Family hardships suffered by recent welfare recipients

A weekly presentation of downloadable charts and short analyses designed to graphically illustrate important economic issues. Updated every Wednesday.

Snapshot for July 18, 2001.

Family hardships suffered by recent welfare recipients
More than half of the families that left welfare in the past year worry about having enough food. Seventeen percent of families with a full-time worker and 27% with a part-time worker actually went hungry at some point during the first year off welfare. Former welfare families also had difficulty meeting other basic needs, such as housing, health care, and child care.

It is not surprising that, among those families who recently left welfare, it's typically those headed by a part-time worker as opposed to a full-time one that tend to experience the greater hardship. But this is not always the case. In fact, families who left welfare and work full time are more likely to have their children in a day care setting with a low adult-to-child ratio and are also more likely to worry about having enough food.

This week's Snapshot by EPI Research Fellow Bethney Gundersen.

Check out the archive for past Economic Snapshots.