MDRC (formerly Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation)
"...nonprofit, nonpartisan social policy research organization with headquarters in New York City and a regional office in Oakland, California"

Publications List
Publications organized by topic area and by research project within each area.

Sample reports:

Welfare Reform, Work, and Child Care
The Role of Informal Care in the Lives of Low-Income Women and Children
October 2003
"Analyzing rich data from in-depth ethnographic interviews conducted in Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia, Next Generation researchers documented the challenges that low-income families face as they patch together a variety of arrangements to meet their child care needs. Unregulated or minimally regulated informal care typically plays a central role in these families’ patchworks of care, meeting some families’ needs very well but representing inadequate or unsafe arrangements of last resort for many others."
Related Link:
Next Generation - "...draws data and perspectives from 10 rigorous studies conducted by MDRC, including (...) Canada’s Self-Sufficiency Project."

Making Work Pay : How to Design and Implement Financial Work Supports
to Improve Family and Child Well-Being and Reduce Poverty (Overview)
2002 How-To Guide Series
"When Congress reauthorizes the nation’s welfare policy in 2003, it is likely to require even more recipients to work and require them to work more hours per week. The use of the policies described in this guide can help states meet the new goals as well as reduce poverty and benefit children. Although most states are suffering severe budget shortfalls as this guide is published, Making Work Pay discusses ways to make earning supplements more efficient and less costly."
Full report (PDF file - 320K, 77 pages)

Leavers, Stayers, and Cyclers:An Analysis of the Welfare Caseload
November 2002
Summary
Full Report (PDF file - 210K, 68 pages)

Related Link:
Welfare Time Limits : State Policies, Implementation, and Effects on Families (July 2002)

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies : Moving People from Welfare to Work
Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS)
July 2002
"(...)The NEWWS programs generally did not increase income or reduce poverty. Indeed, some of the more disadvantaged program enrollees were made worse off financially."

Welfare Time Limits : State Policies, Implementation, and Effects on Families
July 2002
"[...]Time limits became a highly contentious issue in the debate about the 1996 federal welfare reform law, which imposed a 60-month lifetime cap on federal cash assistance but gave states broad flexibility to design time-limit policies. (...) Drawing from a survey of all 50 state welfare agencies, Welfare Time Limits shows that, to date, relatively few families have reached the federal time limit. A larger number of families have reached state time limits of fewer than 60 months, but many of the families who encountered these shorter limits were granted extensions. The report documents wide variations in states' implementation of the time limit and underscores how the strong economy of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which created job opportunities and filled state coffers, helped avert the limit's potential adverse fallout.]"
Overview
Executive Summary
Full Report (PDF file - 1769K, 205pages)

What Works in Welfare Reform: Evidence and Lessons to Guide TANF Reauthorization (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families)
June 14, 2002
"...brings together findings from 17 recent MDRC evaluations of welfare reform programs covering nearly a dozen years of field studies in a one-stop guide to the issues at the heart of the reauthorization debate. This guide explains how the three key welfare policy approaches - employment mandates, work incentives, and time limits - have affected poor families and government budgets. Readers will find evidence and analysis that raise implications for America's next welfare reform agenda."

How Welfare and Work Policies for Parents Affect Adolescents : A Synthesis of Research
May 2002
Overview
Full Report (PDF file - 1878K, 145 pages)

Mystifying Data: Can America's Promise Get Away with It?
July 1999
From Energize, Inc. - "especially for leaders of volunteers"

Moving Ideas (U.S.)
News and Resources from the Policy Action Network (formerly the Electronic Policy Network)
"The Policy Action Network is dedicated to explaining and popularizing complex policy ideas to a broader audience. Our goal is to improve collaboration and dialogue between policy and grassroots organizations, and to promote their work to journalists and legislators. (...) Moving Ideas posts the best ideas and resources from leading progressive research and advocacy institutions, as well as promotes high-quality websites and publishes original content. We hope to strengthen democratic participation by providing a more inclusive and intelligible debate about the issues that shape our world."
Link Library - large collection of annotated links under the following categories : Alternative News Sources - Building Democracy - Criminal Justice - The Economy - Education - Energy and the Environment - Families, Children, and Youth - Foreign Policy and Defense - Gay Issues - Gender - Globalization, Immigration, and Trade - Health Care Policy - International Policy Resources - Media Old & New - Poverty, Income, and Wealth - Public Policy Programs & Political Science Departments - Race - Rights and Liberties - Science and Culture - Social Security and Aging - Welfare & Families - Working America - Urban Issues/Livable Cities.

Sample content:

Welfare Wars: In Brief
"Those who support the welfare reform law have pointed to the more than 50 percent reduction in the welfare rolls -- from 12.2 million in 1996 to 5.5 million in March 2001. But many of the families leaving welfare aren't leaving poverty. In 1999, 41 percent of former welfare recipients were poor, and 64 percent of parents who had left welfare for work found themselves struggling to support their families on a median hourly wage of $7.15."
Source : Shaping the Debate

From MyWay (U.S. News portal):

[U.S.] Welfare State Growing Despite Overhauls
February 26, 2007
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
WASHINGTON (AP) - The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid. The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees. (...) Critics of the welfare overhaul say the numbers offer fresh evidence that few former recipients have become self-sufficient, even though millions have moved from welfare to work. They say the vast majority have been forced into low-paying jobs without benefits and few opportunities to advance. (...) In 2005, about 5.1 million people received monthly welfare payments from TANF and similar state programs, a 60 percent drop from a decade before. But other government programs grew, offsetting the declines. About 44 million people - nearly one in six in the country - relied on government services for the poor in 2003, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the Census Bureau. That compares with about 39 million in 1996. Also, the number of people getting government aid continues to increase, according to more recent enrollment figures from individual programs. Medicaid rolls alone topped 45 million people in 2005, pushed up in part by rising health care costs and fewer employers offering benefits. Nearly 26 million people a month received food stamps that year. Cash welfare recipients, by comparison, peaked at 14.2 million people in 1994.

