American Non-Governmental Social Research Links (II)

TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families)
TANF is due for reauthorization by the end of 2010. Urban Institute experts examine the effectiveness of TANF and provide evidence for future policy decisions.

Definition of TANF:
A federal block grant to states, territories and tribes to cover benefits, administration and services targeted to needy families with children. TANF emphasizes self sufficiency through work participation requirements, benefit time limits, and initiatives to encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.

Source:
The Urban Institute
The Urban Institute gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues — to foster sound public policy and effective government.

The Canadian equivalent to TANF is the Canada Social Transfer.
Not really, though, because state welfare programs under TANF are quite different from those in Canada in terms of benefit levels, clientele, terms and conditions of welfare (max. 5 yrs in a lifetime) and much more. Read the blurb that I wrote to accompany the link to Eighth Annual Report on TANF to Congress (June 2009) for just a few reasons why the American welfare system shouldn't be compared with Canadian welfare programs.

Welfare Leavers in Colorado (PDF - 726K 87 pages)
Prepared by Sam Elkin et al
For the Colorado Department of Human Services
July 31, 2009

Selected key findings
The good news:
Only about one in ten individuals who stopped receiving cash assistance through Colorado Works returned to welfare.
The bad news:
Fifty-nine percent of leavers were receiving food stamps; about one-third were receiving some form of housing assistance; almost half of childless leavers had no public health insurance coverage (although 3/4 of parents had coverage for their kids)
Related link:
Colorado Department of Human Services
Source:
The Lewin Group
The Lewin Group is an Ingenix company. Ingenix, a wholly-owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, was founded in 1996 to develop, acquire and integrate the world's best-in-class health care information technology capabilities. The Lewin Group operates with editorial independence and provides its clients with the very best expert and impartial health care and human services policy research and consulting services.

Welfare Time Limits: An Update on
State Policies, Implementation, and Effects on Families (PDF - 1.3MB, 231 pages)
Prepared by Mary Farrell et al
For the U.S. Govt. Administration for Children and Families
April 2008
One of the most controversial features of the 1990s welfare reforms was the imposition of time limits on benefit receipt. The law prohibits states from using federal TANF funds to assist most families for more than 60 months. Under contract to the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Lewin and MDRC conducted a comprehensive review of what has been learned about time limits. The review, which updates a 2002 study, includes analysis of administrative data reported by states to ACF, visits to several states, and a literature review. Key findings include the following: time-limit policies vary dramatically from state to state; nationally, at least a quarter million TANF cases have been closed due to reaching a time limit since 1996, although about one-third of these closures have occurred in New York, which continues to provide assistance through a state and locally funded program; and many of the families whose TANF cases were closed due to time limits are struggling financially and report being worse off than they were while on welfare.
Related link:
Administration for Children and Families
[ U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services ]

Income Gaps Between Very Rich and Everyone Else
More Than Tripled In Last Three Decades, New Data Show
By Arloc Sherman and Chad Stone
June 25, 2010
HTML version
PDF version (516K, 7 pages)
The gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007 (the period for which these data are available), according to recent data from the Congressional Budget Office. Taken together with prior research, the new data suggest greater income concentration at the top of the income scale than at any time since 1928.

Top 1% Leaving Others in the Dust
June 25, 2010
After-tax incomes nearly quadrupled for the top 1 percent of Americans in the last three decades, while barely rising among middle- and lower-income households, according to new data from the Congressional Budget Office.
(...) The new CBO data — the most comprehensive numbers available on income inequality — only go through 2007, so they don’t show the impact of the recession and the stock market plunge. These events may have reduced inequality somewhat by shrinking incomes the most at the top, as the bursting of the dot.com bubble did a decade ago

Source:
Off the Charts Blog
[ Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ]
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy organization working at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals.

Top 1% Increased Their Share of Wealth in Financial Crisis
April 30, 2010
By Robert Frank
Many economists and journalists, myself included, assumed inequality would decline during the global financial crisis. The rich tend to be the bi-polars of the economy, reaping the most when times are good and losing the most (on a percentage basis) during busts. (...) New calculations by Edward Wolff, the New York University economist and an expert on U.S. wealth statistics, show that the top 1% actually held onto its share of national wealth in the crisis, and may have even gained a bit.
Source:
The Wealth Report

Barely Hanging On: Middle-Class and Uninsured (PDF - 512K, 10 pages)
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/58034.pdf
In recent times, the ability of middle-class persons to secure adequate health care insurance has been compromised by a number of factors. These are the findings of a report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released in March 2010. The work chronicles state-by-state health coverage trends since 1999, and it was prepared by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) at the University of Minnesota. The report notes that the total number of uninsured, middle-class people increased by more than 2 million since 2000 and that the average employee's cost for health insurance rose 81 percent from 2000 to 2008. Visitors can peruse the 10-page report's various charts and tables at their leisure, and the report is of particular interest to those in the fields of public health and health care management.
Reviewed by:
The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2010.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The mission of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is to improve the health and health care of all Americans. Our goal is clear: To help Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need.

State Health Access Data Assistance Center
The University of Minnesota's State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) is funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help states monitor rates of health insurance coverage and to understand factors associated with uninsurance.

THE SAFETY NET:
Once Stigmatized, Food Stamps Find Acceptance
By Jason Deparle and Robert Gebeloff
February 10, 2010
A decade ago, New York City officials were so reluctant to give out food stamps, they made people register one day and return the next just to get an application. The welfare commissioner said the program caused dependency and the poor were “better off” without it.
Source:
The New York Times

The Safety Net
(series of feature articles on poverty in New York)
With millions of jobs lost and major industries on the ropes, America’s array of government aid — including unemployment insurance, food stamps and cash welfare — is being tested as never before. This series examines how the safety net is holding up under the worst economic crisis in decades.

More NY Times articles - this link takes you further down on the page you're now reading

NOTE: each of the the links below will take you to the abstract of a particular report or study.
On the abstract page, you'll find a link to the full report in PDF format and links to related publications
of the Urban Institute and to other publications by each of the authors.

