The welfare reform reauthorization in 2006 marked a good time to reflect on the welfare-to-work system. Getting more parents into the workforce, for instance, required more child care. An Urban Institute multiyear study culminated in March with four reports on child care subsidies and welfare.

Photo: William Boney

Another research team identified innovative strategies to promote stable employment and wage growth among low-income populations. Assisting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, we examined 12 innovative approaches and found 51 promising programs to illustrate those approaches.

We examined several programs in Minnesota that seek to improve the delivery of employment, health, and social services for hard-to-employ parents in Minnesota who face serious obstacles to steady work.

We also measured the effect of specific welfare policies on the poverty rate of single-mother families. Strict time limits, we found, can decrease poverty if they encourage individuals to enter the labor force.

For the National Adoption Day Coalition in November, we combed through all 50 states' foster care adoption legislation introduced over the past five years. Trends in U.S. Foster Care Adoption Legislation offers a state-by-state analysis.

Vulnerable families face such risks as domestic violence, child maltreatment, substance abuse, depression, and childhood disabilities. Papers issued in 2006 distill some of the key trends related to these risks.

Our work on immigration took several forms in 2006. A report on taxes paid by immigrants in the DC area showed that immigrants pay taxes roughly in proportion to their share of the population and that the most educated and highest earners pay more in taxes than natives. A report on immigrants in Louisville, Kentucky highlighted the great diversity and economic contributions of the foreign-born population there.

Also, a new project was initiated to determine how recent immigrants would affect the financial status of Social Security. On the other demographic end, our children of immigrants work continued with new briefs and several presentations on the more than 20 million children in immigrant families, 5 million of whom have unauthorized parents.

Our studies have revealed how the impact of marital status affects men's earnings and job stability. Research following men from their late teens to their early 40s found that marriage not only results in higher wage rates, but also influences men to work more hours. Together, these marriage-induced gains in wage rates, hours worked, and work experience raised men's earnings by nearly 20 percent.

Our Opportunity and Ownership Project looks at the importance of owning assets. A 2006 report, Financial Literacy: Where Do We Go from Here?, considered how some people get left out of broadening economic opportunities. A corresponding fact sheet showed that increases in household net worth substantially outpaced increases in household income over the past two decades.

Center Staff
Center Publications