Related links:

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program - Fact Sheet - brief summary of TANF
TANF Seventh Annual Report to Congress (December 2006) - data about welfare caseloads, family employment and earnings, marriage and two-parent families, out-of-wedlock births, and State policy choices
TANF statute:
H.R. 3734 - Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
TANF final regulations:
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF); Final Rule
Policy Q's and A's
Policy documents - incl. policy announcements, program instructions and information memoranda
Medicaid
Food stamp program
Supplemental Security Income

----

See also:

June 28, 2006
TANF Regs: A Big Step Backwards (and a Red Herring)
Source:
The Thicket
A Bipartisan Blog by and for Legislative Junkies

National Academies

America's Underinsured: A Closer Look
This new "Web extra" from the National Academies covers the uninsured and underinsured in the United States. Currently about 40 million Americans are not covered by health insurance, more than the combined populations of Connecticut, Texas, and Florida, according to the site, and 80 percent of these are employed or are members of working families. The heart of the site is the new publication from the National Academy Press (NAP), _Coverage Matters: Insurance and Health Care_. The report, the first in a series by the Institute of Medicine, argues that public policy is more crucial than the state of the economy in decreasing the number of uninsured and underinsured citizens. In addition to a press release and a link to _Coverage Matters_, the site features a number of articles, including "A Portrait of the Uninsured," "Where to Find Help," and "The Myths and Realities." Hyperlinks throughout the articles lead to more information off- site.
Reviewed by The Scout Report (October 19, 2001)
Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001

National Academy Press - ("Read over 20,000 books online free!")
Click on "Browse Categories" to see titles in over 25 categories, from Agriculture to Urban Development.
Here are a few samples that you can either purchase in hard copy or read online free :

Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition
2001 - 268 pages
Panel on Data and Methods for Measuring the Effects of Changes in Social Welfare Programs
Committee on National Statistics, National Research Council
Read it Online

Measuring Poverty: A New Approach
1995 - 536 pages
Panel on Poverty and Family Assistance: Concepts, Information Needs, and Measurement Methods
Committee on National Statistics, National Research Council
Read it Online

National Alliance to End Homelessness (US)
The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nationwide federation of public, private, and nonprofit organizations that demonstrates this every day, one person or one family at a time. Working together, the Alliance members form a powerful network of concerned individuals and organizations advancing practical, realistic, community-based solutions that build a better future for generations to come.

First Nationwide Estimate of Homeless Population in a Decade Announced:
Approximately 744,313 people homeless on a single night.
News Release
January 11, 2007
Washington—There were 744,313 people homeless in January 2005 according to Homelessness Counts, the first national assessment of the number of homeless people in over a decade. The report was released today by the Homelessness Research Institute of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. This estimate, a compilation of point-in-time counts collected by local Continuums of Care, provides data on every state and community in the country.

Complete report:

Homelessness Counts (PDF | 1.51 MB | 48 pages)
Homelessness Counts-Appendix B Methodology Supplement (PDF | 84 KB | 2 pages)
Homelessness Counts-Appendix B Supplement 1 (PDF | 93 KB | 48 pages)
Homelessness Counts-Appendix B Supplement 2 (PDF | 79 KB | 20 pages)

Source:
National Alliance to End Homelessness

Related Link:

Of 744,000 homeless estimated in US, 41 percent are in families
By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press
January 11, 2007
WASHINGTON -- There were 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national estimate in a decade. A little more than half were living in shelters, and nearly a quarter were chronically homeless, according to the report yesterday by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group.
Source:
Boston Globe

National Center for Policy Analysis
The NCPA is a nonprofit public policy research institute. (...) The NCPA depends entirely on the financial support of individuals, corporations and foundations who believe in private sector solutions to public policy problems.

The Welfare Law Center

The LINC* Project
(*Low Income Networking and Communications)
New York
"LINC Project is the electronic crossroads where the members, leaders, and organizers of low income organizations confronting the shredding of our social safety net can connect, gather and exchange information and have their organizing efforts represented"

The Drudge Report

National Center for Children in Poverty (Columbia University Health Sciences, New York)
"The mission of the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is to identify and promote strategies that reduce the number of young children living in poverty in the United States, and that improve the life chances of the millions of children under age six who are growing up poor."
Check out this comprehensive, current and HUGE collection of information on child poverty in the US
- includes: Media Resources - Newsletters - Child Poverty Facts - State & Local Info - Child Care & Early Ed. - Family Support -  Welfare Reform - Research Forum -  Publications - Feedback and more

A few sample recent reports:

State policies Ignore Research on Healthy Child Development:
Leading National Organization Releases Report on Policies for Young Children (PDF file - 45K, 2 pages)
News Release
May 16, 2007
NEW YORK– In advance of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s summit on early childhood development, the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), has released a new report, State Early Childhood Polices: Improving the Odds. The study finds unevenness and deficiencies across the 50 states in policies that affect the well-being and development of young children.

State Early Childhood Policies
Helene Stebbins and Jane Knitzer
June 2007
Executive Summary - HTML
Complete report (PDF file - 852K, 27 pages)
National Profile (PDF file - 418K, 6 pages)
Full Set of State Profiles (PDF file - 852K, 27 pages)
State Early Childhood Policy Profiles - HTML

December 14, 2006 Update
As 2006 draws to a close, many are predicting that the economy in 2007 will be shaky at best.
Unfortunately, Who Are America's Poor Children? The Official Story reveals that nearly 13 million children already live in families with income below the official poverty measure. Worse, it is widely agreed that the poverty measure understates the true extent of economic hardship.

