Urban Institute: Poverty and Safety Net

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10/04/10--22:00: Low-Income Hispanic Children Need both Private and Public Food Assistance (chan 1691489)

Families that use emergency food assistance often also get help from federal nutrition programs. Hispanic families less often receive help through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps) than families of other racial/ethnic groups placing them at greater nutritional risk. Families that do not receive SNAP benefits often think that their income, assets or citizenship status makes them ineligible. The broad use of food banks and pantries among low-income families with children demonstrates unmet nutritional needs and confirms that enhancements to the federal nutrition safety net are needed.


10/04/10--22:00: Emergency Food Assistance Helps Many Low-Income Hispanic Children (chan 1691489)

In 2009, nearly 1 in every 5 children in the United States lived in families that used emergency food assistance through Feeding America, the nation's largest organization of emergency food providers. Higher shares of Hispanic and black children used emergency food assistance than white children, reflecting their higher rates of poverty. While the majority of families using emergency food assistance also accessed at least one of the federal nutrition assistance programs, only one in four received food stamps. The high demand for private food assistance demonstrates the extreme need in 2009 caused by high unemployment and poverty.


11/08/10--21:00: Welfare Rules Databook: State TANF Policies as of July 2009 (chan 1691489)

The Welfare Rules Databook, provides tables containing key Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) policies for each state as of July 2009, as well as longitudinal tables describing selected state policies from 1996 through 2009. 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, available at http://anfdata.urban.org/wrd.


11/22/10--21:00: Nutrition Assistance for Older Adults (chan 1691489)

While a surprisingly small share of low-income older adults receives government nutrition assistance, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) and Meals on Wheels (MOW) home delivery program provide important food assistance to them. During 2007 and 2008, about 2 in 10 low-income older adults received assistance from one of these programs; only 1 percent reported getting help from both. Receipt of SNAP declines with age and receipt of MOW rises with age, indicating that these programs tend to complement each other.


12/01/10--21:00: Supplemental Security Income for the Second Decade (chan 1691489)

Supplemental Security Income is an odd combination of income support for families with disabled children, disabled working-age adults, and elderly persons. The program faces challenges on three fronts. Payments for children bear little relationship to family need or costs. State efforts to promote transition of children and adults from TANF to SSI appear driven by fiscal considerations. Measuring the impact of poverty among the elderly is hampered by underreporting of benefits in survey data. This paper argues that SSI serves important purposes, but that the target populations might be served best by gradual decoupling or improved integration with other programs.


12/12/10--21:00: Swimming Upstream: Improving Access to Indigent Health Care in the Midst of Major Economic Challenges (chan 1691489)

An evaluation of San Mateo County's comprehensive health system redesign initiative finds notable improvements in access to high quality patient care for formerly uninsured adults. For example, the percent of such individuals having a usual source of care rose from 42.5 to 91.2 percent with the initiative. The initiative met with success despite mounting fiscal challenges associated with the economic recession and state budget crisis threatening the county's ability to support these innovations. The county's efforts offer lessons for local and national policymakers, program administrators, and providers about how progress is possible despite severe financial obstacles.


12/16/10--21:00: Child Support Plays an Increasingly Important Role for Poor Custodial Families (chan 1691489)

The child support program has become a critical public program for children, serving 17 million children, representing nearly one in four children in the United States. Among social welfare programs, only the Medicaid program serves more children. It is also an important source of income for poor families, lifting a million people from poverty in 2008. This brief describes the role of child support in reducing poverty and shows how poor custodial families have become more reliant upon child support.


12/26/10--21:00: Child Care Instability: Definitions, Context, and Policy Implications (chan 1691489)

Child care instability affects children's development, parent's employment, and family stability. This paper describes why it matters, discusses definitional and measurement challenges, provides a framework to examine links between instability in child care and family domains, and examines the causes of instability (including child care subsidy policy and practice). Findings suggest that policies supporting stability in child care could interrupt the cascading effect of instability in other domains. Policy strategies to improve the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF)/Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), such as funding, voucher flexibility, eligibility, quality of care, and referral systems, are examined.


01/23/11--21:00: Can Savings Help Overcome Income Instability? (chan 1691489)

Savings can help low-income households cope with income Instability and unexpected expenses, according to new evidence presented here. For households with nonelderly heads in the lowest income quintile, modest holdings of liquid assets (amounts up to $1,999) can significantly reduce the probability of hardships with health care, housing payments, food security, utility and phone bills, and basic consumption. Programs to promote saving can help low-income households protect themselves from economic shocks, as income variability, in addition to low income, increases risk of such hardships.


02/02/11--21:00: Poverty Among Older Americans, 2009 (chan 1691489)

About one in three Americans age 65 or older lived in low-income families in 2009, including 8.9 percent in poverty. Poverty rates were much higher among those who did not complete high school, lived alone, or had poor health. This data brief reports how poverty and near-poverty rates among older Americans in 2009 varied by demographics, living arrangements, and health status; shows that poverty and near poverty among seniors declined between 2007 and 2009; and describes income sources for poor and non-poor seniors.


