Progress toward Self-Sufficiency for Low-Wage Workers

This report examines progress toward self-sufficiency through earnings progression and related changes in income and work supports among low-wage single mothers and other families with low-wage workers in the early 2000s. Low-wage workers experienced significant wage gains during the 1990s, but has wage growth continued? What has helped working single mothers advance in the labor market? The project analyzes whether single mothers in low-wage jobs and other low-wage workers have continued to progress economically. Of specific interest is the role that work supports and other program benefits play in the transition to higher wages and greater economic self-sufficiency and well-being among these families. The project uses the 2001 longitudinal panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). (124 PDF pages)