Work Ability and the Social Insurance Safety Net in the Years Prior to Retirement (Research Report)
By Richard W. Johnson, Melissa Favreault, Corina Mommaerts
January 2010
Questions persist about how well Social Security Disability Insurance, workers' compensation, Supplemental Security Income, and veterans' benefits protect people who are unable to work. This study examines disability benefit receipt, income, and poverty status for a sample of Americans as they age. The results underscore the precarious financial state of most people approaching traditional retirement age with disabilities. Fewer than half of people who meet our disability criteria ever receive disability benefits in their fifties or early sixties. Poverty rates for those who do are more than three times as high after benefit receipt than before disability onset.

Social Security Retirement Benefit Awards Hit All-Time High in 2009 (Fact Sheet / Data at a Glance)
By Richard W. Johnson, Corina Mommaerts
January 2010
Record numbers of older men and women began collecting Social Security benefits in 2009. New awards surged last year partly because the age-62 population grew rapidly. More importantly, older Americans were much more likely to claim Social Security in 2009 than recent previous years, probably because many seniors were unable to find work. Social Security benefits provide an important safety net for unemployed older adults, but early claimants receive permanently reduced benefits, threatening their future economic well-being.

Public Expenditures on Children through 2008 (Fact Sheet / Data at a Glance)
By Jennifer Ehrle Macomber, Julia Isaacs, Adam Kent, Tracy Vericker
January 2010
Key facts are highlighted from several Urban Institute and Brookings Institution reports on public expenditures on children through 2008. Findings reveal that spending on children increased under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and other stimulus spending, but not proportionately to other federal spending. As ARRA expires, spending on children is projected to decline, assuming no change in current policies. Results also show that states and localities spent more money than the federal government did on children in 2004, except when it came to the youngest children, and that overall public investment (local, state, and federal) increases as children get older.

Kids' Share: An Analysis of Federal Expenditures on Children through 2008 (Research Report)
By Julia Isaacs, Tracy Vericker, Jennifer Ehrle Macomber, Adam Kent
December 09, 2009
The third annual report looks comprehensively at trends in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. Key findings suggest that historically children have not been a budget priority. In 2008, this trend continued, as children's spending accounted for less than one-tenth of federal outlays. Absent a policy change, children's spending will continue to be squeezed in the next decade.

Data Appendix to
Kids' Share: An Analysis
of Federal Expenditures on Children through 2008 (Research Report)
December 29, 2009
By Adam Kent, Tracy Vericker, Julia Isaacs, Jennifer Ehrle Macomber
Kids' Share: An Analysis of Federal Expenditures on Children through 2008, a third annual report, looks comprehensively at trends in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. This appendix details our data sources, the programs we include, and the methodology used to estimate the percentage of all expenditures that went to children.

Work and Income Security from 1970 to 2005 (Discussion Papers/Low Income Working Families)
By Gregory Acs, Seth Zimmerman
December 01, 2009
This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to assess how the economic security and mobility of nonelderly adults in families with children has evolved from 1970 through 2005. We find that that for individuals in low-income families with a full-time, full-year worker, both economic security and upward mobility increased over time. Our findings underscore the importance of work for the long-term security and mobility of low-income families. The high and rising unemployment rates of 2009 clearly imperil the progress made during the last three decades of the 20th century.

How Well Have Middle Class American Families Accumulated Wealth? (Article/Opportunity and Ownership Facts)
By Robert I. Lerman
November 30, 2009
Many commentators have worried about the low savings rates and high debt levels of American families. Does this picture of unbridled consumption and low asset accumulation fit the American family? Did declines in 2008-2009 house prices, stocks, and bonds reinforce stagnating wealth or offset previous growth in wealth? Using data from the 1989, 1998, and 2007 Surveys of Consumer Finances (SCF) to replicate family experiences over the life cycle by following age cohorts, this fact sheet shows that from 1989 to 2007 American families were accumulating wealth at a healthy rate as individuals and families moved through their life cycle.

Unemployment Statistics on Older Americans - Updated January 2010 (Statistics)
By Richard W. Johnson, Corina Mommaerts
The recession has increased joblessness among older Americans. These graphs and tables report unemployment rates and how they have varied by age, sex, race, and education since 2007.

Retirement Account Balances - Updated January 2010 (Fact Sheet / Data at a Glance)
Barbara Butrica, Philip Issa
The retirement savings of American households took a big hit when the stock market crashed in 2008. Recently, however, a good portion of these losses has been reversed. This fact sheet follows trends in retirement account balances since the beginning of 2005.

A New Safety Net for Low-Income Families
July 2008
America’s low-income working families are struggling to get by, too often forced to make impossible choices among food, housing, and health care.. Government safety nets were reformed in the mid-1990s with the promise that work would pay. But that promise remains unfulfilled for many families. These essays explore the challenges these vulnerable households face and suggest ways to protect them and help them thrive—urgent goals with far-reaching benefits for our children, our families, and our economic future.
[Click the link above to read abstracts of any of the essays below, then click the PDF link to access each essay.]
* A New Safety Net for Low-Income Families
* Making Work Pay Enough: A Decent Standard of Living for Working Families
* Making Work Pay II: Comprehensive Health Insurance for Low-Income Working Families
* Family Security: Supporting Parents' Employment and Children's Development
* Helping Poor Working Parents Get Ahead: Federal Funds for New State Strategies and Systems
* Supporting Work for Low-Income People with Significant Challenges
* Weathering Job Loss: Unemployment Insurance
* Enabling Families to Weather Emergencies and Develop: The Role of Assets (New Safety Net Paper 7) by Signe-Mary McKernan and Caroline Ratcliffe

Source:
Low-Income Working Families
...a project of:
The Urban Institute
The Urban Institute gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues — to foster sound public policy and effective government.

Going Dutch
How I learned to Love the European Welfare State
[taxation and social benefits in Holland]
By Russell Shorto
April 29, 2009
[An American expatriate's thoughts on Holland's 52% income tax rate and its health and social benefits]
"(...) Maybe we Americans have set up a false dichotomy. Over the course of the 20th century, American politics became entrenched in two positions, which remain fixed in many minds: the old left-wing idea of vast and direct government control of social welfare, and the right-wing determination to dismantle any advances toward it, privatize the system and leave people to their own devices. In Europe, meanwhile, the postwar cradle-to-grave idea of a welfare state gave way in the past few decades to some quite sophisticated mixing of public and private. And whether in health care, housing or the pension system (there actually is still a thriving pension system in the Netherlands, which covers about 80 percent of workers), the Dutch have proved to be particularly skilled at finding mixes that work."

