We are committed to helping legislators increase the supply of high-quality, affordable homes in their states. Affordable housing is linked to economic development, health care, education, and a clean environment for working families. We offer this handbook as a resource to help legislators address a variety of housing policy issues.

The primer provides an overview of the basic components of the nation’s largest health coverage program that covers 55 million low-income individuals (including families, people with disabilities and the elderly) and is the dominant source of the country’s long-term care financing. It examines the structure of Medicaid, who the program covers, what services it provides and spending. Because Medicaid is jointly financed by the federal and state governments and the states administer the program within broad federal guidelines, programs vary across states. Tables examining the state-to-state variation in eligibility, enrollment and spending for Medicaid enrollees are included.

We created this publication because sexual health issues affecting bisexuals have been largely ignored and under-represented in discussions of heterosexual and/or lesbian, gay and transgender health. Bisexual men and women are expected to have the same health concerns as either heterosexuals or gay men and lesbians, and therefore their unique concerns are seldom addressed. This publication is designed to meet the needs of many populations. For journalists, researchers, counselors and anyone seeking to better understand bisexuality and HIV/STI prevention, we describe bisexuality and HIV/STI transmission, and offer language for understanding and explaining these trends clearly and accurately. For staff of HIV/STI prevention programs, bisexual activists, public health departments and funders we detail existing programs’ challenges and offer solutions.

When the Medicare Part D prescription drug legislation was being developed, Congress and the Bush Administration decided to specifically prohibit the Medicare program from bargaining with pharmaceutical companies to secure lower drug prices. This controversial decision took the responsibility for moderating drug prices away from the Medicare program and, instead, placed it in the hands of private drug plans. One full year after the implementation of Part D, the unfortunate consequence of this decision is clear—private plans have failed to deliver low prices. The ability of private plans to secure low drug prices is critically important, both to America’s seniors and to taxpayers. Drug prices set by private Part D plans significantly affect premiums and how much beneficiaries end up paying out of pocket overall. These drug prices also have a direct effect on the burden borne by taxpayers, who pay approximately three-fourths of the costs of the Part D program.

Federal expenditures for USDA’s food assistance programs totaled almost $53 billion in fiscal 2006, a 4-percent increase over the previous fiscal year. This was the sixth consecutive year in which food assistance expenditures increased and the fourth consecutive year in which they exceeded the previous historical record. The five largest food assistance programs—the Food Stamp Program, the National School Lunch Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the School Breakfast Program—accounted for 95 percent of USDA's total expenditures for food assistance. This report uses preliminary data from the Food and Nutrition Service to examine trends in the programs through fiscal 2006. It also discusses a recent ERS study that examined income volatility among households with children and the implications of volatility for eligibility in the National School Lunch Program.

This policy brief explains why policymakers and practitioners should manage the child support obligations of incarcerated and re-entering men to help them maintain regular employment, limit participation in the underground economy, reduce recidivism, and provide steady support to their children over time. A companion brief will outline specific child support strategies to help these parents reconnect to work and family.

The health and social care system is changing. The Government is committed to an ongoing process of modernising and reforming the way services are provided. It wants care that is tailored to the needs of people rather than those of the service provider, and proactive services that promote health and well being, not simply reactive ones that deal with the consequences of ill-health. Can the NHS and local authorities deliver this alone? The Government thinks not. And with investment likely to slow down over the coming years, and an aging and increasingly obese population, it wants to encourage new providers into the healthcare market to stimulate innovation and drive up efficiency.

This report presents findings from a fiscal impact study of the Allegheny County Mental Health Court (MHC) Program. We acquired and linked individual-level data on 365 MHC participants from six state and local public agencies to generate a combined data set that included all relevant criminal justice, mental health, and welfare (cash assistance) utilization. Comparison conditions were constructed to determine the net savings or increase in expenditures of the MHC program as compared to routine adjudication and processing. The results indicate that the MHC program is diverting mentally ill offenders into treatment. In the first year, decreased jail expenditures approximately offset increased costs of treatment. The findings also suggest that, over a longer time frame, the MHC program may result in a net savings to taxpayers. Prospective tracking of participants would be needed to quantify clinical outcomes, as well as to clarify which conditions and offenses MHC supervision most effectively addresses.

