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.

The Brookings Institute hosted a briefing on the new Census data on poverty. A panel of experts offered their opinions on what the data means for children and families in the United States.

The Peer Technical Assistance (TA) Network, funded by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) coordinated this rural workshop involving select representatives from twelve States from across four ACF Regions. State agency representatives were present from a variety of agencies including TANF, WTW, transportation, economic development, and domestic violence. Private sector speakers included a town mayor, a chief executive officer for a mass transit district, directors of several State coalitions against domestic violence, and key individuals from various private state-wide welfare service organizations. States represented included Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.

The purpose of this one-day workshop was to promote the sharing of ideas and innovative practices designed to assist rural communities to effectively collaborate and utilize community resources to move welfare recipients toward employment and self-sufficiency. During the workshop, participants examined partnership building and the importance of collaboration among and between state, local, and community agencies as a key element in addressing many welfare reform issues. Collaboration among the following agencies was discussed: welfare, transportation, domestic violence, and economic, community, and housing development.

The purpose of this one-day workshop was to identify existing barriers to providing social services to individuals and families in rural areas in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska and to promote the sharing of ideas, existing State programming efforts, innovative promising practices, and ways to further collaboration efforts to enhance services in these areas. Throughout this workshop, collaboration of effort and services between, State, County, local, community and faith-based entities was emphasized as necessary in order to achieve the desired level of service to rural areas.