Making Work Pay : How to Design and Implement Financial Work Supports
to Improve Family and Child Well-Being and Reduce Poverty (Overview)
2002 How-To Guide Series
"When Congress reauthorizes the nation’s welfare policy in 2003, it is likely to require even more recipients to work and require them to work more hours per week. The use of the policies described in this guide can help states meet the new goals as well as reduce poverty and benefit children. Although most states are suffering severe budget shortfalls as this guide is published, Making Work Pay discusses ways to make earning supplements more efficient and less costly."
Full report (PDF file - 320K, 77 pages)

Leavers, Stayers, and Cyclers:An Analysis of the Welfare Caseload
November 2002
Summary
Full Report (PDF file - 210K, 68 pages)

NOTE: In Canada, only British Columbia has a time limit on welfare entitlement.
And it's toothless.

See the official blurb:
Time Limits : BC Employment and Assistance - brochure (eff. April 2002)
British Columbia's welfare time limits policy
Source : BC Ministry of Human Resources

Read about the context, history and ignominious end of this reprehensible experiment:

Go to the BC Welfare Time Limits Links page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/bc_welfare_time_limits.htm

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies : Moving People from Welfare to Work
Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS)
July 2002
"(...)The NEWWS programs generally did not increase income or reduce poverty. Indeed, some of the more disadvantaged program enrollees were made worse off financially."

Welfare Time Limits : State Policies, Implementation, and Effects on Families
July 2002
"[...]Time limits became a highly contentious issue in the debate about the 1996 federal welfare reform law, which imposed a 60-month lifetime cap on federal cash assistance but gave states broad flexibility to design time-limit policies. (...) Drawing from a survey of all 50 state welfare agencies, Welfare Time Limits shows that, to date, relatively few families have reached the federal time limit. A larger number of families have reached state time limits of fewer than 60 months, but many of the families who encountered these shorter limits were granted extensions. The report documents wide variations in states' implementation of the time limit and underscores how the strong economy of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which created job opportunities and filled state coffers, helped avert the limit's potential adverse fallout.]"
Overview
Executive Summary
Full Report (PDF file - 1769K, 205pages)

What Works in Welfare Reform: Evidence and Lessons to Guide TANF Reauthorization (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families)
June 14, 2002
"...brings together findings from 17 recent MDRC evaluations of welfare reform programs covering nearly a dozen years of field studies in a one-stop guide to the issues at the heart of the reauthorization debate. This guide explains how the three key welfare policy approaches - employment mandates, work incentives, and time limits - have affected poor families and government budgets. Readers will find evidence and analysis that raise implications for America's next welfare reform agenda."

How Welfare and Work Policies for Parents Affect Adolescents : A Synthesis of Research
May 2002
Overview
Full Report (PDF file - 1878K, 145 pages)

Mathematica
For more than 35 years, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., has been known for its high-quality, objective research to support decisions about our nation's most pressing social policy problems. The firm has conducted some of the most important studies of health care, welfare, education, employment, nutrition, and early childhood policies and programs in the United States. This research, which crisscrosses the human life span from children's health and welfare to long-term care for elderly people, provides a sound foundation for decisions that affect the well-being of Americans.
- incl. links to : Education - Labor - Health - Disability - Welfare - Nutrition - Early Childhood - Surveys

News from Mathematica:
A Semimonthly Update on New Publications, Presentations, and Other Developments
October 10, 2006
In This Issue:
(click the link above to access the articles below)
* TANF at 10: A Look at Policies in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania
* Medicare Advantage: Changes in the Market in 2006
* Two New Briefs Released on Special Care for Special Kids:
—Profile of Those Enrolled in Commercial Plans
—Prescription Drug Costs for Children in These Plans
*Beyond Test Scores: New Brief Looks at Student Competencies
* Career Opportunities at Mathematica
Source:
Mathematica

News From Mathematica
A Semi-monthly Update on New Publications, Presentations, and Other Developments
- June 28, 2006
In this Issue: Welfare-to-Work Resources
In light of changes being made at the federal level to welfare-to-work requirements, this issue reviews recent publications by Mathematica staff that can inform related discussions.
- incl. Employment-Related Issues - Hard to Employ - Strengthening Families - Fatherhood - Child Care - Housing, Sanctions, and Other Topics

Related links:

SiCKO - the official movie website

MichaelMoore.com - includes "SiCKO Factual Backup"

SiCKO - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Motherjones.com - News and Resources for the Skeptical Citizen
- Mother Jones 400 (March 5, 2001) --- Using data from the Federal Election Commission which was compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), Mother Jones has put together an eye-opening Website which reveals the nation's top 400 financial political contributors and what they may be expecting for their contributions.
Source : Excerpt from a review by The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2002

Mystifying Data: Can America's Promise Get Away with It?
July 1999
From Energize, Inc. - "especially for leaders of volunteers"

Moving Ideas (U.S.)
News and Resources from the Policy Action Network (formerly the Electronic Policy Network)
"The Policy Action Network is dedicated to explaining and popularizing complex policy ideas to a broader audience. Our goal is to improve collaboration and dialogue between policy and grassroots organizations, and to promote their work to journalists and legislators. (...) Moving Ideas posts the best ideas and resources from leading progressive research and advocacy institutions, as well as promotes high-quality websites and publishes original content. We hope to strengthen democratic participation by providing a more inclusive and intelligible debate about the issues that shape our world."
Link Library - large collection of annotated links under the following categories : Alternative News Sources - Building Democracy - Criminal Justice - The Economy - Education - Energy and the Environment - Families, Children, and Youth - Foreign Policy and Defense - Gay Issues - Gender - Globalization, Immigration, and Trade - Health Care Policy - International Policy Resources - Media Old & New - Poverty, Income, and Wealth - Public Policy Programs & Political Science Departments - Race - Rights and Liberties - Science and Culture - Social Security and Aging - Welfare & Families - Working America - Urban Issues/Livable Cities.