WHO ARE AMERICA'S POOR CHILDREN? THE OFFICIAL STORY

NCCP's new fact sheet finds that 18% of children live in families that are officially considered poor.
Who Are America's Poor Children? The Official Story
- describes the characteristics of children who are officially poor and identifies public policy strategies for improving the well-being of children and families.
Key findings include:
* Across the states, child poverty rates range from 7% in New Hampshire to 27% in Mississippi.
* Poverty is especially prevalent among black, Latino, and American Indian children.
* Official poverty rates are highest for young children.
Read the fact sheet

Subscribe to NCCP Update
- provides subscribers with periodic mailings (once or twice a month) on our new publications, research activities, and online tools.
To see our past mailings, check out the archive (14 previous issues as at Dec. 17/06).

Struggling Despite Hard Work:
Low-Income Families in Michigan and Detroit
Fact Sheet
November 2006
HTML
PDF (189K, 4 pages)
More than a third of Michigan's children live in low-income families. This fact sheet looks at employment and the use of work support benefits among low-income families in Michigan as a whole and also in Detroit. It finds that most low-income children have employed parents, but many families do not receive the work supports that can close the gap between resources and expenses.

NOTE: use the NCCP's Family Resource Simulator (the next link below) to see how much parents in Michigan need to earn to cover basic expenses, taking work support policies into account. The Simulator shows that for a two-parent family of four living in Detroit, it takes earnings of nearly $40,000 a year--twice the poverty level--to afford basic necessities.

Family Resource Simulator (FRS)
The Family Resource Simulator is an interactive web-based tool that calculates family resources and expenses as earnings increase, taking public benefits into account. The user “creates” a hypothetical family by making choices about: city and state, family characteristics, income sources, assets, and debt. The user also selects which public benefits the family receives when eligible and decides what happens when the family loses benefits (e.g., does the family seek cheaper child care after losing a subsidy?). The result is a series of graphs that show the impact of public benefits on family resources and basic family expenses as earnings rise.
[As at November 17, the FRS is available for twelve states and 50 localities, with plans to keep expanding.]
The Family Resource Simulator is part of NCCP’s Making “Work Supports” Work initiative, which examines the current patchwork of federal and state programs that assist low-wage workers and their families and explores policy alternatives.
FRS User Guide Pop-up - explains how the FRS works in more detail

Making “Work Supports” Work - incl. links to Publications - Partners - Related Link

Economic Insecurity: Implications of Federal Budget proposals for Low-Income Working Families - U.S.
April 2005
"Despite the fact that nearly 15 million children in this country have a parent who works full time yet can't afford basic necessities, federal budget proposals put forth by President Bush and the U.S. Congress call for dramatic cuts to programs that assist low-income families. NCCP's new policy brief uses our Family Resource Simulator to show how proposed cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, housing assistance, and child care will affect families' ability to make ends meet. Using examples from four major U.S. cities, this brief illustrates the kinds of effects we can expect nationwide if proposed benefit cuts are implemented.

- Read the policy brief:
http://nccp.org/sps/go.cgi?c=5D4_XlOeDAJzjE0Vb3nx

- Read the press release:
http://nccp.org/sps/go.cgi?c=lunu0uiGArxdgfq5Nw7A

Columbia Research Group Warns Against Ignoring Children in Social Security Debate
News Release
February 24, 2005
"Social Security is the single largest support program for children in the United States Although Social Security is the single largest program that provides support to American children, the debate over privatization has focused almost entirely on changes in benefits for retirees. (...) While it is true that retirees and their spouses are the largest block of beneficiaries from the program, over 5 million children in the United States benefit from Social Security, either directly as beneficiaries or indirectly as members of households that receive a monthly Social Security check. Of the 48 million people who currently receive Social Security benefits, one in three is not a retiree; one in 15 is a child under the age of 18."

Full Report:
Whose Security? What Social Security Means to Children and Families (PDF file - 90K, 10 pages)

Source:
National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) - New York

Related NCCP Links:

New Policy Brief and Fact Sheet on Social Security and Children
"Although most discussions of Social Security focus on its retirement benefits, the program is more accurately described as a family insurance program. Social Security is the primary, if not the only, source of life and disability insurance for many U.S. families, especially those headed by younger workers. Social Security is responsible for keeping many middle- and low-income children from falling into poverty when a parent dies or becomes disabled."

Questions for policymakers on Social Security and Children
"...questions policymakers should consider before proposing changes in the program that would affect the children and spouses of deceased workers, and disabled workers and their families."

Related Links:
- Go to the Pension Reforms Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/pensions.htm

The Evolution of Income Security Research—1968-2003 (PDF file - 83K, 6 pages) - U.S.
By Barbara B. Blum
The Forum - May 2004 Issue
(Research Forum Newsletter)
- Negative Income Tax Experiments, Supported Work Research, State System Welfare/Work Demonstrations, Research on Child and Family Well-being, and more...

