This Final Report describes a workshop that took place on September 16, 2003, in New York City, sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA).

Authored by Burt Barnow and Christopher King. This posting provides the Rockefeller Institute's final report to the U.S. Department of Labor for its study of state and local administration of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998. The study includes findings for Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Texas, and Utah.

Los Angeles' welfare caseload is larger than that of 48 of the 50 states. LA had a rigorous work participation requirement and developed policies to help move welfare recipients into jobs; over time, more recipients did go to work. However, most recipients still remained poor, and those who worked were usually in low-wage jobs without benefits. The challenge facing welfare policymakers is how to devise strategies to help low-wage workers acquire the skills needed to financially advance.

The National Center for Children in Poverty released a report that found that although cities offer many economic opportunities, children in urban areas are more likely be part of low-income families than those living in rural or suburban areas.

This research from MDRC reviews caseload dynamics for food stamps in Cuyahoga County, OH; Los Angeles, CA; Miami-Dade County, FL; and Philadelphia, PA. The data reviewed caseload data from 1993 to 2001, and found that across all sites, the food stamp caseload declined. Additionally, it was found that most recipients receive food stamps for at least seven months.

The child poverty rate in the 50 largest cities significantly increased between 1999 and 2004. Specifically, the child poverty rate in the 50 largest cities was 28 percent- compared to 18 percent nationally. From the Brookings Institution, this article reviews indicators of child wellbeing, including residing in single parent homes, in cities across the US.

This study, from the Center for Housing Policy, found that the average working family residing in a city spends 57 percent of their annual income on transportation and housing costs. Low-to-moderate income working families are being forced to reside further outside city centers due to housing costs, but families are spending as much or more on transportation costs than they are saving on housing costs.

Child poverty rates are increasing in Michigan, and since 2000, the child poverty rate rose from 14 percent to 17 percent. In Detroit, 72 percent of children live in families that are low-income. For a two parent family with two children, the household income must be $40,000 in the city of Detroit to afford basic necessities. This fact sheet reviews the data around employment and work support use in Michigan.

Based on data from the 2005 American Community Survey and the Census in 2000, this report from the Brookings Institution analyzes poverty in the 100 largest urban areas in the United States. The percentage of people living in poverty increased in both cities and suburbs between 1999 and 2005, and the child poverty rate rose faster than the overall rate by 3 additional percentage points. The poverty rate in large cities was 18.8 percent- twice as high as in suburbs at 9.4 percent in 2005.

Authored by Walter Hillabrant, Judy Earp, Mack Rhoades, and Nancy Pindus. This report presents findings from a Mathematica study, done under the Welfare to Work evaluation, of economic development initiatives in eight tribes (Cheyenne River Sioux, Citizen Potawatomi, Colville Confederated Tribes, Gila River, Mississippi Choctaw, Navajo Nation, Three Affiliated Tribes, and Turtle Mountain Chippewa) and two Alaska Native corporations (Bristol Bay Native Corporation and Doyon Limited). This report discusses how American Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages have embraced the goals, objectives, and programs associated with welfare reform, but the lack of jobs limits the success of tribal programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Welfare-to-Work (WtW).