Sample content:

Welfare Wars: In Brief
"Those who support the welfare reform law have pointed to the more than 50 percent reduction in the welfare rolls -- from 12.2 million in 1996 to 5.5 million in March 2001. But many of the families leaving welfare aren't leaving poverty. In 1999, 41 percent of former welfare recipients were poor, and 64 percent of parents who had left welfare for work found themselves struggling to support their families on a median hourly wage of $7.15."
Source : Shaping the Debate

From MyWay (U.S. News portal):

[U.S.] Welfare State Growing Despite Overhauls
February 26, 2007
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
WASHINGTON (AP) - The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid. The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees. (...) Critics of the welfare overhaul say the numbers offer fresh evidence that few former recipients have become self-sufficient, even though millions have moved from welfare to work. They say the vast majority have been forced into low-paying jobs without benefits and few opportunities to advance. (...) In 2005, about 5.1 million people received monthly welfare payments from TANF and similar state programs, a 60 percent drop from a decade before. But other government programs grew, offsetting the declines. About 44 million people - nearly one in six in the country - relied on government services for the poor in 2003, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the Census Bureau. That compares with about 39 million in 1996. Also, the number of people getting government aid continues to increase, according to more recent enrollment figures from individual programs. Medicaid rolls alone topped 45 million people in 2005, pushed up in part by rising health care costs and fewer employers offering benefits. Nearly 26 million people a month received food stamps that year. Cash welfare recipients, by comparison, peaked at 14.2 million people in 1994.

Related links:

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program - Fact Sheet - brief summary of TANF
TANF Seventh Annual Report to Congress (December 2006) - data about welfare caseloads, family employment and earnings, marriage and two-parent families, out-of-wedlock births, and State policy choices
TANF statute:
H.R. 3734 - Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
TANF final regulations:
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF); Final Rule
Policy Q's and A's
Policy documents - incl. policy announcements, program instructions and information memoranda
Medicaid
Food stamp program
Supplemental Security Income

----

First Nationwide Estimate of Homeless Population in a Decade Announced:
Approximately 744,313 people homeless on a single night.
News Release
January 11, 2007
Washington—There were 744,313 people homeless in January 2005 according to Homelessness Counts, the first national assessment of the number of homeless people in over a decade. The report was released today by the Homelessness Research Institute of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. This estimate, a compilation of point-in-time counts collected by local Continuums of Care, provides data on every state and community in the country.

Complete report:

Homelessness Counts (PDF | 1.51 MB | 48 pages)
Homelessness Counts-Appendix B Methodology Supplement (PDF | 84 KB | 2 pages)
Homelessness Counts-Appendix B Supplement 1 (PDF | 93 KB | 48 pages)
Homelessness Counts-Appendix B Supplement 2 (PDF | 79 KB | 20 pages)

Related links:

Canada:
U.S. Tops in the World in Incarceration Rate: Conservatives Hoping to Catch Up
By Brian Gordon
February 4, 2008
The United States has more people in prison, per capita, than any other country in the world. More than China, more than Iran, more than oppressive dictatorships the world over. And this is the model that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives want to follow by implementing 'tougher' drug laws.
Source:
Green Party of Canada

Adult and youth correctional services in Canada : Key indicators, 2005/2006
November 21, 2007
Canada's incarceration rate tends to be higher than most western European countries, yet far lower than that of the United States. For instance, Sweden posted an incarceration rate of 82 and France a rate of 85 per 100,000 population in 2005/2006. By comparison, the incarceration rate in Canada 110 prisoners per 100,000 population, England and Wales was 148, and in the United States the adult rate stood at 738 (the United States excludes youth from its rate).
Source:
Crime and Justice Statistics
[ Statistics Canada ]

International:
World Prison Population List (Seventh Edition) (PDF file - 80K, 6 pages)
January 2007
Source:
King's College, London

Pew Center on the States: Special Report on Medicaid 2006
Bridging the Gap Between Care and Cost (U.S.)
January 2006
This special report on Medicaid, by the Pew Center on the States, seeks to analyze the real-world experiences of states, highlight examples of what works and what doesn't, and inform a crucial policy debate that will affect the lives of millions of Americans.
- incl. links to the Complete report (PDF file - 292K, 24 pages) and to a table of contents (copied below) with links to the individual chapters in HTML.
Table of contents:
Overview
* The Great Debate Medicaid in the eye of the storm
* The Challenge of Change Balancing cost controls with the health of millions
The States at Work
* Long-term care Medicaid's Third Rail
* Prescription drugs The Rx Factor: Controlling prescription drug costs
* Technology The Great eHealth Hope: How technology can help
* Cost sharing Something of Value: Experiments in cost sharing
* Management Tools to Live By: Managing for better performance
* Private insurance Trading Places: Tapping into private insurance
* Reform The Radical Reformers: A new approach
* About the Report
* Related Resources - Links to over 800 reports from the 50 states pertaining to Medicaid and related health issues. These reports were published in 2004 and 2005 and come from many different sources, including auditors, legislatures, a wide variety of state agencies and research organizations. Resources can be browsed by state or topic.

News Release:

Pew Center on the States Examines State Innovation in Medicaid Policy
January 1, 2006
(Philadelphia, PA) - All 50 states are experimenting with new ways to try to rein in Medicaid costs. While these approaches may save money, they could limit the program's capacity to provide vital health care to the nearly 60 million Americans who depend on it. Which reforms have been most effective? What may be the unintended consequences of reforms to Medicaid? The Pew Center on the States, a division of The Pew Charitable Trusts, today issued its first state policy report, Special Report on Medicaid: Bridging the Gap Between Care and Cost, which analyzes how state Medicaid programs are wrestling with rising costs and highlights examples of which innovations are working, which are not, and why.

