Jennifer L. Romich

Difficult Calculations: Low‐Income Workers and Marginal Tax Rates

Means‐tested benefits and progressive tax measures are intended to support low‐income working families, but they often create high effective marginal tax rates (MTRs). Low‐wage workers who increase the number of hours at work or accept raises may find that increased earnings are partially, fully, or more than offset by decreased benefits or increased tax liability. Using longitudinal ethnographic data from 40 families, this study shows how families learn about, view, and respond to high implicit rates of taxation. Contrary to the rhetoric of welfare reform, high MTRs diminish families’ opportunities for upward mobility and control over their lives through work.

Multiple Jeopardy Poor, Economically Disconnected, and Child Welfare Involved

Although the welfare literature reveals a growing number of parents who are economically disconnected, meaning neither employed nor receiving cash assistance, little is known about the prevalence and impacts of disconnection among child welfare–involved parents. This study took advantage of a statewide survey of child welfare–involved parents to examine economic disconnection in this population and to explore the relationship between disconnection and parent engagement in child welfare. One fifth of the sample reported that they were economically disconnected, with several patterns differentiating disconnected caregivers from those who received benefits or earned income through employment. Disconnected caregivers were younger and more frequently had children in out-of-home placements as opposed to receiving services in home than economically connected caregivers. They also reported higher unmet needs for basic services, such as housing and medical care, but were more likely to report financial help from their informal network. Finally, disconnected caregivers reported lower engagement in child welfare services even when controlling for demographic characteristics, chronic psychosocial risk factors, placement status, and maltreatment type. The findings document economic disconnection among child welfare–involved parents and raise important questions about the implications of disconnection for families and for child welfare outcomes.

Sharing the Work: Mother-Child Relationships and Household Management

This manuscript reports on a study of how low-income employed single mothers and young adolescents manage household daily life. Analysis is based on longitudinal ethnographic data collected from families of 35 young adolescents over 3 years following the 1996 welfare reforms. Although mothers worked, young adolescents spent time unsupervised, performed household chores, and provided child care for younger siblings. Mother-youth relationships marked by mutual understanding acted as resources that enabled the families to successfully navigate daily life. Discussion focuses on how relationship quality moderates the impact of maternal employment and household work on young adolescent well-being. Implications for further research on childrens household work are considered.

A Geography-Specific Approach to Estimating the Distributional Impact of Highway Tolls: An Application to the Puget Sound Region of Washington State

ABSTRACT: This study contributes to the debate about tolls’ equity impacts by examining the potential economic costs of tolling for low-income and non-low-income households. Using data from the Puget Sound metropolitan region in Washington State and geographic information systems methods to map driving routes from home to work, we examine car ownership and transportation patterns among low-income and non-low-income households. We follow standard practice of estimating tolls’ potential impact only on households with workers who would drive on tolled and nontolled facilities. We then redo the analysis including broader groups of households. We find that the degree of regressivity is quite sensitive to the set of households included in the analysis. The results suggest that distributional analyses of tolls should estimate impacts on all households in the relevant region in addition to impacts on just users of roads that are currently tolled or likely to be tolled.

“Raising Him . . . to Pull His Own Weight”: Boys’ Household Work in Single-Mother Households

In this study, the authors examine boys’ household work in low- and moderate-income single-mother families. Through describing the work that boys do, why they do this work, and the meaning that they and their mothers give to this work, they add to the understanding of housework as an arena for gender role reproduction or interruption. Their data reveal that adolescent boys did a significant amount of work and took pride in their competence. Mothers grounded their expectations of boys’ household contributions in life experience. They both needed their sons’ day-to-day contributions and wanted their sons to grow into men who were competent around the house and good partners. In demanding household work from their sons, these single mothers themselves work to undermine the traditional gendered division of such labor.

An Introduction to Household Economic Instability and Social Policy

This special issue of Social Service Review presents original research on the determinants and consequences of economic instability, with a focus on the interplay between instability and social policy. To frame that discussion, we define economic instability as repeated changes in employment, income, or financial well-being over time, particularly changes that are not intentional, predictable, or part of upward mobility. We also present a conceptual framework for how instability occurs in multiple domains of family life and how social policy has the potential to both buffer and exacerbate instability in employment and family structure. The articles in the volume engage many of these domains, including employment and program instability, and multiple areas of social policy, including workplace regulations and child-care subsidies. They also point to paths for future research, which we summarize in the final section of this introduction.

Dual-System Families: Cash Assistance Sequences of Households Involved With Child Welfare

Dual-system families, those involved with the child welfare system and receiving public cash assistance, may be more vulnerable than families connected to only one of the two systems. This study advances our understanding of the heterogeneous and dynamic cash-assistance histories of dual-system families in the post–welfare reform era. With merged administrative data from Washington over the period 1998–2009, we use cluster analysis to group month-to-month sequences of cash-assistance use among households over the 37-month period surrounding child removal. Close to two thirds of families who received any assistance either had a short spell with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or lost TANF. Smaller percentages had steady support. Families who lose assistance are less likely than average to reunify while those who connect to benefits are more likely, suggesting that coordination between systems may serve dual-system families well.

Employer Responses to a City-Level Minimum Wage Mandate: Early Evidence from Seattle

A growing number of cities and counties have recently raised their minimum wages. How employers respond to these mandates provides insight into the impact such policies might have on workers and local labor market. Drawing on two survey waves tracking initial responses to Seattle’s

The Policy Roundtable Model: Encouraging Scholar–Practitioner Collaborations to Address Poverty-related Social Problems

15 Minimum Wage Ordinance by 439 employers with low-wage workers, we show how employers adjusted to higher wages. Most commonly, firms raised prices (56% reported this); smaller percentages reduced employee headcount or hours, limited internal wage progression, or took other measures. Single-site Seattle employers responded similarly to those with multiple sites. Food and accommodation sector employers were more likely to raise prices than firms in other sectors. Relative to other ownership structures, franchises disproportionately reported reducing their workforces. Very few employers reported withdrawing from Seattle. Overall, initial employer responses to this city-level minimum wage law align with predictions from the literature, findings that highlight trade-offs that policy makers must consider in future local wage regulation.

Decision-Making by Children

Abstract Robust exchange between those who make and carry out social policy and those who study social conditions can improve both policy and research. This article presents a programing model, Policy Roundtables, which promotes interchange and creates greater capacity for collaboration between two disparate communities, academic researchers and local policy practitioners. Data come from a formative evaluation of the host center’s programing. We asked academic scholars and community-based practitioners about what they learned from participating in the Roundtables and how they used that knowledge. Analysis of interviews with nine respondents and surveys of 35 informants suggest that the Policy Roundtables inform participants, spread learning back to organizations, and create social capital that can be deployed in the form of collaborations between research and practice communities.