The story of Hispanics in the U.S. is not a simple one. It is a rich, complex, and dynamic history. Hispanics are not one nationality or one culture or one race. They are a very diverse group. Some Hispanics are recent immigrants, but many others have lived here for generations. As one Texas educator has said, “I am a fifth generation Texan, but I’m still called a Mexican by everybody who knows me. I like to say I didn’t cross the boundary. Several boundaries crossed me.” (Shorris 1992) Even the word “Hispanic” is confusing since, originally, it was an English word meaning “pertaining to ancient Spain.” The U.S. Census uses “Hispanic,” but many Hispanics prefer Latino or Latino/Latina or Chicano. And certainly, few Hispanics think of themselves first and foremost as Hispanic, but rather as a Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Salvadorian, etc., or as a Mexican American, Cuban American, etc., or simply as an American. But certain common threads stand out in the mosaic of people that we call Hispanic.

Since 2002, more than 300 healthy marriage programs have been funded by the Administration for Children and Families. While many initial concerns about this initiative have been lessened, an important question remains: can the programs be effective with populations more diverse than the white, middle-class, educated, engaged/married couples they have mostly served? This brief describes the types of program adaptation already underway, identifying key issues and challenges.

In November 2006, 1,243 out of 2,016 identified local domestic violence programs across the United States participated in the first National Census of Domestic Violence Services (NCDVS). Designed to address the safety and confidentiality needs of victims, this Census collected an unduplicated, non-invasive count of adults and children who received critical services from local domestic violence programs during the 24-hour survey period. Since approximately 62% of local domestic violence programs in the U.S. participated, this Census provides a powerful glimpse but remains an undercount of the actual number of victims who sought and received services from local domestic violence programs nationwide in a 24-hour period.

This report from the Children’s Rights Director for England gives children's views on living away from home or getting help from children’s social care. It also looks at their views on the rights of all children as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Over 40 million jobs in the United States — about 1 in 3 — pay low wages ($11.11 per hour or less) and often do not offer employment benefits like health insurance, retirement savings accounts, paid sick days or family leave. These low-wage jobs are replacing jobs that have historically supported a broad middle class. This report provides a clear and sobering picture of the low-wage labor market through analysis of labor market data, including: downward wage trends over time, poor work conditions, largest occupations, and declining mobility. The authors used a social inclusion definition of low-wage work that allows for comparison among jobs in the United States.

- Combined data from SAMHSA's 2002 to 2005 National Surveys on Drug Use & Health found an annual average of 1.1 million (4.5%) youths aged 12 to 17 used an inhalant in the 12 months prior to being surveyed. About 2.6% of all youth who had not used inhalants before were new users (that is, had used an inhalant for the first time in the past year). The annual average of new users was 600,000 youth (289,000 males and 311,000 females).
- The types of inhalants most frequently mentioned as having been used in the past year by new users were: glue, shoe polish, or toluene (30.5%), gasoline or lighter fluid (25.3%), nitrous oxide or "whippets" (23.9%), and spray paints (23.5%).
- Among new inhalants users, females were more likely than males to have used: glue, shoe polish, or toluene (34.9% vs. 25.8%); spray paints (26.1% vs. 20.8%); aerosol sprays other than spray paints (23.0% vs. 16.4%); correction fluid, degreaser, or cleaning fluid (23.4% vs. 13.6%); and amyl nitrite, "poppers," locker room odorizers, or "rush" (18.2% vs. 11.6%).

