View Research by Author - Rebecca L. Clark

Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/RebeccaLClark

Federal Expenditures on Infants and Toddlers in 2007 looks comprehensively at federal spending and tax expenditures targeted toward infants and toddlers. This appendix details our data sources, the programs we include, and the methodology used to estimate the percentage of federal expenditures that went to infants and toddlers in 2007.

Kids' Share 2008, a second 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.

"Kids' Share 2007: How Children Fare in the Federal Budget" tracks trends in federal spending on children from 1960 to 2017 by analyzing over 100 programs through which the federal government spends on children. This appendix lists our data sources, describes each program, and explains the methodology used to estimate the percentage of all expenditures that went to children.

Three to four percent of teenagers lived in cohabiting families in 1997 and these percentages did not vary dramatically by race/ethnicity. This brief explores how 3 measures of teen well-being vary by family structure and race/ethnicity. Based on these three measures of well-being, living with a single mother and her boyfriend, who was not the teen's father, was not better than living in a single-mother family. For whites and Hispanics, it was significantly worse. Black teenagers who lived with married biological parents or with their mothers and step/adoptive fathers fared better on these 3 measures of well-being than those who were living with a single mother or with a single mother and her boyfriend.

The most comprehensive examination of trends in federal expenditures on children finds that expenditures grew from 1.9 percent of GDP in 1960 to 2.1 percent in 1997. Although comprising a smaller share of total domestic spending, children's spending increased 246 percent, from $48.6 billion to $168.5 billion (constant dollars). Spending on low-income children, however, increased 23-fold, from $5.1 billion to $117.3 billion. Three new programs account for half of the increase: the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, and Food Stamps. Spending on children increasingly shifted from broad-based middle class relief to programs aimed more at the poor. The report classifies 66 federal programs into eight major budget categories.

Of the 1.8 million children who live full-time with relatives instead of their parents, nearly a quarter face multiple social and economic risks, according to the first report to provide in-depth data on such kinship care patterns. The findings indicate that these children, many of whom have suffered abuse or neglect, frequently fail to receive the benefits and services to which they are entitled. Based on data from the 1997 National Survey of America's Families, the brief creates 3 categories of kinship caregivers and analyzes 4 measures of sociodemographic risk.

With the rising concern about the numbers and impacts of illegal aliens in the United States - as evidenced by the sweeping passage of Proposition 187 in California, the immigrant provisions in 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) - criminal illegal aliens have become a subject of particular focus. These individuals have not only entered or resided in the United States without the knowledge or permission of the U.S. government, but, while here, they have also violated the laws of the nation, its states, or municipalities.

Most American children live in two-parent families, whether biological or adoptive. Many children, however, do not live with both of their biological parents. Divorce and separation, births outside of marriage, remarriages, and child abuse or neglect are among the reasons these children spend at least part of their childhood with only one or neither biological parent.

This report provides essential demographic and economic information on legal immigrants residing in New York State. It addresses significant shortcomings in the existing data from immigrants and in analyses of fiscal impacts of legal immigrants. It focuses on four major issues: the size of the legal immigrant populations; the characteristics of legal-status groups, including both legal and undocumented populations; the incomes of and taxes paid by immigrant populations and natives; and the economic adaptation of immigrants and their descendants.

There are two Highlights for each state. The income support and social services Highlights look at basic income support programs, employment and training programs, child care, child support enforcement, and the last-resort safety net. The Highlights capture policies in place and planned in 1996 and early 1997.

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