From the National Center for Children in Poverty, this article explores trends in child poverty rates since 2000. Overall, the national child poverty rate has increased, and this report identifies the regions across the country in which families have been the most affected. Specifically, the Midwest experienced the most significant growth in child poverty rates, accounting for 43% of the national increase over the last five years.

Authored by Nancy Wemmerus, Carole Kuhns, and Renee Loeffler. This report describes the status of over 1,000 Virginia families 18 months after their TANF cases closed because of a time limit. It finds that nearly all parents worked after leaving TANF, with average hours, hourly wages, and total earnings increasing over time. Families also decreased their use of non-cash assistance--such as Food Stamps, Medicaid, and child care subsidies. As of November 2002, 15 percent of the families had returned to TANF.

Authored by Deborah A. Orth and Malcolm L. Goggin. This research was conducted by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government and is supported by a grant from the Administration for Children and Families.

The Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 requires the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare annual reports to Congress on indicators and predictors of welfare dependence. The 2003 Indicators of Welfare Dependence, the sixth annual report, provides welfare dependence indicators through 2000, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in August 1996.

Authored by Pietro S. Nivola, Jennifer L. Noyes, and Isabell V. Sawhill. This Policy Brief is part of a Brookings Institution series entitled Welfare Reform and Beyond. This is issue #29 of this series.

Authored by Robert G. Wood, Anu Rangarajan, and John Deke. This Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. report compares the characteristics and experiences of two groups of Work First New Jersey clients: 1) an early group that participated in the first year of program operations from July 1997 to June 1998; and 2) a later group participating from July 2000 to June 2001. The report finds that the caseload characteristics changed substantially during the recent period of rapid caseload decline, with a growing proportion of clients facing employment challenges.

Authored by Tammy Ouellette, Nancy Burstein, David Long, and Erik Beecroft. This report summarizes what is known about the measurement of material hardship and its application to research with low-income families with children. The report, by Abt Associates, discusses challenges in defining and measuring material hardship, reviews how such measures have been in recent research, and presents analyses of data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).

Authored by John Iceland of the University of Maryland and Kurt Bauman of the U.S. Census Bureau. This report, as part of the Working Paper Series of the National Poverty Center (NPC), uses data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation and explores the relationship between poverty and material hardship. Food insecurity, basic needs, and possession of consumer durables are examples of measures of material hardship.

This Issue Brief, sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) presents analysis of data on unemployment receipt from the Census Bureau's Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey. This data analysis is supplemented by findings from two studies by Mathematica Policy Research on eligibility for unemployment insurance among former welfare recipients. By focusing on increased receipt of unemployment insurance, this Issue Brief highlights a largely overlooked, but significant, change in the lives of single women and their families.

This report examines the diversity of children's living situation in American households. The statistics in this report are based on national estimates of children and their living situations from June to September 2001. In 2001, 72.5 children under 18 lived in households. 51.1 million lived with two parents.