busy with work or school to engage in what proved to be an onerous process of identifying a suitable unit and moving.

Summary Kathryn Edin and Joanna Reed review recent research on social and economic barriers to marriage among the poor and discuss the efficacy of efforts by federal and state policymakers to promote marriage among poor unmarried couples, especially those with children, in light of these findings. Social barriers include marital aspirations and expectations, norms about childbearing, financial standards for marriage, the quality of relationships, an aversion to divorce, and children by other partners. Edin and Reed note that disadvantaged men and women highly value marriage but believe they are currently unable to meet the high standards of relationship quality and financial stability they believe are necessary to sustain a marriage and avoid divorce. Despite their regard for marriage, however, poor Americans do not view it as a prerequisite for childbearing, and it is typical for either or both parents in an unmarried-couple family to have a child by another partner. Economic barriers include men’s low earnings, women’s earnings, and the marriage tax. In view of these findings, Edin and Reed argue that public campaigns to convince poor Americans of the value of marriage are preaching to the choir. Instead, campaigns should emphasize the benefits for children of living with both biological parents and stress the harmful effects for children of high-conflict parental relationships. Programs to improve relationship quality must address head-on the significant problems many couple face. Because disadvantaged men and women view some degree of financial stability as a prerequisite for marriage, policymakers must address the instability and low pay of the jobs they typically hold as well as devise ways to promote homeownership and other asset development to encourage marriage. Moreover, programs need to help couples meet the challenges of parenting families where children are some combination of his, hers, and theirs. Encouraging more low-income couples to marry without giving them tools to help their marriages thrive may simply increase the divorce rate.

Key Words: cohabitation, disadvantage, family formation, marriage, meaning, norms. Marriage is down, cohabitation is up, and the divorce rate remains high in the United States. Further, in 1950, only 1 in 20 births was to an unmarried woman, whereas today, more than a third of American children are born outside marriage. The number of gay and lesbian couples raising children together is also on the rise. These important demographic changes are evident in Canada, the United Kingdom, and in much of Western Europe as well. Each author in this print symposium documents the extent of these massive transformations in family life and speculates about what they mean for the future of marriage. The virtues of the articles in this issue far outweigh their shortcomings. Each demonstrates a commanding knowledge of the data on the magnitude of family changes and how they are arrayed across societies-and, in some cases, for various subgroups within societies. We see three ways in which scholars could build on these articles to expand our scientific understanding of these important trends. First, documenting changes in cohabitation and marriage for whole societies, though vital, often masks the substantial variations within societies by race/ethnicity and immigration status, social class, or other factors such as region or sexual orientation. Two articles in this volume focus on large and important variations in cohabitation and marriage by subgroups within the United States and Canada, and are a vivid testimony to the importance of studying subgroup differences. We advocate for more work in this vein, especially in the neglected area of social class. Differences by socioeconomic status in childbearing, cohabitation, and marriage behavior are often large, even controlling for characteristics such as race/ethnicity (Ellwood & Jencks, 2001). Second, researchers should pay more attention to parental status and how it affects attitudes and behaviors with regard to cohabitation and marriage. Third, following Max Weber (1949), we believe that human behavior cannot be fully understood unless social scientists understand the meanings that humans ascribe to their actions. Following Oropesa and Landale (2004), we advocate for qualitative research that allows us to "peek inside the 'black box'" in order to "identify the content of culture" (p. 914). The purpose of our article is fourfold. First, we want to explore the meanings of childbearing, cohabitation, and marriage for a specific subgroup in U.S. society-low-income residents of large cities-and to speculate about the role that these meanings may play in influencing the behaviors we observe. Second, we focus on unmarried parents who share children, and we look at how parental status plays a unique role in shaping views and actions with regard to cohabitation and marriage. Third, we aim to show, by example, how vital it is to understand the meanings that these men and women ascribe to their actions. Finally, as do the other authors in this volume, we speculate about what our findings may mean for the future of marriage. BACKGROUND Though nonmarital childbearing, nonmarriage, cohabitation, and divorce have increased in nearly all segments of American society, all are still most common in the low-income population and among members of some disadvantaged minority groups. In Huston and Melz's (2004) words, "among these groups, it would appear that the strings that pull people into marriage and bind them together have lost much of their fiber" (p. 947). In fact, among America's least advantaged citizens, nonmarital childbearing has become the rule (Ventura & Bachrach, 2000), and marriage just might eventually become the exception (Lichter & Graefe, 2001). This fact has led some to charge that America's poorest and most disadvantaged citizens have abandoned the institution of marriage altogether. Recently, though, a new longitudinal survey of nonmarital births has provided evidence that seems to counter these claims. …