02/15/11--21:00: Thirteen Ways of Looking at Poverty (chan 1691489)

This factsheet presents a quick overview of recent cross-cutting Urban Institute research on poverty, including 13 key points on poverty's effects on immigration, health care, children, infants with depressed mothers, employment, assets, and neighborhoods. One in an occasional series of "Thirteen Ways" factsheets.


02/23/11--21:00: Prohibitions, Price Caps, and Disclosures: A Look at State Policies and Alternative Financial Product Use (chan 1691489)

Using new nationally representative data from the National Financial Capability State-by-State Survey, this paper examines the relationship between state-level alternative financial service (AFS) policies (prohibitions, price caps, disclosures) and consumer use of five AFS products: payday loans, auto title loans, pawn broker loans, RALs, and RTO transactions. The results suggest that more stringent price caps and prohibitions are associated with lower product use and do not support the hypothesis that prohibitions and price caps on one AFS product lead consumers to use other AFS products.


02/23/11--21:00: Assessing the Evidence about Work Support Benefits and Low-Income Families (chan 1691489)

For low-income working parents, benefits received through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid, and child care subsidies provide vital work support. Access to these programs has been restricted, however, by barriers relating to federal and state funding, program policy, and administrative process, complicating program enrollment and benefit retention. As a result, many low-income working families do not receive the multi-program benefits for which they are eligible. This paper provides a strong rationale for the Work Support Strategies demonstration, enabling selected states to design, implement, and evaluate modernization strategies to dramatically improve families' access to a package of work support benefits.


02/23/11--21:00: Nine States Chosen to be Laboratories Testing Inventive Ways to Streamline Services for Low-Income Working Families (chan 1691489)

In a major effort to tap and foster state capital ingenuity, the Urban Institute has selected nine states to receive $250,000 each in planning grants as part of a five-year initiative with lead funding from the Ford Foundation. Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and South Carolina were chosen for first-year grants to test inventive ways to streamline services for low-income working families.


02/23/11--21:00: Who Needs Credit at Tax Time and Why: A Look at Refund Anticipation Loans and Refund Anticipation Checks (chan 1691489)

Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs) and Checks (RACs) are controversial financial products used by one in seven tax filers. This report presents findings on many of the most important individual and geographical characteristics influencing RAL/RAC use, as well as, insights about product use from tax preparers, RAL/RAC lenders, RAL/RAC tax form software developers, low-cost RAL lenders, and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program sites. The results suggest that factors such as lack of interest income, geographic location, EITC receipt, filing as a head-of-household, income, and living in a poor neighborhood, each independently contributes strongly to RAL/RAC use.


02/23/11--21:00: Summary on Developing a Research Agenda on Small-Dollar Credit and Financial Empowerment (chan 1691489)

The U.S. Department of the Treasury gathered 50 foundation representatives and researchers from academia, government, the nonprofit sector, and industry to participate in the convening Developing a Research Agenda on Small-Dollar Credit and Financial Empowerment.This summary provides key insights from the one-day event including discussions on both the demand for and supply of small-dollar credit and what participants identified as research needed to inform policymaking in order to address the challenges related to meeting the small-dollar credit needs of underserved populations, notably low- and moderate-income individuals.


02/24/11--21:00: For Working Poor, Tax Season Brings Rush to Use Refund Anticipation Loans and Checks (chan 1691489)

Nearly one in five tax filers getting a refund this tax season, many of whom number among the working poor, are expected to use a refund anticipation loan (RAL) or refund anticipation check (RAC), a new Urban Institute study estimates. A related study investigates how state regulations affect consumer use of payday loans, auto title loans, pawnbroker loans, RALs, and rent-to-own transactions.


03/01/11--21:00: Partnering with Employers to Promote Job Advancement for Low-Skill Individuals (chan 1691489)

This paper explores the reasons why employer partnerships are important for improving economic outcomes for both low-skill workers and businesses. It identifies the factors that have hindered the growth of these partnerships as well as promising approaches-incumbent worker training and sectoral training-to build partnerships. It concludes with a discussion of policy considerations for creating and sustaining partnerships with employers to provide skill development opportunities.


03/14/11--22:00: Nonprofit-Government Contracting in the Nation's Capital: Challenges and Opportunities (chan 1691489)

Findings from the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropys National Survey of Nonprofit-Government Contracting and Grants show that a majority of human service organizations in Washington, D.C. are struggling due in part to challenges posed by working with the government in providing programs and services to District residents. At a forum of nonprofit leaders and government representatives, participants confirmed the studys findings, shed light on issues unique to the city, and proposed initial recommendations to address some contracting challenges.


03/17/11--22:00: How to Evaluate Choice and Promise Neighborhoods (chan 1691489)

Living in concentrated poverty stifles the life chances of adults and children. Efforts to transform neighborhoods of extreme poverty into places of opportunity must grapple with concentrated disadvantages including distressed housing, failing schools, joblessness, poor health, and violence. Two federal initiatives seeking to address neighborhood deficiencies simultaneously are the Department of Education's Promise Neighborhoods effort and the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Choice Neighborhoods program. Evaluating these efforts presents many methodological challenges. This brief provides a framework for designing evaluations of Choice and Promise Neighborhoods including key research questions, different research approaches, and components of an evaluation strategy.