Welfare / Poverty Programs

Using tax filing data, this fact sheet demonstrates dramatic behavioral differences among the banked and unbanked in their use of two at-times costly tax-time financial products, refund anticipation checks (RACs) and refund anticipation loans (RALs). Banked tax filers are much more likely to avoid such products. Even for those who are otherwise similar in income and background, the banked are 57 percent less likely to use a RAC and 83 percent less likely to use a RAL. Such evidence may suggest the need for broader strategies that encourage savings and target the asset side of the household balance sheet.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides supplemental nutritious foods, nutrition education, and referrals to other health, welfare, and social services. WIC eligibility is restricted to infants, children age 1 through 4, and pregnant and postpartum women who are either income or adjunctively eligible.

This project extends WIC national eligibility estimates to single years of age for children, produces estimates for each State and the District of Columbia, and updates methods for estimating eligibility in the territories. The project also implemented calculation of standard errors of estimate for national, regional, State, and Puerto Rico estimates.

To improve the employment rates and earnings of Americans workers, we need to create more-coherent and more-effective education and workforce development systems, focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on disadvantaged youth and adults, and with education and training more clearly targeted towards firms and sectors that provide good-paying jobs. This paper proposes a new set of competitive grants from the federal government to states that would fund training partnerships between employers in key industries, education providers, workforce agencies, and intermediaries at the state level, plus a range of other supports and services. The grants would especially reward the expansion of programs that appear successful when evaluated with randomized controlled trial (RCT) techniques. The evidence suggests that these grants could generate benefits that are several times larger than their costs, including higher earnings and lower unemployment rates among the disadvantaged.

Performance measurement is a tool government can use to improve program performance and address accountability. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, like many federal government programs, requires measurement of program performance to help ensure federal funds are being used to reach stated program goals. Some states have gone beyond federal requirements and added additional performance measures for their state TANF programs, making them useful laboratories for understanding the possibilities and challenges of broader and varied performance measurement in TANF. This study exploits this opportunity by gathering and synthesizing information from a set of states with more innovative performance measurement systems

In this commentary for New York Times' Room for Debate, Institute fellow Sheila Zedlewski explains that many of the nation's 41 million seniors live in or very near poverty and many have assets mostly tied up in their houses. Policy makers must be ever mindful of that diversity when considering changes in policy that would affect retirement income security.

Human services programs-the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, subsidized child care, etc.-and their clients can benefit from national health reform. Millions of low-income health coverage applicants can be connected with human services programs, as the latter programs: (a) help health programs efficiently reach eligible consumers; (b) access unprecedented, time-limited federal funding for modernizing eligibility computer systems while limiting risks to current funding; (c) keep social services offices available as an avenue for seeking health coverage; and (d) use a forthcoming Medicaid expansion to accomplish core human services goals related to employment and child development.

Based on our review and synthesis of the individual development account (IDA) literature, findings in this report include that IDA accounts (in the short-term, five years after program entry) help low-income families become homeowners, start or expand a business, or pursue secondary education. Studies to date have found no relationship between IDA program participation and net worth. The report reviews empirical evidence on the effect of IDA program participation and project design features on outcomes and highlights remaining gaps in the literature.

The Immigrant Access to Health and Human Services study maps and describes the policy context that can affect immigrant access to health and human services and the well-being of immigrants and their children. This paper summarizes federal provisions and key aspects of state-level variation related to immigrants' eligibility for TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, and CHIP based on a review of literature and the latest information. It provides a building block for the fieldwork and in-depth assessment of the policy context around immigrant access to health and human services.