Four years into the implementation of the 1996 federal welfare reform legislation, promising to “change welfare as we know it,” a critical question remains unanswered: How are formerly welfare-reliant families faring as they make the transition to work? Drawing on longitudinal, ethnographic data collected under the auspices of Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation's Project on Devolution and Urban Change, we examine changes in women's employment and income, and their families' well-being. This paper provides insights into how stable employment accompanied by increases in family income may improve family well-being. However, few families in the sample had income increases that were significant enough to change their material circumstances substantially. This paper also shows that not all families benefitted from the move to employment–those who had unstable, low wage jobs without much gain in income experienced fewer benefits than those who had stable employment. Sometimes families relying o...

Welfare reform and related policy changes have altered the context in which welfare-reliant women make choices about employment and family care. Using data from longitudinal qualitative interviews, we examined women's experiences of work-family tradeoffs and how they think their employment affected their children. Women identified multiple co-occurring costs and benefits of work for themselves and their children. Benefits included: increased income; increased self-esteem, feelings of independence, and social integration; and the ability to model work and self-sufficiency values for children. Costs included: working without increased income; overload, exhaustion, and stress; and less time and energy to be with, supervise, and support children. The relevance of these findings for family policy specialists and practitioners who work with low-income families is discussed. Key Words: child well-being, family, low-wage work, maternal employment, welfare reform, work-family. (Family Relations, 2004, 53, 148-158) The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA, P. L. 104-93) has fundamentally altered the context in which welfare-reliant women make decisions about labor force participation and family care. With the passage of the PRWORA, the federal government replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), imposed time limits on the receipt of federal cash assistance, reduced support for education and human capital development, and promoted self-sufficiency through work as a primary goal of welfare reform (see Pavetti, 2000 for a discussion of the early implementation of TANF programs). The "work-first" emphasis of this version of welfare reform occurred in tandem with a remarkable expansion of the economy and record low unemployment rates (Blank & Haskins, 2001; Card & Blank, 2000). Other policy changes specifically aimed to make work pay or indirectly support low-income workers by easing some of the burdens of poverty resulting from low-wage labor without benefits (Haskins & Primus, 2001). These policy changes occurred both within the welfare system (e.g., more generous earned income disregards, transitional medical and child care benefits for those who moved from welfare to work, and more stringent child support enforcement) and outside it (e.g., expanding the earned income tax credit, increasing the minimum wage, and developing the Child Health Insurance Program to reduce the prevalence of uninsured low-income children in the United States). Since 1996, there has been an unprecedented decline of 52.3% in the national welfare caseload, from 4.41 million families in August 1996 to 2.20 million families in September 2001 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2002). This decline occurred unevenly within states, resulting in an increased concentration of welfare recipients in cities (Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, 1999). Over the same period, a large increase in the number of women in mother-headed families who are employed in the formal labor market occurred. Although the poverty rate has declined among female-headed households with no husband present from 35.8% in 1996 to 27.9% in 2000 (Dalaker, 2001; Table 1), more than one-quarter of all American women who were heads of families still lived below the federal poverty line in 2000. Many others lived near poverty, within 185% of the poverty threshold. Looked at from the perspective of children, the child poverty rate in the United States declined from 18% to 16% from 1998 to 1999, yet 21% of children in poverty had at least one parent who was working full time (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2001). These labor force participation and poverty trends undoubtedly reflect an uncertain mix of influences emanating from the strong economy (now considerably weaker), welfare reform, and policy changes other than those related directly to welfare reform (Council of Economic Advisers, 1999; Ziliak, Figlio, Davis, & Connolly, 2000). …

There is a growing social class divide in the American family. While the most-educated couples are enjoying greater stability in family life than in previous decades, the opposite is true for those at the bottom of the distribution. For men, in particular, the least educated are more likely to become fathers in their early twenties, to have children outside of a marital bond with more than one partner, and to live apart from them. Interviews with low-income black and white fathers in Philadelphia and Camden, NJ reveal several important factors about this process. First, there is little partner search or selectivity regarding the woman who will become his child’s mother. Second, pregnancies happen quickly in the relationship and are by and large not intended, though not avoided either. Third, news of a pregnancy is usually greeted with enthusiasm and sparks a “fatherhood thirst” which leads to the attempt to solidify the couple’s relationship “for the sake of the baby.” Yet because of the fragility of the couple’s bond, the relationships rarely survive until the child turns five, and men find it increasingly hard to stay in contact with the child once the relationship ends. The fatherhood thirst remains unsatisfied, which may drive further childbearing with a new partner. Understanding this dynamic suggests several points of intervention for policymakers. First, we should do more to reduce early and unplanned childbearing among young men, targeting key features of the relationship formation process that lead to such outcomes. Second, in keeping with efforts of on-the-ground programs associated with the “responsible fatherhood movement,” policymakers should do more to keep unmarried fathers connected with children, including assuring that those who pay child support have a visitation agreement that is enforced. Policy should clearly signal that fathers’ potential contribution as parents, not just as paychecks, is valued.

