Do Assets Change the Racial Profile of Poverty among Older Adults? (Article/Opportunity and Ownership Facts)Author(s): Barbara ButricaAccording to the federal government, elderly poverty rates among blacks are nearly triple and among Hispanics are more than double those of whites. Data from the 2004 Health and Retirement Study on adults age 65 and older, living alone or with only a spouse, show how assets, which are excluded from the official poverty measure, change elderly poverty overall and between racial/ethnic groups. Adding imputed housing rent and annuitized asset values to resources reduced overall poverty by 1.8 percentage points, but increased racial disparities because blacks and Hispanics have relatively little housing equity or financial assets.
| Posted: March 04, 2008 | Availability: HTML | PDF |
The Balance Sheets of Low-Income Households (Series/Poor Finances: Assets and Low Income Households)Author(s): Adam Carasso,
Signe-Mary McKernanThis report synthesizes current research and other available information on the assets and liabilities of low-income households into a variety of portraits. These data allow practitioners and researchers to begin to form a comprehensive representation of the balance sheets of low-income households and sets the stage for future research and policy discussion around the finances of low-income households.
| Posted: January 07, 2008 | Availability: HTML | PDF |
Do Married Couples Prosper with Age? (Article/Opportunity and Ownership Facts)Author(s): Robert I. LermanUsing data from the Federal Reserve Board's Surveys of Consumer Finances (SCFs), we follow one segment of a cohort over its life cycle—married couples as the husband ages from 36–44 in 1989 to 51–59 in 2004. We find that middle-income and lower-middle-income married-couple households experienced modest income growth but rapid growth in net worth. Overall, the evidence documents significant gains in income and wealth as married couples aged from their late 30s to their 50s.
| Posted: December 12, 2007 | Availability: HTML | PDF |
Racial Disparities and the New Federalism (Discussion Papers)Author(s): Margery Austin Turner,
Marla McDanielThe paper explores how shifts in both social welfare policies and economic conditions beginning in the mid-1990s altered the relative well-being of blacks— compared to whites—between 1997 and 2002. It uses the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to assess how the relative well-being of black families improved or disparities persisted. The findings suggest that some of the disparities between whites and blacks narrowed between 1997 and 2002, especially among people with low incomes. But gaps in income, child school outcomes, employment, assets, and welfare and other income supports, remained essentially unchanged over the period.
| Posted: October 25, 2007 | Availability: HTML | PDF |
Assessing Asset Data on Low-Income Households: (Series/Poor Finances: Assets and Low Income Households)Author(s): Caroline Ratcliffe,
Henry Chen,
Trina R. Williams-Shanks,
Yunju Nam,
Mark Schreiner,
Min Zhan,
Michael SherradenThis report identifies the most reliable and informative data sources for understanding low-income households’ assets and liabilities, details their limitations, and provides options for improving asset data sources and collection methods. The report evaluates 12 data sets and identifies three as having the greatest potential for future asset research—the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).
| Posted: October 15, 2007 | Availability: HTML | PDF |