State Policy Choices: Assets and Access to Public Assistance
October 2003
"New fact sheet: Even small levels of savings or a single car can make families ineligible for TANF cash assistance, food stamps, and public health insurance. State assets tests vary widely."
Abstract (HTML file)
Full Text (PDF file - 147K, 3 pages)

Debt and Assets Among Low-Income Families
October 2003
"Low-income families today are burdened with rising levels of debt but have few assets to leverage if they are confronted by a financial crisis, such as a job layoff or long illness. Our new report finds that, for low-income families, average debt doubled between 1984 and 2001, while most have only a few hundred dollars in liquid assets."
Abstract (HTML file)
Full Text (PDF file - 76K, 5 pages)

Circumstances Dictate Public Views of Government Assistance
October 2003
"Perceptions of low-income families are evolving. This attitudinal research examines public opinion of such families and the policies designed to assist them."
Abstract
Executive Summary (PDF file - 464K)
Full Text (PDF file - 518K)

Low Income and Hardship Among America's Kindergartners
September 2003
"Most of the families with incomes between 100-200 percent of the federal poverty level include at least one full-time working parent and even so continue to experience hardship, underscoring the importance of work supports such as child care subsidies. At least one in eight low-income families still cannot obtain health insurance for their children, have not taken their child to a dentist in the last year, and have moved three or more times in the child’s life."
Abstract
Full Text (PDF file - 120K)

The Effects of Parental Education on Income
September 2003
"New fact sheet: Nearly two-thirds of low-income children have parents without any college education. Policies that support education for low-income parents and their children offer them the potential for lasting economic security."
Abstract
Full Text (PDF file - 465K)

Living at the edge : America's low-income children and families:
Employment alone is not enough (PDF file - 500K, 11 pages)
August 2003
New York
Research brief, n° 1
"Nearly 40 percent of American children live in families with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level — the amount that research suggests is needed for most families
to be economically self-sufficient."

Early Childhood Poverty: A Statistical Profile
March 2002
PDF version (462K, 6 pages)
"...almost one in five young children (18 percent in 2000) in the United States lives in poverty during the early years that are so important to future life chances. The 2.1 million children under age three who are poor face a greater likelihood of impaired development because of their increased exposure to a number of factors associated with poverty."

National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH)
- incl. links to : Home | Join NCH | Donate to NCH | What YOU Can Do | Homeless...Need Help? | Facts about Homelessness | What's New | Legislation and Policy | Alerts | About NCH | NCH Projects | Speakers' Bureau | LeTendre Education Fund | Personal Experiences of Homelessness | Calendar of Events | Directories | Internet Resources | K-12 Educational Materials | Publications | Job Announcements | Contact NCH

Report targets escalating civil rights abuses
against homeless people and identifies "meanest" cities
News Release
November 9, 2004
"WASHINGTON, DC- Today the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) releases Illegal to be Homeless: The Criminalization of Homelessness in the United States, the most comprehensive study of homeless civil rights violations. This study is also the most up-to-date survey of current laws that criminalize homeless people and ranks the top 'meanest' cities and states in the country. This report examines legislated ordinances and statutes, as well as law enforcement and community practices since August of 2003."

Complete report:

Illegal to be Homeless:
The Criminalization of Homelessness in the United States
November 2004

PDF version (1.5MB, 118 pages)

HTML version
Introduction (Introduction - Background - Methodology - Problem Statement/Consequences of Criminalization - Model Programs - Conclusions & Recommendations
Data from Surveyed Cities (Cities Included in this Report - Meanest Cities - Narratives of the Meanest Cities - Narratives of the Other Cities -Prohibited Conduct Chart)
Appendices ( Survey Questions - Incident Report Forms - Sources)

Related Links:
Go to the Homelessness and Housing Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/homeless.htm

National Institutes of Health (NICHD) - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) seeks to assure that every individual is born healthy, is born wanted, and has the opportunity to fulfill his or her potential for a healthy and productive life unhampered by disease or disability. In pursuit of this mission, the NICHD conducts and supports laboratory, clinical, and epidemiological research on the reproductive, neurobiologic, developmental, and behavioral processes that determine and maintain the health of children, adults, families, and populations.
See the impressive list of almost 40 Institutes, Centers and Offices attached to the NICHD - you'll find links to health information covering a wide range of topics such as cancer, genome research, alcohol and drug abuse, mental health, nursing research, global health, and much more.Here are links to just two of the institutes of the NICHD:
National Institute of Aging (NIA)
The National Institute on Aging is a component of the NICHD that is devoted to improving the health of older people.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
NICHD research on fertility, pregnancy, growth, development, and medical rehabilitation strives to ensure that every child is born healthy and wanted and grows up free from disease and disability.

National Women's Law Center - Expanding the Possibilities
"...to protect and advance the progress of women and girls at work, in school, and in virtually every aspect of their lives"
Covers the following specific women's issues : Athletics - Child Care - Child and Family Support - Education - Employment - Health - Sexual Harassment - Women in the Military

New America Foundation
"The purpose of the New America Foundation is to bring exceptionally promising new voices and new ideas to the fore of our nation's public discourse. Relying on a venture capital approach, the Foundation invests in outstanding individuals and policy ideas that transcend the conventional political spectrum. (...) The New America Foundation is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit public policy institute that was conceived through the collaborative work of a diverse and intergenerational group of public intellectuals, civic leaders, and business executives."
Programs - includes : American Strategy - Asset Building - Fellows - Global Economic Policy - Health Insurance - New America Books - Spectrum Policy - Retirement Security - Work & Family
Issues - includes : New Economy - Civil Society - Education - Global Trade - Democracy - International Security - Environment

Recent sample reports:

The Misleading Way We Count the Poor:
Alternatives to Our Antiquated Poverty Measure Should Consider Assets (PDF file - 73K, 5 pages)
September 15, 2003

Federal Policy and Asset Building New America Foundation (PDF file - 98K, 6 pages)
June 1, 2003

New America’s Asset Building Program - description of the Asset Building Program and links to related documents, events and other online resources

New York Times

June 10, 2007
The Money Issue: The Poverty Platform (U.S. Election 2008)
By MATT BAI
John Edwards says Americans should care more about economic injustice. Can he turn the plight of the poor into a winning campaign issue?
NOTE: this article is nine pages long - click "NEXT PAGE" at the bottom of each page to read the whole article. The article focuses on John Edwards and the politics of poverty, and it contains some good historical info along with a number of hyperlinks to related articles. (Some of the linked articles require a [free] registration, but there's a lot of free content...)