The Progressive Agenda is designed to help you promote progressive ideas in your statehouse. It focuses mostly on the substance of law and legislation, facts and figures. But to win our battles, we also need to carefully select the language we use. George Lakoff has done more than anyone to sound the message framing alert, arguing that conservatives—both Republican and Democratic—have mastered political linguistics while progressives—both Democratic and Republican—have failed “to put forth our moral vision, celebrate our values and principles, and shout them out loud.” . . . Our progressive values of freedom, opportunity, security and responsibility mean that:
1. Progressives stand for better wages and benefits for working Americans. Our economy should provide opportunities for all hard-working individuals and families to enjoy life. Therefore, we support legislation to increase the minimum wage.
2. Progressives stand for affordable, high-quality, health care for all. The security of comprehensive health insurance should be a right, not a privilege. Therefore, we support legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs through greater access to manufacturer rebates, bulk purchasing, and re-importation.
3. Progressives stand for building an education system that is the best in the world. Every child should have an equal opportunity to learn. Therefore, we support legislation to invest in our children’s education by recruiting well-qualified teachers, lowering class sizes, and developing more preschool and after-school programs.

This issue brief focuses on the special needs of teenage parents and their children ("teen parent families") and on how the unique set of services available through Early Head Start (EHS) programs can support them. Teen parent families face multiple risks, risks that may be substantially different from those faced by families with older parents and that may be further complicated by issues involving disability, abuse, or neglect. These issues are interrelated and must be integrated and addressed as programs design services to meet the needs of this population.

Average yearly expenditures on food in U.S. urban households increased between 2003 and 2004. Over the period, annual per capita spending on food rose from $2,035 to $2,207. The 2004 average comprises $1,347 spent on food consumed at home and $860 spent on food consumed away from home. These amounts reflect a year-to-year increase of 7.9 percent in food-at-home expenditures and 9.3 percent in food-away-from-home expenditures. Wealthier urban households tended to spend more than other urban households for both food at home and food away from home, and they spent a larger share of their food budget than other households on food consumed away from home. The share of the food budget spent on food consumed away from home varied from 30 percent for the poorest group to 44 percent for the wealthiest.

This report is part of the healthy living social marketing initiative that underpins the Government’s approach to tackling obesity. The report is integral to answering key questions; what in people’s behaviours place them at risk of unhealthy weight gain, what drives their current behaviours, how might they be motivated to change, who might be able to influence them and what might act as barriers to change. The report is intended for use by health professionals, Government, local government, NGO and for profit organisations

This packet continues to support child maltreatment prevention efforts by describing strategies and activities that not only reduce risk, but also promote protective factors associated with the prevention of child maltreatment. These protective factors increase the capacity of parents, caregivers, and communities to protect, nurture, and promote the healthy development of children.

Local responsibility for policy implementation is a core element of national strategy to reduce alcohol-related harms. This research, by a team at Middlesex University, reviews international experience of using a ‘multi-component’ approach to develop and implement community-based prevention programmes. The method typically requires a programme of co-ordinated initiatives, and emphasises changing local policies, structures, systems and drinking cultures. The study also examined the relevance of this approach locally in the UK.

Family reunification in child welfare refers to the process of returning children in temporary out-of-home care to their families of origin. Reunification is both the most common goal for children in out-of-home care as well as the most common outcome. According to preliminary estimates from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), reunification was the case plan goal for nearly half (45 percent) of all children in foster care on September 30, 2002. More than half (54 percent) of the children who exited foster care during fiscal year 2002 returned to a parent or principal caregiver (Children’s Bureau, 2004a). Since the majority of children who leave foster care are reunified with their families, it is important to focus on practices that help achieve successful reunification.

This study reports on trends in federal spending on children from 1960 to 2017, looking across over 100 major federal programs, including tax credits and exemptions. Children's spending increasingly shifted from broad-based programs to programs targeting low-income or special needs children over the 1960 to 2006 period. Thirteen major programs enacted between 1960 and 2006, which include Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, and Food Stamps, comprised 65 percent of federal spending on children in 2006. Overall, federal children's spending increased in real terms from $53 billion in 1960 to $333 billion in 2006, or from 1.9 to 2.6 percent of GDP. Yet as a share of federal domestic spending, children's spending declined from 20.1 to 15.4 percent. Meanwhile, spending on the automatically growing, non-child portions of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, nearly quadrupled from 2.0 to 7.6 percent of GDP ($58 billion to $993 billion) over the same time period. Over the next ten years, children's programs are scheduled to decline both as a share of GDP and domestic spending, because they do not compete on a level playing field with these rapidly growing entitlement programs.

