The National Poverty Center released a working paper discussing low-income families and their interactions with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and the Food Stamp program. This working paper combines State-level policy data with rich data on a national sample of low-income families to investigate family and State-level predictors of TANF and Food Stamp receipt. Two key findings are discussed: 1) families experiencing more economic hardship are more likely to receive benefits, and 2) States' coverage is associated with families' receipt of TANF, but not Food Stamps. The paper closes with a discussion on the implications for policy and research.

The Department of Workforce Services for Utah released their second annual report discussing intergenerational poverty, welfare dependency, and the use of public assistance. This report offers data and analysis to address themes presented by policymakers represented by the Intergenerational Welfare Report Commission and the Intergenerational Poverty Advisory Committee. This report also offers detailed analysis on labor force attachment, public assistance programs from the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS), and a lifetime use of public assistance.

The Urban Institute released a paper discussing the negative effects of instability on child development. This paper reviewed and synthesized research on five areas of instability: family income, parental employment, family structure, housing, and the out-of-home contexts of school and child care. It also discusses some of the key pathways through which instability may affect development and provides recommendations for policy and practice to alleviate instability's impact. In addition to the report, the Urban Institute released a fact sheet that highlights the key findings from the report.

The Federal Reserve Board released a paper investigating how high-speed home Internet has impacted married women's labor force participation. Results indicate that married women who use the Internet are more likely to participate in the labor force. The study found that increases in participation are concentrated on women with higher levels of education and children. The results suggest home Internet facilitates work-family balance for highly educated women.

A substantial skills gap exists between the education and training of the labor force and the needs of employers in many high growth industries, including healthcare and manufacturing. This gap results in unemployment while good paying jobs go unfilled. At the same time, many low-skilled adults persist in low wage work with little opportunity for advancement.

Career pathways programs, like the Pima Community College (PCC) Pathways to Healthcare HPOG programs, are an approach to fill a vital need for skilled workers in the economy and offer low-wage workers the opportunity to obtain occupational and other skills and advance into the middle class.

This brief was produced by Abt Associates as part of the Innovative Strategies to Increase Self-Sufficiency (ISIS) project, a random assignment evaluation of nine promising career pathways programs that aim to improve employment and self-sufficiency outcomes for low-income, low-skilled individuals. (author abstract) 

The Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) was authorized by Congress to reduce teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and associated risk behaviors. Grantees across the country had flexibility in how they would implement their programs. This report is the first report from the PREP evaluation sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation and conducted by Mathematica Policy Research. Authors interviewed State grantee officials to document the program decisions made across 44 States and Washington DC in designing the program. Among the key findings, researchers found that many of the programs are evidence-based and targeting high-risk youth. Additionally, States have developed their programs in different ways to educate on abstinence and contraception. The evaluation will include an additional round of interviews in 2014, performance management data analysis, and an analysis of program impacts using random assignment across four to five sites.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report discussing the reasons why poverty has remained frozen despite continued economic growth. This lack of progress can be attributed to a weakening of unemployment insurance (UI). UI benefits kept over 1.7 million people – jobless workers and their families – above the poverty line in 2012, however that was 600,000 fewer than in 2011, and over 1.5 million fewer than in 2010. This report states the reasoning behind the fall in UI benefits, and provides numerical evidence of UI's influence on poverty rates.

Brookings released a social mobility memo discussing how poor health as a child hinders future success. It states that health inequality may play a large role in holding back mobility in the United States. Examples of evidence-based relationships between income and health are given, as well as suggestions on how to use this information to better promote an improved health and social environment in the United States.

The Urban Institute held a roundtable with experts representing a diverse range of perspectives on U.S. workers. They were charged with informing a broad workforce policy agenda that would reflect the nation's changing economic and government landscape. The experts set out to address unemployment and explore innovative approaches to meeting employer demand for skilled workers. This report highlights workforce innovations and practices that attendees felt held the most promise and the most challenges for ensuring a more effective U.S. workforce system.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released a Data Spotlight report addressing the reasoning behind why over five million adults every year have an unmet need for mental health care and do not receive mental health services. According to the 2009 to 2011 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), cost/insurance issues were the most frequently mentioned reasons for not receiving mental health services. Unmet mental health needs can have a direct effect on the well-being of the individual, their relationships, and their employment.