PBS

Waging a Living, a documentary film about low-wage earners (the "working poor") in the U.S. by Robert Weisberg
(Check your local PBS listings)
"The term "working poor" should be an oxymoron. If you work full time, you should not be poor, but more than 30 million Americans - one in four workers - are stuck in jobs that do not pay the basics for a decent life. Waging a Living chronicles the day-to-day battles of four low-wage earners fighting to lift their families out of poverty."

TIP: check out the Resources link --- incl. What is a living wage? - Online discussion area - Download a podcast interview with Barbara Ehrenreich - Get updates on the people in the film - Listen to the filmmaker interview podcast.

Source:
P.O.V. (a cinema term for "point of view") --- television's longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films"
[ PBS ]

Is Wal-Mart Good for America?
"They're rolling back prices, rolling back the competition, and rolling jobs overseas..."
November 16, 2004
- incl. links to : introduction + secrets of wal-mart's success + transforming america + china connection + interviews - producer's notebook + american radio work's companion reports + join the discussion + correspondent's chat
teacher's guide + press reaction + tapes & transcripts + credits

Wal-Mart at a Glance
- stats and facts that capture Wal-Mart's size and scale:
* 100 million: The number of people who shop at Wal-Mart's 3400 American stores every week.
* 1.2 million: The number of Wal-Mart associates in the U.S. Any full- or part-time Wal-Mart employee, up to and including the CEO, is considered an "associate," in Wal-Mart parlance. Internationally, Wal-Mart employs an additional 330,000 associates.
*1979: The year Wal-Mart's sales first top $1 billion.
* $256 billion : Wal-Mart's sales in 2003. In the words of Wal-Mart CFO Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's sales are equal to "one IBM, one Hewlett Packard, one Dell computer, one Microsoft and one Cisco System -- and oh, by the way, after that we got $2 billion left over."
* 8 percent: The amount of total U.S. retail sales, excluding automobiles, accounted for by Wal-Mart.
* $9.98: The average full-time hourly wage for a Wal-Mart employee. The average full-time hourly wage in metro areas (defined as areas with a population of 50,000 or more) is $10.38. In some urban areas it is higher: $11.03 in Chicago, $11.08 in San Francisco, and $11.20 in Austin.

Watch Online - link directly to streaming video of the entire show (broken up into smaller segments for faster downloading)
NOTE: if you can't see any video, it may be because you're behind a corporate firewall, e.g., if your Internet connection is from a government or university computer network, for security reasons.
You should have no problem viewing the videos from home, even with a dialup connection.

Source:
Frontline

Related Wal-Mart Links - - Go to the Banks and Business Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/bookmrk3.htm

Population Reference Bureau (U.S. - world)
Providing timely and objective population information
The Population Reference Bureau is the leader in providing timely and objective information on US and international population trends and their implications.
PRB Web Sites
PRB has five Web sites that provide the latest and most accurate data on a range of topics within the field of population, health, and nutrition.
The main PRB Web siteis your first stop for population information.
MEASURE Communication promotes wider dissemination and increased use of information on population, health, and nutrition for planning and decisionmaking in developing countries.
PopNet is a comprehensive directory of population-related Web sites-by topic or keyword, by organization, or through a world regions map. All 200 countries in the World Population Data Sheet are indexed.
AmeriStat includes a series of charts, graphs, and brief narratives describing demographic trends in five subject areas including marriage and family, education, and poverty and income.
Popplanet.org will provide data, information, and analysis on the critical relationships between population, health, and the environment.

Poverty in America: Beyond Welfare Reform (PDF file - 992K, 39 pages)
June 2002
"Are America's poor better or worse off than in the past? Do persistent stereotypes and negative images of poor people match the current reality? Has welfare reform led America's poor to adopt a new or different set of values and standards of behavior?"

Government Spending in an Older America (PDF file - 455K, 19 pages)
May 2002
"The population of the U.S. is getting older, and older people receive more in public benefits than they pay each year in taxes. How should our public finance system be changed in order to deal with this new demographic situation?"

Patterns of Poverty in America
June 2002
"New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that 12.4 percent of the U.S. population — about 34 million people — were below the poverty level in 1999.* The data, which include the first information available from the 2000 Census long form, show wide disparities in poverty levels among states and local areas."
- incl. a U.S. map showing the percent of persons in poverty by County in 1999 plus links to State, County and City data (in Excel Spread Sheet and Text formats)

Poverty Action Lab (MIT)
http://www.povertyactionlab.org/

Many laboratories focus their attention on topics like Alzheimer's research, but this laboratory at MIT focuses on poverty. The objective of their work at the Poverty Action Lab is "to improve the effectiveness of poverty programs by providing policy makers with clear scientific results that help shape successful polices to combat poverty." The Lab was started in June 2003 by a group of professors at MIT and their collaborators. Visitors to the site will note that the materials here are divided into sections that include "Research", "People", "News", and "Courses". The "Research" section is a great place to start as policy makers and others can look over their completed projects (such as "Discrimination in the Job Market") and their publications. Moving on, visitors can click on the "People" section to learn more about their staff and directors. Finally, those who are curious about the reach of the Poverty Lab's work will want to look at their media features in the "News" section.
Review by:
The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2008.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

Public Agenda Online
"Public Agenda was founded by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in 1975. Public Agenda's two-fold mission is to help American leaders better understand the public's point of view [and to help] citizens know more about critical policy issues so they can make thoughtful, informed decisions."

