“Multirecipients” are people who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments while living with other recipients (not including an SSI-eligible spouse). Using Social Security Administration records matched to Current Population Survey data for 2005, this article examines...

An estimated 94,000 children in Louisiana have a parent who is behind bars, with devastating effects on children and families. The entire family serves this sentence. Parental incarceration is a growing epidemic. Nationally, one in 28 children experiences parental incarceration today, compared...

This chapter discusses the nature of external capabilities and how they bear upon social policy. Alternative definitions of external capabilities are compared and a simplified version suggested. It is argued that the issues surrounding external capabilities can be resolved only if the capability...

We investigate how material well-being has changed over time for single mother headed families—the primary group affected by welfare reform and other policy changes of the 1990s. We focus on consumption as well as other indicators including components of consumption, measures of housing...

The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 established Community Mental Health Centers (CMHCs) across the country with the goal of providing continuous, comprehensive, community-oriented care to people suffering from mental illness. Despite this program being considered a failure by most...

Poverty and inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) should not be ascertained only on the basis of scarce and unreliable income distribution statistics, but should also take into account social conditions. Recent, widely disseminated claims that poverty and inequality have increased over the past...

The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dramatically alters the federal government’s approach to redistribution in 2021. Among its boldest reforms are its temporary expansions of the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. For the first time, ARPA authorizes meaningful cash support for...

This document offers estimates of the possible changes in the social structure of the countries of Latin America derived from the consequent economic contraction from the Covid-19 pandemic and explores the possible costs and benefits of different types of interventions to cushion its impact. The...

We compute a distribution-adjusted welfare measure that aggregates outcomes in three dimensions of well-being, namely income, employment and longevity. Aggregation weights reflect preferences of people on these dimensions. The welfare measure is calculated for 26 OECD countries and selected...

International remittances represent the second most important source of external funding for developing countries after foreign direct investment (FDI). This paper examines the impact of international remittances on poverty reduction using the panel data of 10 Asian developing countries. In...