a new Urban Institute project
The Low-Income Working Families Project applies rigorous research methods to track families over time and to analyze the risks these families face. It incorporates crosscutting research expertise, from housing to health care and labor markets, honed at the Urban Institute over the past 40 years.
New Safety Net for Low-Income Familes
America’s low-income working families are struggling to get by, too often forced to make impossible choices among food, housing, and health care.. Government safety nets were reformed in the mid-1990s with the promise that work would pay. But that promise remains unfulfilled for many families. These essays explore the challenges these vulnerable households face and suggest ways to protect them and help them thrive—urgent goals with far-reaching benefits for our children, our families, and our economic future.
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Changing research focus: Federalism to Private/Public Context
The Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism Project closely followed struggling families over the past decade as many left welfare—first in a booming economy, then through a recession, and now in a period when wages have stagnated and health insurance costs have skyrocketed.
The Low-Income Working Families Project builds on more than a decade of ANF research. While ANF studied public safety-net programs as they shifted largely from the federal government to the states and from cash welfare to work supports, the new project spotlights the private and public sector context for families' success or failure.
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Related Publications
Find research on Federal/State Government
Find research on Family/Parents
