Contents
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Making the Work-Based Safety Net Work Better / Carolyn J. Heinrich and John Karl Scholz
Part I. Challenges Faced by Adults in Achieving
Self-Sufficiency Through Work
Chapter 2. Alternative Labor-Market Policies to
Increase Economic Self-Sufficiency: Mandating Higher Wages, Subsidizing Employment, and Increasing Productivity / David Neumark
Chapter 3. On Work and Health Among
the American Poor / Jayanta Bhattacharya and Peter Richmond
Part II. Improving Children’s Chances of
Becoming Self-Sufficient Adults
Chapter 4. Parental Pathways to Self-Sufficiency and
the Well-Being of Younger Children / Greg J. Duncan, Lisa Gennetian, and Pamela Morris
Chapter 5. School Reforms and Improved Life
Outcomes for Disadvantaged Children / David N. Figlio
Part III. Addressing Barriers to Self-Sufficiency for
Particularly Disadvantaged Groups
Chapter 6. The Impact of Incarceration on the Employment Outcomes of Former Inmates: Policy Options for Fostering Self-Sufficiency / Steven Raphael
Chapter 7. The Growing Problem of
Disconnected Single Mothers / Rebecca M. Blank and Brian K. Kovak
Part IV. Policy Ideas from Other Countries and
the Politics of Changing the
Work-Based Safety Net
Chapter 8. Beyond the Safety Net: Supporting the
Economic Security of
Working-Poor Families / Marcia K. Meyers and Janet C. Gornick
Chapter 9. The Politics of Low-Income Families in the United States / R. Kent Weaver
Index