Anu Rangarajan

Young unwed fathers of afdc children: do they provide support?

We examine the support provided by fathers of children born to disadvantaged teenage mothers. Our sample includes the fathers of 6,009 children born over a two-year period to 3,855 teenage mothers receiving AFDC in three economically depressed inner cities. These fathers provide little social and economic support to their children. Support declines as their children age from infants to toddlers and as fathers’ relationships with the mothers grow more distant. Fathers’ employment status and educational attainment positively affect the amount of economic support that they provide but do not strongly influence the amount of social support they provide.

The Social Security Administration's youth transition demonstration projects

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is funding Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) projects in multiple sites across the country. These projects seek to improve transitions to adulthood for youth whose disabilities are so severe that they either are currently receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security disability benefits, or are at high risk of receiving them in the future. Youth participating in the projects are eligible for more generous earnings disregards and other incentives under SSA waivers of certain disability program rules. In addition, the projects provide them with individualized employment and benefits planning services. The waivers and services are designed to increase the likelihood that the YTD participants will become employed, earn enough to reduce their disability benefits, and eventually leave the disability rolls. Under contract with SSA, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. is conducting a rigorous random assignment evaluation of six of the demonstration projects. Approximately 880 youth at each site who agree to participate in the evaluation are being randomly assigned to treatment or control groups. The treatment group members are eligible for the SSA waivers and YTD services; the control group members are eligible for neither, but they can receive standard disability program work incentives and whatever alternative services may be available in their communities. Mathematica is gathering data on the treatment and control group members for up to four years following random assignment through surveys and SSA administrative records. By comparing mean values of outcomes such as earnings and disability benefit amounts for the treatment and control groups, the evaluation will assess whether the YTD projects are successful at improving transitions to adulthood. Findings from the evaluation will be presented in site-specific interim reports in 2010-2012 and in a comprehensive final report in 2014.

Two Steps Forward One Step Back The Uneven Economic Progress of TANF Recipients

This study investigates the long‐term economic gains of current and former TANF recipients and explores the extent to which these recipients experience steady economic progress. Results suggest that recipients generally show economic progress but that there is considerable instability and heterogeneity of experience. Employment insecurity and poverty cycling are common even among the least disadvantaged TANF recipients and are particularly prevalent among those with low education levels, little work experience, and poor health.

The Dynamics of Receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children among Teenage Parents in Inner Cities

This study examines the dynamics of AFDC receipt among 2,325 teenage mothers living in three inner-city areas who began receiving AFDC for the first time. We find that inner-city teenage mothers have longer welfare spells and higher recidivism rates than other groups of women receiving welfare. We find, however, that the factors affecting the length of their welfare spells and their reentry rates are similar to those of broader groups of welfare recipients. Teenage mothers with higher skill levels are more likely to exit welfare via work and are less likely to return to welfare.

How Mothers See Fathers

Eager to promote involved fathers in the lives of families headed by unwed mothers, the 1996 welfare reform legislation strengthened paternity establishment and child support enforcement, and increased benefits for two-parent families (Kobell and Principe, 2002; Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, 1996). Spurred in part by an economic motive to decrease welfare dependency among female-headed households, one of the goals of the legislation is “the formation and maintenance of two-parent families”