Nonprofit Good Practice Guide (U.S.)
-incl. links to : Fundraising and Financial Sustainability - Governance - Staff Development and Organizational Capacity - Accountability and Evaluation - Volunteer Management - Communications and Marketing - Management and Leadership - Advocacy - Technology

Pew Center on the States
"The Pew Center conducts highly credible research, brings together diverse perspectives, analyzes states' experiences to determine what works and what doesn't, and collaborates with other funders and organizations to shine a spotlight on nonpartisan, pragmatic solutions."

Pew Center on the States: Special Report on Medicaid 2006
Bridging the Gap Between Care and Cost (U.S.)
January 2006
This special report on Medicaid, by the Pew Center on the States, seeks to analyze the real-world experiences of states, highlight examples of what works and what doesn't, and inform a crucial policy debate that will affect the lives of millions of Americans.
- incl. links to the Complete report (PDF file - 292K, 24 pages) and to a table of contents (copied below) with links to the individual chapters in HTML.
Table of contents:
Overview
* The Great Debate Medicaid in the eye of the storm
* The Challenge of Change Balancing cost controls with the health of millions
The States at Work
* Long-term care Medicaid's Third Rail
* Prescription drugs The Rx Factor: Controlling prescription drug costs
* Technology The Great eHealth Hope: How technology can help
* Cost sharing Something of Value: Experiments in cost sharing
* Management Tools to Live By: Managing for better performance
* Private insurance Trading Places: Tapping into private insurance
* Reform The Radical Reformers: A new approach
* About the Report
* Related Resources - Links to over 800 reports from the 50 states pertaining to Medicaid and related health issues. These reports were published in 2004 and 2005 and come from many different sources, including auditors, legislatures, a wide variety of state agencies and research organizations. Resources can be browsed by state or topic.

News Release:

Pew Center on the States Examines State Innovation in Medicaid Policy
January 1, 2006
(Philadelphia, PA) - All 50 states are experimenting with new ways to try to rein in Medicaid costs. While these approaches may save money, they could limit the program's capacity to provide vital health care to the nearly 60 million Americans who depend on it. Which reforms have been most effective? What may be the unintended consequences of reforms to Medicaid? The Pew Center on the States, a division of The Pew Charitable Trusts, today issued its first state policy report, Special Report on Medicaid: Bridging the Gap Between Care and Cost, which analyzes how state Medicaid programs are wrestling with rising costs and highlights examples of which innovations are working, which are not, and why.

PBS

Waging a Living, a documentary film about low-wage earners (the "working poor") in the U.S. by Robert Weisberg
(Check your local PBS listings)
"The term "working poor" should be an oxymoron. If you work full time, you should not be poor, but more than 30 million Americans - one in four workers - are stuck in jobs that do not pay the basics for a decent life. Waging a Living chronicles the day-to-day battles of four low-wage earners fighting to lift their families out of poverty."

TIP: check out the Resources link --- incl. What is a living wage? - Online discussion area - Download a podcast interview with Barbara Ehrenreich - Get updates on the people in the film - Listen to the filmmaker interview podcast.

Source:
P.O.V. (a cinema term for "point of view") --- television's longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films"
[ PBS ]

Is Wal-Mart Good for America?
"They're rolling back prices, rolling back the competition, and rolling jobs overseas..."
November 16, 2004
- incl. links to : introduction + secrets of wal-mart's success + transforming america + china connection + interviews - producer's notebook + american radio work's companion reports + join the discussion + correspondent's chat
teacher's guide + press reaction + tapes & transcripts + credits

Wal-Mart at a Glance
- stats and facts that capture Wal-Mart's size and scale:
* 100 million: The number of people who shop at Wal-Mart's 3400 American stores every week.
* 1.2 million: The number of Wal-Mart associates in the U.S. Any full- or part-time Wal-Mart employee, up to and including the CEO, is considered an "associate," in Wal-Mart parlance. Internationally, Wal-Mart employs an additional 330,000 associates.
*1979: The year Wal-Mart's sales first top $1 billion.
* $256 billion : Wal-Mart's sales in 2003. In the words of Wal-Mart CFO Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's sales are equal to "one IBM, one Hewlett Packard, one Dell computer, one Microsoft and one Cisco System -- and oh, by the way, after that we got $2 billion left over."
* 8 percent: The amount of total U.S. retail sales, excluding automobiles, accounted for by Wal-Mart.
* $9.98: The average full-time hourly wage for a Wal-Mart employee. The average full-time hourly wage in metro areas (defined as areas with a population of 50,000 or more) is $10.38. In some urban areas it is higher: $11.03 in Chicago, $11.08 in San Francisco, and $11.20 in Austin.

Watch Online - link directly to streaming video of the entire show (broken up into smaller segments for faster downloading)
NOTE: if you can't see any video, it may be because you're behind a corporate firewall, e.g., if your Internet connection is from a government or university computer network, for security reasons.
You should have no problem viewing the videos from home, even with a dialup connection.

Source:
Frontline

Related Wal-Mart Links - - Go to the Banks and Business Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/bookmrk3.htm

Population Reference Bureau (U.S. - world)
Providing timely and objective population information
The Population Reference Bureau is the leader in providing timely and objective information on US and international population trends and their implications.
PRB Web Sites
PRB has five Web sites that provide the latest and most accurate data on a range of topics within the field of population, health, and nutrition.
The main PRB Web siteis your first stop for population information.
MEASURE Communication promotes wider dissemination and increased use of information on population, health, and nutrition for planning and decisionmaking in developing countries.
PopNet is a comprehensive directory of population-related Web sites-by topic or keyword, by organization, or through a world regions map. All 200 countries in the World Population Data Sheet are indexed.
AmeriStat includes a series of charts, graphs, and brief narratives describing demographic trends in five subject areas including marriage and family, education, and poverty and income.
Popplanet.org will provide data, information, and analysis on the critical relationships between population, health, and the environment.

