Poverty & Income Dynamics

Safety net programs provide critical support to people during times of economic hardship. Yet the reach and coverage of the safety net, particularly in times of increased need and among economically disadvantaged groups, is not well understood. The U.S.

This brief highlights key themes and ideas from a Health and Human Services (HHS) Convening on Advancing Primary Prevention in Human Services in August 2022. With a particular focus on prevention of youth and family homelessness, the convening featured the perspectives of academic experts, program administrators, federal colleagues, and people with lived expertise.

Many human services programs recognize the power of “social capital,” or the value that arises from relationships. This report offers insight into how programs use peer supports to help build social capital with participants who are reentering the community after incarceration or are survivors of intimate partner violence or sex trafficking.

The COVID-19 crisis has disparately harmed low-income households. Across the United States, systemic inequalities in employment, wage-earning, health, and well-being have been strained for sub-populations facing poverty or near-poverty conditions.

In focus group discussions with 44 working parents receiving assistance from one or more federal programs, many parents shared the view that increasing earnings involves a number of risks. Participants described the sequence of possible risk events as follows:

This factsheet provides descriptive information on child care eligibility and receipt. Of the 12.8 million children eligible for child care subsidies under federal rules, 15 percent received subsidies. Of the 8.4 million children eligible for child care subsidies under state rules, 23 percent received subsidies. Poorer children were more likely to receive subsidies than less poor children.

The goal of this solicitation is to improve the effectiveness of public policies that reduce poverty, inequality, and their consequences, promote economic mobility and equity, and further develop knowledge of the structural causes of poverty, inequality, and economic insecurity.

This report provides welfare dependence indicators through 2016 for most indicators and through 2017 for some indicators, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996.

This report provides welfare dependence indicators through 2017 for most indicators and through 2018 for other indicators, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the slowdown in economic activity have impacted the well-being of many U.S. families. Unemployment peaked at 14.7 percent in April, and remained above 8 percent in August. The CARES Act and the Family First Coronavirus Response Act used several short-term policy strategies to address this challenge.