The experience of Washington State provides a natural setting to examine the effects of the unemployment insurance payroll tax on layoffs, employment, and wages. During the 13-year period from 1972 through 1984, all employers in Washington paid the same unemployment insurance (UI) tax rate....

Attitudes toward providing welfare assistance for the poor were predicted to be rooted in two important social values, communalism and the work ethic. Communalism was hypothesized to underlie favorable welfare attitudes, and the work ethic to underlie unfavorable welfare attitudes. To test these...

This article is motivated by qualitative findings of class diversity in the family networks of middle class African Americans. To test the generalizeability of the qualitative data, we use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to assess the socio-economic characteristics of siblings...

Many environmental protection activities require substantial physical infrastructure to accomplish their goals. For many decades, urban areas have routinely operated a variety of waste management and water purification plants, which have had pronounced physical presence in these communities....

Much has been written about New Federalism from the vantage of federal and state governments, but far less on what intergovernmental changes protend for local governments. To assess current and future impacts upon nearly 85,000 units of local government, the author takes a functional approach to...

This paper examines the determinants of single mothersÕ living arrangements and their effect on mothersÕ AFDC participation. Using data from the 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation, I estimate a two-stage instrumental variables model to account for the simultaneity of the living...

The 1996 welfare system reform is widely recognized as a turning point, which might be characterized as the ending of the maternalist strand of U.S. social policy that dates back to the 1910s and 1920s. Less noticed, but potentially as significant, has been the expansion of the Earned Income Tax...

In this study we ask whether, and in what ways, the impact of social cleavages in American politics changed in the unusual 1996 presidential election. Has the pattern of alignment of key social groups remained constant in the 1990s? Have over-time trends observed in earlier years (and analyzed...

In this research, I consider how objective and perceived neighborhood quality affect adolescent problem behavior. I focus on three main questions: (1) Does living in stressful neighborhoods cause adolescents to be more likely to take risks? (2) Do some neighborhoods contribute to adolescent...

If to behave commercially is to act like a for-profit firm, then the ultimate expression of commercialism for a nonprofit is to convert its legal status to the for-profit form. Conversion is increasingly common, most notably in health care, and is now attracting considerable public attention....