Public Agenda Issue Guides (U.S.)
Public Agenda Issue Guides are used by journalists, policy makers, teachers, students and citizens who want to better understand controversial topics. Public Agenda Issue Guides provide facts and figures, different perspectives and analysis of public attitudes from surveys conducted by Public Agenda and by other respected polling and news organizations.
List of Issue Guides:
Abortion * America's Global Role * Campaign Reform * Child Care * Crime * The Economy * Education * The Environment * The Federal Budget * Gay Rights * Health Care * Higher Education * Illegal Drugs * Immigration * Internet Speech/Privacy * Medical Research * Medicare * Poverty and Welfare * Race * Right to Die * Social Security

The Issues
- incl. Abortion - America's Global Role - Campaign Reform - Child Care - Crime - The Economy - Education - The Environment - The Federal Budget - Gay Rights - Health Care - Higher Education - Illegal Drugs - Immigration - Internet Speech/Privacy - Medical Research - Medicare - Poverty and Welfare - Race - ight to Die - Social Security

Excellent collection of resources organized by theme. Explores both the factual side and the public opinion side.
Select an issue from the list for an overview - recent stories - facts and trends (different perspectives on the issue from different schools of thought) - sources and resources - how the public defines the issues - public views on policy options - areas of public consensus and demographic division - and more

Here are just two examples of what you'll find here :
Issue guide on Poverty and Welfare
Issue guide on Social Security

Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families (PDF file - 931K)
Economic Policy Institute
Family Budgets Calculator
Press Release (July 24, 2001)
This 115-page report, released at the end of last month, "is the most comprehensive study of family hardships ever published." The report examines the plight of the working poor by determining basic family budgets for communities across the nation -- the amount of money a family needs for food, housing, utilities, child care, transportation, and health care -- and comparing these figures to wage statistics. The report concludes that two-and-a-half times more families fall beneath the basic family budget levels for their communities than fall below the federal poverty line. The Family Budgets Calculator is an online supplement to the report that generates basic budgets for different kinds of families for 400,000 communities.
Reviewed by The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001
- Got to the Economic Policy Institute website

Research Forum on Children, Families and the New Federalism
The Research Forum encourages collaborative research and informed policy on welfare reform and child well-being. Our web site features an on-line database of summaries of large- and small-scale research projects. The database currently (June/02) includes 63 reviewed and 190 unreviewed research projects.
The Research Forum is an initiative of the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) - see the link to the NCCP above (in alphabetical order)

View the list of projects included in the database or search the database.

Recent American Social Research:
Research Forum Update (12 December 2003)
[weekly newsletter]

Implementation of Welfare Reform in Virginia
Virginia Time Limit Study
State of Louisiana TANF Evaluation
Wyoming Survey of Former POWER Recipients
Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three City Study
National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies
Evaluation of the Families in Transition Program
Complete Project List - links to all 65 reviewed and 275 unreviewed research projects in the Research Forum database

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: TOTAL NUMBER OF FAMILIES AND RECIPIENTS: Percent Change from March 2003 to June 2003
- from the U.S. Administration for Children and Families

December 2003 CLASP Update
- from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)

Rethinking Local Affordable Housing Strategies: Lessons from 70 Years of Policy and Practice
- from the Brookings Institution

Medicaid: Current Benefits and Flexibility
- from the Kaiser Family Foundation

Source:
The Research Forum Website
"The Research Forum website is designed to provide researchers, policymakers, and practitioners with information about research related to welfare and income security, child/family, and community/neighborhood issues. Some of the most useful features of the website include key topics pages, a searchable research project database, a publications calendar, an Add A Project form, a glossary, a database updates log, various policy resources, and Research Forum publications. (...) The web site includes up-to-date summaries of 65 large scale or multi-site, reviewed research projects and 275 smaller (unreviewed) projects."
[ National Center for Children in Poverty - Columbia University Health Sciences, New York ]

Research on Welfare Programs Important During a Period of Uncertainty (PDF file - 450K, 6 pages)
The Forum Newsletter
January 2003
"This issue by Barbara B. Blum examines the effects of reauthorization uncertainties and economic conditions on program administration and research."

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change.

Research on U.S. Health Insurance Coverage - links to reports, journal articles and books on health insurance coverage in the U.S. from 1999 to 2005

Cover The Uninsured Week - U.S.
May 1-8, 2005
"Today, 45 million Americans have no health insurance, including more than 8 million children. Eight out of 10 uninsured Americans either work or are in working families. Being uninsured means going without needed care..."
Cover The Uninsured Week is a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Who's Involved - Former Presidents Ford and Carter are again serving as Honorary Co-Chairs for Cover the Uninsured Week...

SafeLink Wireless (U.S.) is a government supported program that provides a free cell phone and airtime each month for income-eligible customers.
To be eligible for SafeLink, a person must be participating in specified State or Federal assistance programs, such as Federal Public Housing Assistance, Food Stamps and Medicaid - OR - the person's total household income is at or below 135% of the poverty guidelines set by individual Statea and/or the Federal Government.

Is a cellphone a basic human right?
As the United States provides mobile phones to the poor, experts argue they are not a luxury
January 10, 2009
By Lynda Hurst
All compassionate governments should provide which of the following to their people:
a) food
b) shelter
c) medical care
d) a cellphone.
Having a little problem with d)?
Rephrase it then to "the right to communicate." Still a problem? It isn't south of the border. In the wake of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. has increased the drive to ensure all citizens have basic phone services and access to help in times of emergency. More than 7 million Americans still don't. Last fall, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched SafeLink, a program that provides eligible people with a free cellphone and 68 minutes a month of free airtime for the period of one year. It includes texting, voicemail, call waiting and caller ID. The program is up and running in Florida, Tennessee and Virginia, where more than 2 million households qualify for the service, and is scheduled to go into nine other states, including New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. SafeLink was the brainchild of Miami-based TracFone Wireless Inc., the largest prepaid cellphone company in the U.S. As a purely prepaid provider, TracFone has always aimed at the market's lower end.
Source:
The Toronto Star

The Scout Report

The Scout Report - December 15, 2006 issue
Selections from the Table of Contents:
(click the link above to access any selection or to read the entire issue)
* Electronic Journal of Sociology
* The History of the Supreme Court
* The knowledge economy of Europe
* Open Budget Index
* Stop Child Poverty
* USDA: Food & Nutrition Service
* The World
* Tools for Understanding
* As founder of the Grameen Bank receives Nobel Peace Prize, the profile of microcredit lending grows
Source:
The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006
[ Internet Scout Project ]
[ University of Wisconsin - Madison ]
NOTE: The Scout Report is a weekly newsletter that's available by e-mail or online.
Just go to the Scout Report site to check out the rest of the current issue as well as back issues, and to sign up for the e-mail edition.

