Author: Carolyn Barnes Publisher: University of Michigan Press ISBN: 0472126202 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 179
Book Description
On weekday afternoons, dismissal bells signal not just the end of the school day but also the beginning of another important activity: the federally funded after-school programs that offer tutoring, homework help, and basic supervision to millions of American children. Nearly one in four low-income families enroll a child in an after-school program. Beyond sharpening students’ math and reading skills, these programs also have a profound impact on parents. In a surprising turn—especially given the long history of social policies that leave recipients feeling policed, distrusted, and alienated—government-funded after-school programs have quietly become powerful forces for political and civic engagement by shifting power away from bureaucrats and putting it back into the hands of parents. In State of Empowerment Carolyn Barnes uses ethnographic accounts of three organizations to reveal how interacting with government-funded after-school programs can enhance the civic and political lives of low-income citizens.
Author: Signe-Mary McKernan Publisher: The Urban Insitute ISBN: 9780877667544 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
Low-income families have scant savings to cushion a job loss or illness, and can find economic mobility impossible without funds to invest in education, homes, or businesses. And though a lack of resources leaves such families vulnerable, income-support programs are often closed to those with a bit of savings or even a car. Considering welfare-to-work reforms, the increasingly advanced skill demands of the American workforce, and our stretched Social Security system, such an approach is inadequate to lift families out of poverty. Asset-based policies--allowing or even helping low-income families build wealth--are an increasingly popular strategy to facilitate financial stability.
Author: Sarah Halpern-Meekin Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 1479816892 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 301
Book Description
How low-income people cope with the emotional dimensions of poverty Could a lack of close, meaningful social ties be a public—rather than just a private—problem? In Social Poverty, Sarah Halpern-Meekin provides a much-needed window into the nature of social ties among low-income, unmarried parents, highlighting their often-ignored forms of hardship. Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirty-one couples, collected during their participation in a government-sponsored relationship education program called Family Expectations, she brings unprecedented attention to the relational and emotional dimensions of socioeconomic disadvantage. Poverty scholars typically focus on the economic use value of social ties—for example, how relationships enable access to job leads, informal loans, or a spare bedroom.However, Halpern-Meekin introduces the important new concept of “social poverty,” identifying it not just as a derivative of economic poverty, but as its own condition, which also perpetuates poverty. Through a careful and nuanced analysis of the strengths and limitations of relationship classes, she shines a light on the fundamental place of core socioemotional needs in our lives. Engaging and compassionate, Social Poverty highlights a new direction for policy and poverty research that can enrich our understanding of disadvantaged families around the country.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309483980 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 619
Book Description
The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.
Author: Robert Doar Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 0844750069 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 262
Book Description
This is an edited volume reviewing the major means-tested social programs in the United States. Each author addresses a major program or area, reviewing each area’s successes and recommending how to address shortcomings through policy change. In general, our means-tested programs do many things well, but some adjustments to each could make the system much more effective. This book provides policymakers with a broad overview of the issues at hand in each program and how to address them.
Author: Rucker C. Johnson Publisher: W.E. Upjohn Institute ISBN: 0880993561 Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 160
Book Description
This book examines the effects of work requirements imposed by welfare reform on low-income women and their families. The authors pay particular attention to the nature of work, whether it is stable or unstable, the number of hours worked in a week, and regularity and flexibility of work schedules. They also show how these factors make it more difficult for low-income women to balance work and family requirements.
Author: Sarah Halpern-Meekin Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520959221 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 299
Book Description
The world of welfare has changed radically. As the poor trade welfare checks for low-wage jobs, their low earnings qualify them for a hefty check come tax time—a combination of the earned income tax credit and other refunds. For many working parents this one check is like hitting the lottery, offering several months’ wages as well as the hope of investing in a better future. Drawing on interviews with 115 families, the authors look at how parents plan to use this annual cash windfall to build up savings, go back to school, and send their kids to college. However, these dreams of upward mobility are often dashed by the difficulty of trying to get by on meager wages. In accessible and engaging prose, It’s Not Like I’m Poor examines the costs and benefits of the new work-based safety net, suggesting ways to augment its strengths so that more of the working poor can realize the promise of a middle-class life.
Author: Ann C. Crouter Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1135623376 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 317
Book Description
The area of work and family is a hot topic in the social sciences and appeals to scholars in a wide range of disciplines. There are few edited volumes in this area, however, and this may be the only one that focuses on low-income families--a particularly important group in this era of welfare-to-work policy. Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume brings together contributors from the fields of psychology, social work, sociology, demography, economics, human development and family studies, and public policy. It presents important work-family topics from the point of view of low-income families at a time in history when welfare to work programs have become standard. Divided into four parts, each section addresses a different aspect of the topic, consisting of a big picture lead essay which is followed by three papers that critique, extend, and supplement the final paper. Many of the chapters address important social policy issues, giving the volume an applied focus which will make it of interest to many groups. Serving to organize the volume, these issues and others have been encapsulated into four sets of anchor questions: *How has the availability, content, and stability of the jobs available for the working poor changed in recent decades? How do work circumstances for low-income families vary as a function of gender, family structure, race, ethnicity, and geography? What implications do these changes have for the widening inequality between the haves and have-nots? *What features of work timing matter for families? What do we know about the impacts of shift work, long hours, seasonal work, and temporary work on employees, their family relationships, and their children's development? *How are the child care needs of low-income families being met? What challenges do these families face with regard to child care, and how can child-care services be strengthened to support parents and to enhance child development? *How are the challenges of managing work and family experienced by low-income men and women? The primary audience for the book is academicians and their students, policy specialists, and people charged with developing and evaluating family-focused programs. The volume will be appropriate for classroom use in upper-level undergraduate courses and graduate courses in the fields of family sociology, demography, human development and family studies, women's studies, labor studies, and social work.
Author: Carolyn Barnes
Author: Signe-Mary McKernan
Author: Sarah Halpern-Meekin
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Author: United States. Internal Revenue Service
Author: Robert Doar
Author: Rucker C. Johnson
Author: 
Author: Sarah Halpern-Meekin
Author: Ann C. Crouter