Poverty in America: Beyond Welfare Reform (PDF file - 992K, 39 pages)
June 2002
"Are America's poor better or worse off than in the past? Do persistent stereotypes and negative images of poor people match the current reality? Has welfare reform led America's poor to adopt a new or different set of values and standards of behavior?"

Government Spending in an Older America (PDF file - 455K, 19 pages)
May 2002
"The population of the U.S. is getting older, and older people receive more in public benefits than they pay each year in taxes. How should our public finance system be changed in order to deal with this new demographic situation?"

Patterns of Poverty in America
June 2002
"New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that 12.4 percent of the U.S. population — about 34 million people — were below the poverty level in 1999.* The data, which include the first information available from the 2000 Census long form, show wide disparities in poverty levels among states and local areas."
- incl. a U.S. map showing the percent of persons in poverty by County in 1999 plus links to State, County and City data (in Excel Spread Sheet and Text formats)

Excellent collection of resources organized by theme. Explores both the factual side and the public opinion side.
Select an issue from the list for an overview - recent stories - facts and trends (different perspectives on the issue from different schools of thought) - sources and resources - how the public defines the issues - public views on policy options - areas of public consensus and demographic division - and more

Here are just two examples of what you'll find here :
Issue guide on Poverty and Welfare
Issue guide on Social Security

Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families (PDF file - 931K)
Economic Policy Institute
Family Budgets Calculator
Press Release (July 24, 2001)
This 115-page report, released at the end of last month, "is the most comprehensive study of family hardships ever published." The report examines the plight of the working poor by determining basic family budgets for communities across the nation -- the amount of money a family needs for food, housing, utilities, child care, transportation, and health care -- and comparing these figures to wage statistics. The report concludes that two-and-a-half times more families fall beneath the basic family budget levels for their communities than fall below the federal poverty line. The Family Budgets Calculator is an online supplement to the report that generates basic budgets for different kinds of families for 400,000 communities.
Reviewed by The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001
- Got to the Economic Policy Institute website

Research Forum on Children, Families and the New Federalism
The Research Forum encourages collaborative research and informed policy on welfare reform and child well-being. Our web site features an on-line database of summaries of large- and small-scale research projects. The database currently (June/02) includes 63 reviewed and 190 unreviewed research projects.
The Research Forum is an initiative of the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) - see the link to the NCCP above (in alphabetical order)

View the list of projects included in the database or search the database. 

Recent American Social Research:
Research Forum Update (12 December 2003)
[weekly newsletter]

Implementation of Welfare Reform in Virginia
Virginia Time Limit Study
State of Louisiana TANF Evaluation
Wyoming Survey of Former POWER Recipients
Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three City Study
National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies
Evaluation of the Families in Transition Program
Complete Project List - links to all 65 reviewed and 275 unreviewed research projects in the Research Forum database

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: TOTAL NUMBER OF FAMILIES AND RECIPIENTS: Percent Change from March 2003 to June 2003
- from the U.S. Administration for Children and Families

December 2003 CLASP Update
- from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)

Rethinking Local Affordable Housing Strategies: Lessons from 70 Years of Policy and Practice
- from the Brookings Institution

Medicaid: Current Benefits and Flexibility
- from the Kaiser Family Foundation

Source:
The Research Forum Website
"The Research Forum website is designed to provide researchers, policymakers, and practitioners with information about research related to welfare and income security, child/family, and community/neighborhood issues. Some of the most useful features of the website include key topics pages, a searchable research project database, a publications calendar, an Add A Project form, a glossary, a database updates log, various policy resources, and Research Forum publications. (...) The web site includes up-to-date summaries of 65 large scale or multi-site, reviewed research projects and 275 smaller (unreviewed) projects."
[ National Center for Children in Poverty - Columbia University Health Sciences, New York ]

Research on Welfare Programs Important During a Period of Uncertainty (PDF file - 450K, 6 pages)
The Forum Newsletter
January 2003
"This issue by Barbara B. Blum examines the effects of reauthorization uncertainties and economic conditions on program administration and research."

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change.

Research on U.S. Health Insurance Coverage - links to reports, journal articles and books on health insurance coverage in the U.S. from 1999 to 2005

Cover The Uninsured Week - U.S.
May 1-8, 2005
"Today, 45 million Americans have no health insurance, including more than 8 million children. Eight out of 10 uninsured Americans either work or are in working families. Being uninsured means going without needed care..."
Cover The Uninsured Week is a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Who's Involved - Former Presidents Ford and Carter are again serving as Honorary Co-Chairs for Cover the Uninsured Week...

The Scout Report

The Scout Report - December 15, 2006 issue
Selections from the Table of Contents:
(click the link above to access any selection or to read the entire issue)
* Electronic Journal of Sociology
* The History of the Supreme Court
* The knowledge economy of Europe
* Open Budget Index
* Stop Child Poverty
* USDA: Food & Nutrition Service
* The World
* Tools for Understanding
* As founder of the Grameen Bank receives Nobel Peace Prize, the profile of microcredit lending grows
Source:
The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2006
[ Internet Scout Project ]
[ University of Wisconsin - Madison ]
NOTE: The Scout Report is a weekly newsletter that's available by e-mail or online.
Just go to the Scout Report site to check out the rest of the current issue as well as back issues, and to sign up for the e-mail edition.

