Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

How Youth Are Put At Risk By Parents’ Low-Wage Jobs, Lisa Dodson, Randy Albelda, Diana Salas Coronado, Marya Mtshali

Center for Social Policy Publications

In this report, we present a first-ever overview of what is known about the relationship between the status of youth and their parents’ low-wage jobs. Of the 20 million adolescents with working parents, 3.6 million (one out of every six) are in low-income families where parents have low-wage jobs. We identify several ways that young people are harmed by their parents’ low-wage, low-quality jobs that point to the urgency of this issue.

Poverty In Massachusetts For Families With Children, Randy Albelda, Ferry Cadet, Dinghong Mei

Center for Social Policy Publications

Massachusetts has lower poverty rates compared to the US average for all families with children. The poverty rates for female-headed families with children (single mother families) are 5.5 times higher than those of married couples with children in Massachusetts and the US.

Poverty rates for families with children differ considerably across Massachusetts’ ten largest cities, and are typically considerably higher than the Massachusetts average for all family types. Springfield has the highest poverty rates for each family type with children while Quincy has the lowest.

Surviving Against The Odds: Families’ Journeys Off Welfare And Out Of Homelessness, Donna H. Friedman, Tatjana Meschede, Michelle Hayes

Center for Social Policy Publications

Homeless families face complex challenges when making the transition from welfare to the workforce. By focusing on the experiences of homeless families participating in a Boston-based welfare-to-work program, the multimethod, longitudinal study described in this article explored factors contributing to more successful transitions as well as barriers faced by families having a harder time making the transition.

Nearly 90 percent of the families that were studied left a shelter with a housing subsidy and retained it 6 to 12 months later. Successful employment outcomes after exiting a shelter were more evident for families whose head of household was older, two-parent …