Previous Issues of The Scout Report - back to 1994

------------------------------------------------

Poor and Homeless Continue to Face Major Challenges in Urban Areas - U.S.
October 12/05

Crowded Out By Luxury Lofts, Poor Seek Relief
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-downtown12oct12,0,2051236.story?coll=la-home-local

Polk Gulch cleanup angers some
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/12/POLKSTREET.TMP

Nation taking a new look at homelessness, solutions
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-10-11-homeless-cover_x.htm

Study: U.S. poor trapped in urban areas
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/12/poverty.study.ap/index.html

Katrina’s Window: Confronting Concentrated Poverty Across America [pdf]
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20051012_concentratedpoverty.htm

United States Interagency Council on Homelessness [pdf]
http://www.ich.gov/

"As the recent tragedy wrought by Hurricane Katrina revealed, poor and homeless residents of America’s cities remain particularly vulnerable. Whether it is the phenomenon of gentrification or the world of natural hazards, many continue to remain marginalized in terms of opportunities, whether they be economic or otherwise. This week, a number of news pieces once again reminded the general public about the precarious situation faced by this group. In Los Angeles, the City Council decided to impose the first limits on the luxury loft and condo boom that is gradually pushing out single-room-occupancy hotels, most of which are concentrated in the city’s downtown area. While this type of creeping development may affect the poor in increasingly popular urban places, less successful cities continue to have many neighborhoods with concentrated poverty. As a report from the Brookings Institution released this week noted, poor planning over the past several decades has continued to concentrate public housing at the urban core. Generally, the end result is that many urban dwellers remain cut off from the rapid economic and housing growth that has been experienced around the urban fringe. [KMG]

The first link will lead users to a nice article from this Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times that discusses the recent action taken by the City Council. The second link leads visitors to a San Francisco Chronicle article that discusses the recent trend towards gentrification in the city’s Polk Gulch neighborhood. The third link leads to a USA Today article from this past Monday, which talks about how the recent Hurricane Katrina tragedy may transform certain aspects of addressing the homelessness situation in the country. The fourth link will take visitors to a CNN news piece, which talks about the recent report from the Brookings Institution that examines the concentration of urban poverty throughout a number of US cities. The fifth link leads to the full text of that report, authored by Alan Berube. The final link will take users to the homepage of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. [KMG]"

Source:
The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2005.
http://scout.wisc.edu/
NOTE: The Scout Report is a weekly newsletter that's available by e-mail or online.
Just go to the Scout Report site to check out the rest of the current issue as well as back issues, and to sign up for the e-mail edition.

- Go to the Homelessness and Housing Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/homeless.htm

The Past, Present, and Future of Minimum Wage
By Stan Raybern
December 31, 2009
The U.S.federal minimum wage was established at $.25 per hour in 1938 and has increased over the years, in theory, to keep up with inflation, cost of living, and many other factors. Although the federal minimum wage is currently set at $7.25, each individual state ultimately has the ability to set their own minimum wage. Residents of Kansas are keenly aware of this fact, where the state minimum wage is set at an astonishing $2.65. Check out where your state stands against the rest of the country, as well as other thought provoking facts as we take a look at the past, present, and future of minimum wage across America
Source:
Shrinkage is Good (Blog)

Stateline.org

Funded entirely by The Pew Charitable Trusts as a public service, Stateline.org has published online every weekday except holidays since Jan. 25, 1999.

This Web site, staffed entirely by professional journalists, was originally envisioned primarily as a resource for newsmen and newswomen who cover state government. Using computer technology as a delivery vehicle, we proposed to arm these news-gatherers with timely tips and research material on state policy innovations and trends, enabling them to make their reporting more informative and useful to consumers. This, we believed, would help nourish public debate of important state-level issues such as healthcare, tax and budget policy, the environment, welfare reform and other issues that in recent years have not gotten the media attention they deserve.

But our readership has grown far beyond our original target audience and now includes thousands of state officials, students of state government and ordinary citizens who want to keep track of what's going on in their state capitol and in other states throughout the country.

Stateline.org is an independent element of the Pew Research Center and is based in Washington, DC. In addition to our online news gathering activities, we periodically publish printed reference materials that are free for the asking, including a State of the States report released every January. We also sponsor professional development conferences and workshops for the news media, including the annual conference of CapitolBeat, the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. For further information, email editor@stateline.org or contact us at 202-419-4470.

Stop Capital Punishment Now! - U..S.
"Stop Capital Punishment Now! is an Internet based initiative attempting to achieve total abolition of the death penalty in all countries of the world and particularly in the United States of America. We believe that the taking of a human life is morally and ethically wrong. We believe that the premeditated killing by the state of its own citizens is barbaric and reprehensible."
Abolition Organizations and Web Sites - links to 40+ sites, mainly American...
The Canadian Abolition Project - Canadians working together to end the death penalty
"The Canadian Abolition Project was founded to campaign in support of Canadian government policies that will ensure consistency with Canada's position as a completely abolitionist nation. We will encourage and support interventions by the Canadian government in defence of Canadians facing the death penalty abroad. We are dedicated to achieving abolition of the death penalty for all, in all countries of the World and particularly in the United States of America. ."
- incl. links to : Canadian Abolition Sign Up Page - Canadian Abolition Email Archives - Canadian Resources [contact info for Canadian Senators, MPs and committees] - Invitation to the 1st Annual Peaceful Presence and Public Awareness Day in Toronto.

Views from the American Right

- The Family Research Council
- The Heartland Institute
- The Heritage Foundation
- The Claremont Institute
- Privatization of Social Security
- RAND Home Page
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
Cato Institute -

The Cato Institute also maintains the following Web sites:
www.socialsecurity.org
www.freetrade.org
www.libertarianism.org
www.individualrights.org

U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network

On Welfare and the Alternatives
Welfare reform was a good idea in theory but hasn't quite worked out the way NEWT (Gingrich) and Bill Clinton thought it would.
March 1, 2007
"(...)if you want to decrease the size of government while making people self-sufficient and in doing so leaving the family unit intact, there is a rather simple solution that has been batted around since the Nixon administration. The Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is a government ensured guarantee that no one's income will fall below the level necessary to meet their most basic needs for any reason. As Bertrand Russell put it in 1918, "A certain small income, sufficient for necessities, should be secured for all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful. On this basis we may build further." Thus, with BIG no one is destitute but everyone has the positive incentive to work. BIG is an efficient, effective, and equitable solution to poverty that promotes individual freedom and leaves the beneficial aspects of a market economy in place. (...) I believe in dismantling the entire welfare system, Medicaid/care included and replacing it with the above BIG. This is the conservative solution without making judgments or convoluting it with man-managed bureaucracies as this would be the domain of the US Treasury department.
Source:
411mania.com ("pop-culture since '96")