Current theories of marriage under-predict the extent of non-marriage, have not been adequately tested, or do not apply well to women with low-socioeconomic status. Furthermore, scholarly research on marriage attitudes among low-SES women suffers from a lack of up-to-date qualitative work. This study draws on qualitative interviews with 292 low-income single' mothers in three U.S. cities. Inductive analysis reveals five primary motivations for non-marriage among low-income single mothers. Most mothers agree that potential marriage partners must earn significantly more than the minimum wage, but also emphasize the importance of stability of employment, source of earnings, and the effort men expend to find and keep their jobs. Mothers place equal or greater emphasis on non-monetary factors such as how marriage may diminish or enhance respectability, how it may limit their control over household decisions, their mistrust of men, and their fear of domestic violence. Affordability, respectability, and control have greater salience for African American mothers, while trust and domestic violence have greater salience for whites. The author discusses these findings in relation to existing theories of marriage and in light of welfare reform.

We examine the job aspirations of 80 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients in Cleveland and Philadelphia by drawing on data from in-depth, qualitative interviews conducted in 1997–98, well after the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was implemented but before time limits were reached. We show that these recipients view the work mandates they face as legitimate and express optimism regarding future work and earnings prospects. They also desire more education. Although their earnings expectations are high, respondents' occupational goals are relatively low, even among those with the most human capital. Furthermore, mothers say their vocational expectations reflect the urgency they feel about finding a job. We suggest that providing cash assistance while TANF recipients increase their human capital is critical for meeting the self-sufficiency goals of welfare reform.

As welfare reform unfolds, nonprofit social service agencies will increasingly be called upon to help fill the gap between what unskilled and semiskilled mothers can earn in the low‐wage labor market and what they need to meet their monthly expenses. This article draws on in‐depth interviews with low‐income single mothers and multiyear observational studies of two nonprofit social service agencies. Using these data, the authors show what kinds of resources these agencies provide low‐income single mothers, how mothers mobilize the resources available, to what degree agencies actually contribute to mothers’ cash and in‐kind resources, how agencies distribute their resources, and what effect agencies’ distribution practices have on these women. The analysis shows that although nonprofit social service agencies are a crucial part of many low‐income mothers’ economic survival strategies, they cannot come close to substituting for the eroding public safety net.

This report presents findings from the qualitative In-Depth Interview component of the SNAP Food Security (SNAPFS) study. The main SNAPFS study was conducted for the Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA from October 2011 through September 2012, and examined the effects of the program on food security for 6,436 SNAP households just entering the program and 3,275 households on SNAP for approximately six to seven months.

In recent years, policy-makers have argued that one method of reducing welfare dependency is to toughen up child support enforcement. Yet every government effort to do so has yielded meager results. Furthermore, experts predict that even when fully implemented, Congress's most recent effort to fix this system, the Family Support Act of 1988, will do little more to help most poor children to get child support from their fathers. These failures indicate that policy makers and social scientists must go much further in their efforts to understand how child support policy affects or fails to affect families. Data drawn from 214 AFDC mothers in four cities show that although welfare mothers are mandated by law to pursue child support in cooperation with their local Child Support Enforcement office, many mothers who want to remain on the welfare rolls but do not want to reveal the father's identity engage in what I call covert non-compliance—they pretend to comply, but in fact hide crucial identifying information from the authorities. These data show that those who engage in covert non-compliance have good reason for doing so. In their negotiations with the welfare system, child support officials, and their absent partners, welfare-reliant mothers act strategically to maximize their family's potential economic and social gains.

New census data on family living arrangements suggest that fewer fathers may be participating in their children’s lives than in any period since the United States began keeping reliable statistics. Many fathers disengage economically and emotionally with their children when they separate or divorce. This is particularly true of low-income fathers, many of whom have never been married to their child’s mother or have even lived in the same household. However, recent evidence from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study shows that the majority of unwed fathers-most of whom are low income-are very involved in their children’s lives early on. In fact, half live with the mothers when the child is born, and most provide economic support during pregnancy. Furthermore, when interviewed shortly after their child’s birth, most want to remain involved with the child and intend to continue their financial support (Carlson & McLanahan, 2001). Despite these good intentions, father involvement fades dramatically over time, and in the end, most of these children spend the majority of their childhood without the economic and emotional support of fathers.

