This resource is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service and is an update of the annual series on rural America. Researchers provide the state of rural areas with a focus on the effect of the recession on rural families. For rural areas, even before the recession, unemployment was increasing in manufacturing; other major employment sectors, and the poverty rate in rural areas has continued to be higher than the national average since 2001. The nonmetro population has continued to increase, but from a rise in births and not migration from metro into nonmetro areas.

From the Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research and Evaluation, this research brief provides information on the transition to adulthood for vulnerable youth. Specifically, youth from families below 200 percent of the Federal poverty level often lack the resources and opportunities found to lead to better outcomes. Researchers compare significant differences in outcomes of low-income youth to middle-income youth to high-income youth.

This issue brief from Feeding America offers an estimate on the prevalence of food insecurity among children in the country. The estimates were calculated from the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS FSS) for 2005-2007. Researchers estimate that 12.5 million children in the United States from 2005 to 2007 were food insecure, which equates to about 17 percent of children under the age of 18.

Due to the economic climate, many workers have faced the unstable labor market with declining wages and job insecurity, and the effects take a larger toll on disadvantaged workers. Organizations that are currently serving disadvantaged workers are also facing challenges to matching their clients to employment opportunities, and organizations have been finding innovative approaches to employment through sectoral employment strategies, career pathways and transitional jobs. This resource, from Public/Private Ventures, provides an overview of alternative staffing strategies currently being utilized across the country to support job seekers and disadvantaged workers.

This fact sheet is from the National Center for Children in Poverty and provides information on how the United States government measures poverty, and offers alternative ways for measuring economic hardship. Currently, the official poverty measure in 2009 is $22,050 a year for a family of four and $18,310 for a family of three, which is used to determine eligibility for public programs. Authors suggest creating a measure that accounts for regional differences would help families to better understand families in poverty across the country.

The Children’s Future Initiative was designed to prepare young children for achieving successful outcomes in school in Trenton, New Jersey. From Public/Private Ventures, this report offers key strategies employed from the Initiative, and offers information on program implementation, participant recruitment, and collaborations among Trenton’s agencies. Early findings include that this effort has started making changes in the institutional level to help agencies better serve children from birth to age three.

Much of the success of the Federal child support program is contingent upon the ability or willingness of noncustodial parents (NCPs) to provide financial support for their children. As a result, the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) has an established track record of supporting demonstration and research projects focused on testing innovative program practices that enable NCPs to assume personal responsibility (financial and emotional) for their children. The purpose of this report is three-fold: 1) to disseminate information to the child support program and research community-at-large regarding State or local experiences in working with NCPs, 2) to share information on successes or lessons learned resulting from implementing these program interventions, and 3) to provide potential or future OCSE grantees with a baseline of information regarding projects that have been funded to date.

Public/Private Ventures released a report from a national longitudinal study of the Boys and Girls Clubs’ Program. Ten Clubs from around the country participated in the study to look at how youth transitioned into high school in relation to academic achievement, physical and emotional health. Findings suggest that Boys and Girls Clubs’ Programs are working throughout the country to promote healthy behavior among teens.

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this resource gives an overview of the TANF provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Act Created an Emergency Contingency Fund under which states can receive 80 percent federal funding for increases (relative to a base year quarter) in certain TANF-related expenditures in federal fiscal years 2009 and 2010.

While the child support program has been recently successful in supporting low-income single parents, many single parents still do not receive child support. Child support can often be a vital financial resource for families in poverty. In this study, researchers look at the effect of child support debt on nonresident fathers’ child support payments and formal earnings in Wisconsin.