Pathways to Self-Sufficiency: Getting Ahead in an Era Beyond Welfare Reform
The combination of “work-first” legislation and a booming economy in the 1990s propelled many poor individuals into employment and off of welfare. But for all too many poor families, marginal gains in income were washed out by new costs for transportation, child care, health insurance, and housing. With support from the Foundation, Carolyn Heidrich, John Karl Scholz, and Thomas Kaplan will organize a multidisciplinary conference in September, 2007 to develop more effective policies for enhancing self-sufficiency and financial independence among the working poor. The results of the conference, “Pathways to Self-Sufficiency,” will be included in a forthcoming volume to be published by Russell Sage. The contributors will discuss how to retool U.S. programs on early childhood investments, health care, and criminal rehabilitation.