What is the Basic Income Guarantee?
[For a discussion of BIG as a solution to poverty see "An Efficiency Argument for the Basic Income Guarantee"]
[For cost estimates of BIG See Garfinkel, Huang, and Naidich (2002) or Clark (2002)]
[For a History of USBIG 1999 to 2004, see The first five years of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network]
[For a discussion of the diversity of BIG proposals see, "The Many Faces of Universal Basic Income." (Reprinted by permission from the Political Quarterly 75 (3), 2004, pp. 266-274.0)]
Source:
U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

PovertyUSA (CCHD) - America's Forgotten State
"For more than 31 million Americans, every day is a bitter struggle to survive with the least. They are America's poor, left behind on the road to prosperity. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development has created this site to raise awareness about poverty and help close the borders of this forgotten state."
- Go to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) website

January Is Poverty in America Awareness Month: New Media Campaign Spotlights 12 Million Poor Children in U.S.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Press Release
January 2, 2002
"The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) today launched a new national awareness campaign emphasizing the tragic reality that one out of every six children in the United States lives in poverty, according to the most recent U.S. census figures. (...) Although poverty rates declined slightly from 1999 to 2000, more than 31 million people in the United States are poor and youth under 18 years of age still experience the highest incidence of poverty. The child poverty rate is actually higher than it was in 1979 and the U.S. ranks higher in this category than most industrialized nations."

U.S. Conference of Mayors - Representing U.S.A. Cities
- incl. links to : About the USCM | Organizational Leaders | Adopted Policies | Affiliate Organizations | USCM Deferred Compensation And Long Term Care Programs | Products/Services | Membership Information
The United States Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are about 1,100 such cities in the country today. Each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. (...) Collectively, Conference of Mayors members speak with a united voice on matters pertaining to organizational policies and goals. Individually, each member mayor contributes to development of national urban policy through service on one or more of the organization's 10 standing committees.

U.S. Mayors examine causes of hunger, homelessness (small PDF file - 2 pages)
News release
December 17, 2007
Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Conference of Mayors and Sodexho, Inc. released today the results of its 2007 Hunger and Homelessness Survey at a press conference at the Conference of Mayors Headquarters in Washington, D.C. For more than 21 years, the Conference of Mayors has documented the magnitude of the issues of hunger and homelessness in our nation’s cities. This report provides an analysis of the scale of the problem in twenty-three of America’s major cities (listed below) and the efforts these cities are making to address the issue.
Source:
The U.S. Conference of Mayors
Sodexho USA

Complete report:

2007 U.S. Hunger and Homelessness Report (PDF file - 983K, 72 pages)
December 2007

Publications - links to earlier reports

United Council on Welfare Fraud - The United Council on Welfare Fraud (UCOWF) is an international organization of over 2,000 individuals from the United States and Canada who have combined their efforts to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in social service programs.

United Health Foundation
" UnitedHealth Group established the United Health Foundation in 1999 as a nonprofit, private foundation with a mission to support the health and medical decisions made by physicians, health professionals, community leaders and individuals that lead to better health outcomes and healthier communities."

15th Annual Report About Nation’s Health Shows After Years of Progress,
Overall Healthiness Slowing Dramatically, Some Areas Declining (PDF file - 131K, 4 pages)
Minnesota, New Hampshire and Vermont Hold Top Three Positions as Nation’s Healthiest States, Southeastern States
Experience Targeted Success but Continue to Face Challenges
Washington, D.C.
News Release
November 8, 2004
"United Health Foundation, together with the American Public Health Association (APHA) and Partnership for Prevention, today released the 15th annual America’s Health: State Health Rankings at the APHA’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C."

America's Health: State Health Rankings - 2004 Edition
- incl. links to : Intro and Findings (Foreword and Introduction, Measures of Success, 2004 Results, Changes from 2003, 1990, Comparison to Other Nations) - Components - State Snapshots - Methodology - Commentaries and Special Features - Appendices (Occupational Fatalities, Health Disparity, Index of Tables [total of 37 tables])

Source:
State Health Rankings Home Page

Related links:

TANF Policies for the Hard-to-Employ:
Understanding State Approaches and Future Directions
July 2007
- summarizes how 15 states interact with hard-to-employ welfare recipients and new federal welfare requirements’ likely impacts on these state efforts.
Abstract + Excerpt (HTML)
Complete report (PDF file - 168K, 56 pages)

Framework for a New Safety Net for Low-Income Working Families
June 2007
- describes low-income working families’ circumstances and the gaps in current safety-net programs.
Abstract + Excerpt (HTML)
Complete report (PDF file - 279K, 56 pages)

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More Urban Institute reports and related resources on work and income
More Urban Institute Reports - all topics, 4000+ reports
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How Have Asset Policies for Cash Welfare
and Food Stamps Changed since the 1990s?
By Signe-Mary McKernan, William Margrabe
Posted to Web: June 28, 2007
[PDF version - 63K, 1 page]
Absract : Cash welfare and food stamps are means tested: assets and income must fall below set limits for families to qualify. While this ensures that benefits go to the neediest families, asset limits may also discourage asset building. This Opportunity and Ownership fact sheet examines allowance changes for restricted and unrestricted accounts at the federal and state level. It tracks the different allowances for IDAs, food stamps, and welfare programs from 1992 to 2003.

American Non-Governmental
Social Research Links
(M-Z)

Sites non-gouvernementaux de
recherche sociale aux États-Unis
(M-Z)

American Non-Governmental Social Research Links(M-Z)

Sites non-gouvernementaux de recherche sociale aux États-Unis(M-Z)

American Non-Governmental
Social Research Links
(M-Z)

Sites non-gouvernementaux de
recherche sociale aux États-Unis
(M-Z)