Since World War II, the average age at which women experience their first birth has drifted up, but since 1986 there has been a resurgence of births to teenagers. Just as early fertility appears to adversely affect the life chances of the teen mother, it may also have negative effects on her...

With emphasis on the role of economic incentives, we explore the determinants of a woman’s choice of whether or not to give birth as an unmarried teenager. Our data are taken from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Guided by a simple utility-maximization model, we represent the income...

The 1996 welfare reform legislation establishing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program marks a significant change in U.S. social and economic policy. This legislation represents the ascendance of the view that individuals and families need to be self-reliant and that...

Since the mid-1980s, several important studies have established the statistical relationship between the poverty rate and overall economic performance. Most of these studies focused on the apparent break in this relationship beginning in the late 1970s or early 1980s. In this paper, we present...

Between the late 1960s and early 1990s, young workers experienced declining average real wages and increasing labor market inequality. High-skilled youths—those with a college degree—fare better in this new economy relative to youths with few skills and little formal education. This paper...

This study provides an assessment of the intertemporal economic well-being of a representative sample of women who began receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) in 1980–81. We compare their economic circumstances over the 1982–1991 period with those of disabled men who also...

This paper brings together figures on recent trends in the labor market activity and wages of working-age men in the United States over the 1967-1992 period. The data, which come from Current Population Surveys, reveal several important developments. Year-long joblessness, the percentage of men...

The trend in national policy over the past two decades has emphasized self-reliance and a reduced role of government in society. Given this ideological shift, the official poverty measure, which is based on the premise that all families should have sufficient income from either their own efforts...

While overall employment in the United States has risen in the last 30 years, the employment and earnings prospects for youths have fallen relative to those for older workers. This deterioration in youth labor market conditions has been most pronounced for low-skilled youths, high school...