Using quantitative data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, as well as qualitative data from an in-depth study of low-income fathers in Philadelphia, this chapter describes the characteristics of young adults who transition to parenthood before 25 and the family contexts into which their children are born. Most births to young adults occur outside of marriage, but unmarried parents typically rally around the birth of their child, claiming a commitment to making their relationships work. Yet, the responsibility of providing for a family of their own before they have achieved financial stability proves to be an enormous strain for most. Perhaps because the children of young adults are seldom explicitly planned, and because economic hardship and parenthood strain even the most committed relationships, young parents break up at higher rates than couples who delay childbearing. Young parents who break up with their partners do not remain single for very long, however, and quickly enter into new romantic relationships, many of which produce additional children. The churning of romantic partners, and the birth of additional children who result, create a complex web of economic obligations and negotiations that complicate paternal access to nonresident children, compromise maternal parenting, and create unstable family environments for young children.

Fatherhood has traditionally been viewed as part of a “package deal” in which a father’s relationship with his child is contingent on his relationship with the mother. We evaluate the accuracy of this hypothesis in light of the high rates of multiple-partner fertility among unmarried parents using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a recent longitudinal survey ofnonmarital births in large cities. We examine whether unmarried mothers’ and fathers’ subsequent relationship and parenting transitions are associated with declines in fathers ’ contact with their nonresident biological children. We find that father involvement drops sharply after relationships between unmarried parents end. Mothers’ transitions into new romantic partnerships and new parenting roles are associated with larger declines in involvement than fathers’ transitions. Declines in fathers’ involvement following a mother’s relationship or parenting transition are largest when children are young. We discuss the implications of our results for the well-being ofnonmarital children and the quality of nonmarital relationships faced with high levels of relationship instability and multiple-partner fertiliy.

In Chicago, 60 independent observers were hired to assess how well Census Bureau enumerators implemented procedures for the homeless count (S-Night) in one district office area (DOA). Within this DOA, they observed 29 of the 87 predesignated nighttime street enumeration sites. Observers saw enumerators in only one third of these sites. Those observers who saw enumerators reported that enumerators failed to follow procedure. As a result, observer estimates of the number of homeless persons at their site were substantially higher than enumerator estimates. Qualitative interviews with 18 homeless persons on the day following the count revealed that only five of 18 believed they had been counted

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that the black family was nearing “complete breakdown” due to high rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing. In subsequent decades, nonmarital childbearing rose dramatically for all racial groups and unwed fathers were often portrayed as being absent from their children's lives. The authors examine contemporary nonmarital father involvement using quantitative evidence from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and qualitative evidence from in-depth interviews with 150 unmarried fathers. The authors find that father involvement drops sharply after parents' relationships end, especially when they enter subsequent relationships and have children with new partners. These declines are less dramatic for African American fathers, suggesting that fathers' roles outside of conjugal relationships may be more strongly institutionalized in the black community. The challenges Moynihan described among black families some forty years ago now extend to a significant minority of all American children.

Much of the literature on the underclass alleges that welfare induces dependency. The author uses data from intensive interviews with 50 Chicago-area mothers on welfare to show that welfare pays too little to entice recipients into a life of passive dependence. The women interviewed all supplemented their AFDC and food stamp benefits with at least one of two sources of unreported income: assistance from family, friends, boyfriends, or absent fathers, and income from work

The 1996 welfare reform law called for profound changes in welfare policy, including a five-year time limit on federally funded cash assistance (known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF), stricter work requirements, and greater flexibility for states in designing and managing programs. The law's supporters hoped that it would spark innovation and reduce welfare use; critics feared that it would lead to cuts in benefits and to widespread suffering. Whether the reform succeeds or fails depends largely on what happens in big cities, where poverty and welfare receipt are most concentrated. This report - one of a series from MDRC's Project on Devolution and Urban Change - examines the specific ways in which reform unfolded in Philadelphia. The study uses field research, state records, surveys and ethnographic interviews of welfare recipients, and indicators of social and economic trends to assess TANF's implementation and effects. Because of the strong economy and ample funding for services in the late 1990s, the study captures welfare reform in the best of times but focuses on the poorest families and neighborhoods.