Previous Issues of The Scout Report - back to 1994

------------------------------------------------

Poor and Homeless Continue to Face Major Challenges in Urban Areas - U.S.
October 12/05

Crowded Out By Luxury Lofts, Poor Seek Relief
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-downtown12oct12,0,2051236.story?coll=la-home-local

Polk Gulch cleanup angers some
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/12/POLKSTREET.TMP

Nation taking a new look at homelessness, solutions
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-10-11-homeless-cover_x.htm

Study: U.S. poor trapped in urban areas
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/12/poverty.study.ap/index.html

Katrina’s Window: Confronting Concentrated Poverty Across America [pdf]
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20051012_concentratedpoverty.htm

United States Interagency Council on Homelessness [pdf]
http://www.ich.gov/

"As the recent tragedy wrought by Hurricane Katrina revealed, poor and homeless residents of America’s cities remain particularly vulnerable. Whether it is the phenomenon of gentrification or the world of natural hazards, many continue to remain marginalized in terms of opportunities, whether they be economic or otherwise. This week, a number of news pieces once again reminded the general public about the precarious situation faced by this group. In Los Angeles, the City Council decided to impose the first limits on the luxury loft and condo boom that is gradually pushing out single-room-occupancy hotels, most of which are concentrated in the city’s downtown area. While this type of creeping development may affect the poor in increasingly popular urban places, less successful cities continue to have many neighborhoods with concentrated poverty. As a report from the Brookings Institution released this week noted, poor planning over the past several decades has continued to concentrate public housing at the urban core. Generally, the end result is that many urban dwellers remain cut off from the rapid economic and housing growth that has been experienced around the urban fringe. [KMG]

The first link will lead users to a nice article from this Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times that discusses the recent action taken by the City Council. The second link leads visitors to a San Francisco Chronicle article that discusses the recent trend towards gentrification in the city’s Polk Gulch neighborhood. The third link leads to a USA Today article from this past Monday, which talks about how the recent Hurricane Katrina tragedy may transform certain aspects of addressing the homelessness situation in the country. The fourth link will take visitors to a CNN news piece, which talks about the recent report from the Brookings Institution that examines the concentration of urban poverty throughout a number of US cities. The fifth link leads to the full text of that report, authored by Alan Berube. The final link will take users to the homepage of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. [KMG]"

Source:
The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2005.
http://scout.wisc.edu/
NOTE: The Scout Report is a weekly newsletter that's available by e-mail or online.
Just go to the Scout Report site to check out the rest of the current issue as well as back issues, and to sign up for the e-mail edition.

- Go to the Homelessness and Housing Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/homeless.htm

Stop Capital Punishment Now! - U..S.
"Stop Capital Punishment Now! is an Internet based initiative attempting to achieve total abolition of the death penalty in all countries of the world and particularly in the United States of America. We believe that the taking of a human life is morally and ethically wrong. We believe that the premeditated killing by the state of its own citizens is barbaric and reprehensible."
Abolition Organizations and Web Sites - links to 40+ sites, mainly American...
The Canadian Abolition Project - Canadians working together to end the death penalty
"The Canadian Abolition Project was founded to campaign in support of Canadian government policies that will ensure consistency with Canada's position as a completely abolitionist nation. We will encourage and support interventions by the Canadian government in defence of Canadians facing the death penalty abroad. We are dedicated to achieving abolition of the death penalty for all, in all countries of the World and particularly in the United States of America. ."
- incl. links to : Canadian Abolition Sign Up Page - Canadian Abolition Email Archives - Canadian Resources [contact info for Canadian Senators, MPs and committees] - Invitation to the 1st Annual Peaceful Presence and Public Awareness Day in Toronto.

The American Prospect (TAP)
"The aim of The American Prospect is to contribute to a renewal of America's democratic traditions by presenting a practical and convincing vision of liberal philosophy, politics, and public life. We publish articles for the general reader that attempt to break through conventional understanding and creatively reframe public questions. Ours is not a magazine of complaint, of angry gestures, or of private irritations. It is a magazine of public ideas, firmly committed -- however unfashionably -- to a belief in public improvement. America can do much good, and it can do much better."
Subject Index of hundreds of American Prospect Online articles going back several years
Links to Issue Pages - incl. Globalization - Children and Families - Checkbook Democracy - Common Wealth - Election 2000 Archive

War and Rebuilding - The American Prospect
Volume 12, Issue 19.
Cover Date : November 5, 2001
- Select from almost two dozen features and articles relating to the September World Trade Center attacks and the aftermath.

Here are two sample articles from that issue:

How to Be Tough on Terrorism
by Robert B. Reich
Spreading prosperity and relieving human suffering are in our national interest to the extent that they reduce the anger felt by many of the world's poor toward rich and powerful America while creating opportunities for the poor to share the benefits of the global economy.
NOTE : Go to Robert Reich's page on the TAP website to read about the author; keep scrolling down the page for a large collection of his editorials and commentaries. Reich was U.S. Secretary of Labor (in 1993) when he and Lloyd Axworthy proposed to the OECD that it perform periodic social audits of different countries in addition to its economic audits. I've liked Reich since then, and I'd recommend that you read more of his articles (by clicking on his name above).

Behind the Burqa
by Noy Thrupkaew
Article concerning the plight of Afghan women under the rule of the Taliban and the struggle for their liberation.

