Employment & Self-Sufficiency

This project developed a calculator to help people anticipate how a change in earnings from employment would affect their net income, and in so doing, provide public benefit recipients with their estimated effective marginal tax rate on new earnings. Key Points:

This report provides welfare dependence indicators through 2019 for most indicators and through 2020 for other indicators, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996.

This analysis identifies labor force trends of recently-arrived refugees, focused on the period after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this brief, we highlight experiences and practices from substance use treatment providers and their human services partners when serving people of color. We selected providers that focused on serving people of color, and this study was not intended to assess outcomes or effectiveness of any of the practices highlighted.

This infographic explores the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on programs that support young people, ages 16-24, who experience disconnection from school and work, often referred to as "opportunity youth." It provides an overview of which education, job training, and supportive services, in addition to enrollment and implementation practices were added or ended during the first year (spring 20

This report provides welfare dependence indicators through 2019 for most indicators and through 2020 for other indicators, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996.

This brief discusses the perspectives of a group of working parents on receipt of federal benefits. Based on focus groups, it examines program design and implementation, participation barriers, and factors that could help working parents more readily reach financial independence. Highlights are:

In focus group discussions with 44 working parents receiving assistance from one or more federal programs, many parents shared the view that increasing earnings involves a number of risks. Participants described the sequence of possible risk events as follows:

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented economic and social impact on Americans, with particularly harsh effects on people in certain race and ethnic groups. Public programs intended to address these needs have also had uneven reach, with many less likely to benefit families of color.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented economic crisis with inequitable effects. Overall employment figures mask the disparate impacts on some communities of color, women, and low-wage workers. These groups were more likely to lose jobs, reduce hours worked, or withdraw from the labor market.