This article examines the impacts of Opportunity New York City-Family Rewards, the first holistic conditional cash transfer (CCT) program evaluated in the United States, on parental financial investments in children, and high school students' academic time use, motivations and self-beliefs, and achievement outcomes. Family Rewards, launched by the…

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) serves as the foundation of America's national nutrition safety net. It is the nation's first line of defense against food insecurity and offers a powerful tool to improve nutrition among low-income individuals. SNAP is the largest of the 15 domestic food and nutrition assistance programs…

This study examined the prevalence of indicators of disability or potential disability among preschool-aged children enrolled in the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Longitudinal Follow-Up. Three categories of indicators were established: received Part B services, developmental risk, and biological risk. The majority of participating…

Although a vast amount of literature on the characteristics of public assistance recipients exists, little is known about the characteristics of the clientele of nonprofits that provide material assistance. This study examines the question of who receives material assistance from nonprofits. Three panels of the Survey of Income and Program…

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers, and the promotion of competition are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school…

Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have two main objectives: reducing poverty and increasing the human capital of children. To reach these objectives, transfers are given to poor households conditioned on investments in their children's education, health, and nutrition. Targeting mechanisms used by CCTs have been generally successful in…

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers and the promotion of competition, are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school…

Examined benefits of the federal Comprehensive Child Development Program (CCDP) as a function of socioeconomic and welfare status. Found that more families in the CCDP left Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) than control families. The CCDP produced benefits for children whose parents were not receiving AFDC, who tended to choose…

Demographic surveys and data could be used to assess programs and policies directly and indirectly concerned with the reduction of poverty, and, through the use of such survey data, to point to a number of population subgroupings which are or are not moving out of poverty. Annually collected Census Bureau facts, the basis of much of the analysis…

This report contains eight papers which summarize a two-year research project that examined the income dynamics of poor families. The empirical work is based upon the National Longitudinal Surveys of the Michigan Survey Research Center, a special sample of 3,000 Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) families conducted by the authors, the…

A study of the dependency of persons on soup kitchens in Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Westchester County (New York) identified who uses these kitchens, the extent to which they are dependent on them, what other food programs they use, what their perceived need from other services is, and dependency differences of subgroups. (JS)

New findings about child nutrition and cognitive development indicate that undernourished children are typically fatigued and uninterested in their social environments. Such children are less likely to establish relationships or to explore and learn from their surroundings. Undernourished children are also more susceptible to illness and, thus,…

Although born into privilege, Katharine Drexel was blessed with parents, siblings, friends, and spiritual guides who kept her rooted in a deep, Eucharistic faith. Responding to the needs of the poor was a responsibility of the rich, and Katharine learned this value at the hands of her parents at an early age. With the good counsel of popes and…

This report examined the economic and demographic characteristics of infants and toddlers, how these characteristics changed between 1980 and 1990, and the percentage of the infant and toddler population served by federal early childhood programs. This examination of census and other data found that during the 1980s, the number of poor infants and…

This report uses data collected during the National Evaluation of School Nutrition Project (NESNP-II) in 1983-84 to describe the characteristics of students and households eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP), and the characteristics of NSLP and SBP participants and their households. The NESNP-II…