Related UI Researchers

Publications on Family/Parents

Though child care subsidies are an important work support, subsidy policies can make participation challenging. This report highlights subsidy agency strategies to lower participation barriers in seven Midwestern states, and discusses their experiences and tradeoffs (i.e. staff workload, improper payments, and program costs). Strategies are in eight policy areas: linking subsidies to other social services; improving customer service practices; simplifying application processes; simplifying recertification requirements; simplifying reporting requirements; minimizing subsidy breaks; assisting parents with nontraditional work schedules; and assisting parents with language barriers. It identifies key themes and provides a guide to help policymakers interested in better supporting families.

Over the last two decades, American households have generated healthy increases in wealth, but only modest increases in income.

This report documents the characteristics of transitional housing programs for homeless families in five cities and their surrounding counties--Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, San Diego, and Seattle. It looks at housing and service configurations, entry criteria and program rules, client characteristics, outcomes, and performance documentation. Data were collected as the first stage in a project that is following families as they leave transitional housing programs and looking at the factors that influence their ability to find and keep housing, and avoid additional homelessness.

Jennifer Macomber, a research associate with the Urban Institute’s Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population, talks about vulnerable families and what's being done to protect the children.

This study uses data from the National Survey of America's Families 1997, 1999, and 2002, to summarize what we have learned about families potentially affected by welfare reforms passed in 1996. We describe outcomes for low-income families currently on welfare, families that recently left welfare, and those that have never received welfare. Changes in welfare policy, the economy and broader societal trends potentially affected all three groups. Our results show important differences in the relative well-being of these three groups over time, including changes in employment, poverty, and the share of families disconnected from either cash government assistance or work.