Content by Keyword: Poverty and Measurement

Figure ECON 1.  Percentage of Persons in Poverty, by Age: 1959-1999

The Welfare Indicators Act challenges the Department of Health and Human Services to identify and set forth not only indicators of welfare dependence and welfare duration, but also predictors and causes of welfare receipt.  Up to this point, welfare research has not established clear and definitive causes of welfare dependence.  However, researc

Table IND 11a. Percentage of First AFDC Spell Beginnings Associated with Specific Events: Selected Periods   Spell Began 1973-1979 Spell Began 1980-1985 Spell Began 1986-1991 First birth to an unmarried, non-cohabiting mother 27.9 20.9 22.2

Figure IND 10. Percentage of AFDC Recipients in 1982, by Years of Receipt Between 1982 and 1991 Source: Unpublished data from the PSID, 1983-1992.

Figure IND9. Percentage of AFDC Recipients with More than 50 Percent of Income from AFDC and Food Stamps Between 1982 and 1991, by Years of Dependency

Figure IND 8. Percentage of AFDC, Food Stamp, and SSI Spells for Individuals Entering Programs During the 1993 SIPP Panel, by Length of Spell

Figure IND 7. Percentage of AFDC Spells of Individuals in Families with No Labor Force Participants for Individuals Entering Programs During the 1993 SIPP Panel, by Length of Spell

Figure IND 6. Dependency Status in 1995 of Persons Who Received More than 50 Percent of Income from Means-Tested Assistance in 1994, by Race Source:  Unpublished data from the SIPP, 1993 panel.

Figure IND 5. Percentage of Population Receiving Assistance from Multiple Programs (TANF, Food Stamps, & SSI), Among Those Receiving Assistance: 1998

Figure IND 4. Participation Rates in the AFDC/TANF, Food Stamp and SSI Programs:  Selected Years

Figure IND 3a. Percentage of the Total Population Receiving AFDC/TANF, by Age: 1970-1999

Figure IND 2a. Percentage of Recipients in Families with Labor Force Participants, by Program: 1998 Source: March CPS data, analyzed using the TRIM3 microsimulation model.

Figure IND 1a. Percentage of Total Income from Means-Tested Assistance Programs: 1998 Source:  March CPS data, analyzed using the TRIM3 microsimulation model.

Following the format of the previous annual reports to Congress, Chapter II presents summary data related to indicators of dependence.  These indicators differ from other welfare statistics because of their emphasis on welfare dependence, rather than simple welfare receipt.  As discussed in Chapter I , the Advisory Board on Welfare Indicators s

This 2001 report relies more heavily than past reports on data from the Annual March Demographic Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS).  Several of the indicators and predictors of dependence are now based on CPS data rather than data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).  This change was necessary because the C

Changes in dependence may or may not be associated with changes in the level of deprivation, depending on the alternative sources of support found by families who might otherwise be dependent on welfare.  To assess the social impacts of any change in dependence, changes in the level of poverty or deprivation also must be considered.  One way of

As suggested by its title, this report focuses on welfare “dependency” as well as welfare “recipiency.”  While recipiency can be defined fairly easily, based on the presence of benefits from AFDC/TANF, SSI or food stamps, dependency is a more complex concept.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the specific summary measures of welfare dependence proposed by the Advisory Board.  It also discusses summary measures of poverty, following the Board’s recommendation that dependence measures not be assessed in isolation from measures of deprivation.  Analysis of both measures is important be

The Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 (Pub. L. 103-432) directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to publish an annual report on welfare dependency.  This 2001 report, the fourth annual report, gives updated data on the measures of welfare recipiency, dependency, and predictors of welfare dependence developed for previous reports.