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Poverty & Economic Mobility

ASPE releases the annual U.S. Federal Poverty Guidelines, which are used to determine financial eligibility for some Federal programs. Presented here are the poverty lines for every State and the District of Columbia. You will also find extensive resources on poverty estimates, trends, and analysis, plus historical information on poverty and the Guidelines. More broadly, this section also encompasses issues like poverty and income dynamics, and asset building and financial literacy.

Reports

Displaying 31 - 40 of 434. 10 per page. Page 4.

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Report

Peer Support as a Social Capital Strategy for Programs Serving Individuals Reentering from Incarceration and Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence or Human Sex Trafficking

Many human services programs recognize the power of “social capital,” or the value that arises from relationships. This report offers insight into how programs use peer supports to help build social capital with participants who are reentering the community after incarceration or are survivors of intimate partner violence or sex trafficking.
Research Brief

Methods and Emerging Strategies to Engage People with Lived Experience

This brief identifies methods and emerging strategies to engage people with lived experience in federal research, programming, and policymaking. It draws on lessons learned from federal initiatives across a range of human services areas to identify ways that federal staff can meaningfully and effectively engage people with lived experience. Related Products:
ASPE Issue Brief

Participation in the U.S. Social Safety Net: Coverage of Low-income Families, 2018

Participation in the social safety net varies widely across programs—from 15 percent among eligibles for subsidized child care (CCDF) to over 75 percent for Medicaid/CHIP and EITC.  Participation differs by race and ethnicity, yet patterns are not consistent. In general rates differ more across programs than between race-ethnic groups.

Fact Sheet: Approaches for engaging fathers in child support programs

Child support payments are associated with increased parent-child engagement, which can lead not only to better academic and social outcomes for children but also to better parent-child and parent-parent relationships. Moreover, child support payments lifted nearly three-quarters of a million families out of poverty in 2017.
Research Brief

The Impact of the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Recession on Families With Low Incomes

The COVID-19 crisis has disparately harmed low-income households. Across the United States, systemic inequalities in employment, wage-earning, health, and well-being have been strained for sub-populations facing poverty or near-poverty conditions.
Research Brief

Complex Rules and Barriers to Self-Sufficiency in Safety Net Programs: Perspectives of Working Parents

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:
Research Brief

Risks that Come with Increasing Earnings for Low-Income Workers Receiving Safety Net Programs: Perspectives of Working Parents

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:
Fact Sheet

Factsheet: Estimates of Child Care Eligibility and Receipt for Fiscal Year 2018

This factsheet provides descriptive information on child care eligibility and receipt. Of the 12.8 million children eligible for child care subsidies under federal rules, 15 percent received subsidies. Of the 8.4 million children eligible for child care subsidies under state rules, 23 percent received subsidies. Poorer children were more likely to receive subsidies than less poor children.
Report, Report to Congress

Welfare Indicators and Risk Factors, 20th Report to Congress

This report provides welfare dependence indicators through 2018 for most indicators and through 2019 for other indicators, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996.
Report

Announcement of the Availability of Funds and Request for Applications for a Cooperative Agreement to Establish a National Research Center on Poverty and Economic Mobility

The goal of this solicitation is to improve the effectiveness of public policies that reduce poverty, inequality, and their consequences, promote economic mobility and equity, and further develop knowledge of the structural causes of poverty, inequality, and economic insecurity.