Finding permanent families for older children and youth in out-of-home care continues to need a strong focus from foster care workers and other child welfare professionals. National statistics show that older children stay in foster care longer and achieve permanency at lower rates than younger children. Those youth who “age out” of the foster care system often leave with few skills, minimal education, and inadequate preparation for living as productive, independent adults.Responding to the challenge, many States and local jurisdictions have begun to focus on this population, implementing programs specifically designed to help older youth establish permanent connections. Many of these programs help youth build on relationships they have established throughout their lives with kin, foster parents, teachers, social workers, and others; other programs help youth establish new relationships that can lead to permanent family connections. This bulletin addresses the specific challenges of permanency planning with older youth, highlighting successful models and activities.

The series of tables, Educational Attainment in the United States: 2006, showed adults 18 and older with a master’s, professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $79,946, while those with less than a high school diploma earned about $19,915. The tables also showed adults with a bachelor’s degree earned an average of $54,689 in 2005, while those with a high school diploma earned $29,448.

We study the social interaction of non-smokers and smokers as a sequential game, incorporating insights from social psychology and experimental economics into an economic model. Social norms affect human behavior such that non-smokers do not ask smokers to stop smoking and stay with them, even though disutility from smoking exceeds utility from social interaction. Overall, smoking is unduly often accepted when accommodating smoking is the social norm. The introduction of smoking and non-smoking areas does not overcome this specific inefficiency.

The report uses longitudinal data from the 1992–93 Baccalaureate and Beyond Study (B&B:93/03) to examine the characteristics related to graduate degree enrollment, persistence, and completion among 1992–93 bachelor’s degree recipients. About 40 percent of 1992–93 bachelor’s degree recipients had enrolled in a graduate degree program by 2003. On average, most students waited between 2 and 3 years to enroll for the first time in a graduate degree program, and among those who enrolled between 1993 and 2003, some 62 percent had earned at least one graduate degree by 2003. Master’s degree students took an average of 3 years to complete their degree, first-professional students took about 4 years, and doctoral students took more than 5 years. After controlling for a wide range of relevant variables, several enrollment characteristics retained a significant relationship with graduate degree persistence and completion. Rates of persistence and completion were higher among students who entered graduate school immediately after earning a bachelor’s degree, who attended full time and enrolled continuously, and who enrolled in multiple graduate degree programs.

This primer prepared by Kaiser Family Foundation researchers explains key elements of the Medicare program that provides health coverage to nearly 44 million people—including about 37 million people age 65 and older and another 7 million younger adults with permanent disabilities. It looks at the characteristics of the Medicare population, what benefits are covered, how much people with Medicare pay for their benefits and the program’s overall costs and future financing challenges. It also provides information about the Medicare Advantage program and the Medicare drug benefit, and includes detailed tables showing the number of Medicare beneficiaries in each state, broken out by age, income level, source of drug coverage, and by enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans.

This report is being released in conjunction with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Cover the Uninsured campaign, which in 2007, is focusing on the need for children to have health insurance. Now in its fifth year, the campaign is the largest mobilization in history to shine a national spotlight on the need to secure health coverage for all Americans. The Foundation and the broad network of business owners, union members, teachers, students, consumers, doctors, nurses, faith leaders and others involved in this campaign are planning activities that highlight the success of SCHIP, demonstrate the ongoing need for ensuring that children have health coverage and enroll eligible families in insurance programs.

This paper examines the determinants of occupational attainment and the impact of occupation on earnings. Results for both the native born and foreign born are presented, and these provide insights as to the earnings penalties associated with the less-than-perfect international transferability of human capital skills. It shows that around 50 percent of the earnings gains associated with years of schooling derives from inter-occupational mobility. When occupation is held constant, there is a large increase in the effect on earnings of preimmigration labor market experience for the foreign born, but little change in either the payoff to labor market experience for the native born, or in the premium for post-arrival labor market experience for the foreign born. The estimates of the models of occupational attainment show that years of schooling, and, among the foreign born, proficiency in English, are the key factors determining access to high-paying occupations. Labor market experience has little effect on occupational outcomes among the native born. However, valuated at 10 years, foreign labor market experience has a modest negative impact on current occupational status. Examination of this negative effect using quantile regression shows that it is concentrated among those in high status jobs.

