Urban Institute experts study public policies' effects on families and parents. We analyze family-leave policies, public supports for families, and government policies aimed at strengthening marriage. Our Low-Income Working Families project explores the hardships of employed families struggling to make ends meet.
A third of all families with children (13.4 million families) have incomes less than twice the federal poverty line. A sudden job loss or health crisis could derail them. Tax credits, food stamps, child care subsidies, and other work supports help. But they don't always close the gap between earnings and basic needs. Urban Institute analysts have proposed new initiatives to protect low-income working families and help them get ahead.
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.
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.
As the recession sends more and more people into the ranks of the impoverished and vulnerable, the public is left to ponder the inadequate support available when hard times hit and why help comes from a patchwork of programs instead of from an integrated system. Panelists will discuss the oftentimes incongruous values, attitudes, and philosophies that drive the intricate U.S. safety net and the difficulties in providing effective services to people with complex needs.
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.
Family events, such as a job loss, the onset of health limitations, and a change in family structure, can adversely affect family well-being. The impact of these events may be mitigated if the family holds assets that can be used to maintain consumption. Using the SIPP, this study examines the role of assets in families' economic stability. We find that families in all parts of the income distribution experience material hardship after a negative event. Further, in the aftermath of a negative event, asset-poor families experience more hardship than non-asset-poor families, with assets helping most for low- and middle-income families.
Latest Research
Browse by Topic:
Urban Institute experts study public policies' effects on families and parents. We analyze family-leave policies, public supports for families, and government policies aimed at strengthening marriage. Our Low-Income Working Families project explores the hardships of employed families struggling to make ends meet. 