Views from the American Right

The Cato Institute also maintains the following Web sites:
www.socialsecurity.org
www.freetrade.org
www.libertarianism.org
www.individualrights.org

U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network

On Welfare and the Alternatives
Welfare reform was a good idea in theory but hasn't quite worked out the way NEWT (Gingrich) and Bill Clinton thought it would.
March 1, 2007
"(...)if you want to decrease the size of government while making people self-sufficient and in doing so leaving the family unit intact, there is a rather simple solution that has been batted around since the Nixon administration. The Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is a government ensured guarantee that no one's income will fall below the level necessary to meet their most basic needs for any reason. As Bertrand Russell put it in 1918, "A certain small income, sufficient for necessities, should be secured for all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful. On this basis we may build further." Thus, with BIG no one is destitute but everyone has the positive incentive to work. BIG is an efficient, effective, and equitable solution to poverty that promotes individual freedom and leaves the beneficial aspects of a market economy in place. (...) I believe in dismantling the entire welfare system, Medicaid/care included and replacing it with the above BIG. This is the conservative solution without making judgments or convoluting it with man-managed bureaucracies as this would be the domain of the US Treasury department.
Source:
411mania.com ("pop-culture since '96")

What is the Basic Income Guarantee?
[For a discussion of BIG as a solution to poverty see "An Efficiency Argument for the Basic Income Guarantee"]
[For cost estimates of BIG See Garfinkel, Huang, and Naidich (2002) or Clark (2002)]
[For a History of USBIG 1999 to 2004, see The first five years of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network]
[For a discussion of the diversity of BIG proposals see, "The Many Faces of Universal Basic Income." (Reprinted by permission from the Political Quarterly 75 (3), 2004, pp. 266-274.0)]
Source:
U.S. Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network

PovertyUSA (CCHD) - America's Forgotten State
"For more than 31 million Americans, every day is a bitter struggle to survive with the least. They are America's poor, left behind on the road to prosperity. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development has created this site to raise awareness about poverty and help close the borders of this forgotten state."
- Go to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) website

January Is Poverty in America Awareness Month: New Media Campaign Spotlights 12 Million Poor Children in U.S.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Press Release
January 2, 2002
"The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) today launched a new national awareness campaign emphasizing the tragic reality that one out of every six children in the United States lives in poverty, according to the most recent U.S. census figures. (...) Although poverty rates declined slightly from 1999 to 2000, more than 31 million people in the United States are poor and youth under 18 years of age still experience the highest incidence of poverty. The child poverty rate is actually higher than it was in 1979 and the U.S. ranks higher in this category than most industrialized nations."

U.S. Conference of Mayors - Representing U.S.A. Cities
- incl. links to : About the USCM | Organizational Leaders | Adopted Policies | Affiliate Organizations | USCM Deferred Compensation And Long Term Care Programs | Products/Services | Membership Information
The United States Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are about 1,100 such cities in the country today. Each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. (...) Collectively, Conference of Mayors members speak with a united voice on matters pertaining to organizational policies and goals. Individually, each member mayor contributes to development of national urban policy through service on one or more of the organization's 10 standing committees.

U.S. Mayors examine causes of hunger, homelessness (small PDF file - 2 pages)
News release
December 17, 2007
Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Conference of Mayors and Sodexho, Inc. released today the results of its 2007 Hunger and Homelessness Survey at a press conference at the Conference of Mayors Headquarters in Washington, D.C. For more than 21 years, the Conference of Mayors has documented the magnitude of the issues of hunger and homelessness in our nation’s cities. This report provides an analysis of the scale of the problem in twenty-three of America’s major cities (listed below) and the efforts these cities are making to address the issue.
Source:
The U.S. Conference of Mayors
Sodexho USA

Complete report:

2007 U.S. Hunger and Homelessness Report (PDF file - 983K, 72 pages)
December 2007

Publications - links to earlier reports

United Council on Welfare Fraud - The United Council on Welfare Fraud (UCOWF) is an international organization of over 2,000 individuals from the United States and Canada who have combined their efforts to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in social service programs.

United Health Foundation
" UnitedHealth Group established the United Health Foundation in 1999 as a nonprofit, private foundation with a mission to support the health and medical decisions made by physicians, health professionals, community leaders and individuals that lead to better health outcomes and healthier communities."

15th Annual Report About Nation’s Health Shows After Years of Progress,
Overall Healthiness Slowing Dramatically, Some Areas Declining (PDF file - 131K, 4 pages)
Minnesota, New Hampshire and Vermont Hold Top Three Positions as Nation’s Healthiest States, Southeastern States
Experience Targeted Success but Continue to Face Challenges
Washington, D.C.
News Release
November 8, 2004
"United Health Foundation, together with the American Public Health Association (APHA) and Partnership for Prevention, today released the 15th annual America’s Health: State Health Rankings at the APHA’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C."

America's Health: State Health Rankings - 2004 Edition
- incl. links to : Intro and Findings (Foreword and Introduction, Measures of Success, 2004 Results, Changes from 2003, 1990, Comparison to Other Nations) - Components - State Snapshots - Methodology - Commentaries and Special Features - Appendices (Occupational Fatalities, Health Disparity, Index of Tables [total of 37 tables])

Source:
State Health Rankings Home Page

Related Link:

Americans' health is on the decline
Infant mortality, obesity rising
USA Today
November 8, 2004
"If the United States were a patient, according to the public health doctors who today will unveil results equivalent to a nationwide annual physical exam, the findings would portend trouble.After 15 years of significant improvements, progress has stalled. And two key areas in particular, obesity and infant mortality, are playing havoc with the country's vital signs."
Source:
azcentral.com

The University of Texas Inequality Project is a small research group concerned with measuring and explaining movements of inequality in wages and earnings and patterns of industrial changes around the world. Our work so far has emphasized two techniques: the use of Theil's T statistic to compute inequality indexes from industrial data, and a combination of cluster analysis on rates of wage change and discriminant analysis to isolate the principal time patterns in changing wage structures.

Large site (check out the Site Map)- includes information in many areas, including : American Cities - Updating America's Social Contract - Crime in America - Medicare - Social Security - Welfare Reform - The Working Poor - At-Risk Teens - Child Care - Homelessness - Family Well-Being - and much more...