The most ethnically diverse state in the nation, California has an opportunity to set a national example for quality end-of-life care for all its residents. Providing quality care requires knowledge of the population served and its needs and preferences. This report reviews and analyzes current data, along with new research from focus groups and surveys. The report examines the causes and patterns of death and dying across California's populations and the impact on the delivery of health care. Hospice care is generally considered the "gold standard" for end-of-life care in California and across the country. However, the report finds there is wide variation in preferences for care among various racial and ethnic populations. In addition, there are significant limitations on the availability and appropriateness of hospice for some patients

- In 2005, 6.8 percent of youths aged 12 to 17 used marijuana in the past month, and 3.5 percent had used cigars with marijuana in them ("blunts") in the past month
- Among youths, past month use of both marijuana and blunts increased with age and was more likely among males than females (marijuana: 7.5 vs. 6.2 percent; blunts: 4.2 vs. 2.9 percent)
- Among past month marijuana users aged 12 to 17, those in the Northeast were more likely to have used blunts in the past month than those in the Midwest and West (62.5 vs. 48.3 and 43.1 percent), and those in the South were more likely to have used blunts than those in the West (54.4 vs. 43.1 percent)

Underage1 alcohol consumption in the United States is a widespread and persistent public health and safety problem that creates serious personal, social, and economic consequences for adolescents, their families, communities, and the Nation as a whole. Alcohol is the drug of choice among America’s adolescents, used by more young people than tobacco or illicit drugs (Johnston et al. 2006a; Johnston et al. 2006b; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA] 2006). The prevention and reduction of underage drinking and treatment of underage youth2 with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) are therefore important public health and safety goals. The Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking seeks to engage all levels of government as well as individuals and private sector institutions and organizations in a coordinated, multifaceted effort to prevent and reduce underage drinking and its adverse consequences.

To develop a greater understanding of the characteristics and traits that distinguish individuals whose volunteering includes mentoring youth from volunteers who do not mentor, the Corporation for National and Community Service conducted a close analysis of the 2005 Volunteer Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS). Corporation researchers examined whether demographic, socioeconomic, or other observable factors could be used to distinguish between volunteers who mentor and the general population of volunteers who do not mentor, as well as to determine which of the above factors are most influential in predicting who is most likely to be engaged in mentoring activities. The expectation is that the information gleaned will help mentoring programs better identify and recruit the types of individuals who are most likely to be favorably disposed toward mentoring, and thereby help to reduce the “mentoring gap.”

The British Social Attitudes survey has included a short series of questions about poverty since the mid-1980s. This summary report begins by describing these questions and presenting the findings obtained when they were last asked in 2003. It then presents the results of cluster analysis, a technique used to help summarise the 2003 findings. Finally, we examine the socio-demographic characteristics of those with particularly distinctive views about poverty.

The government plans to introduce changes to the student finance system from September 2007. This booklet describes those changes and how they will affect students.

- In absolute numbers, more women than ever before are participating in labour markets worldwide. They are either in work or actively looking for a job.
- This overall figure only tells part of the story, however. During the past ten years, the labour force participation rate (the share of working-age women who work or are seeking work) stopped growing, with many regions registering declines. This reversal is notable, even though it partially reflects greater participation of young women in
education.
- More women than ever before are actually in work. The female share of total employment stayed almost unchanged at 40 percent in 2006 (from 39.7 per cent 10 years ago).

Vocational rehabilitation in the form of education is the cornerstone of governmental rehabilitation programs for the work-disabled in many countries. Merging a 2004 Danish survey to register information from the Danish National Board of Industrial Injuries, we assess the employment effects of educational measures for the work-injured, by simultaneously estimating the hazard rate to education and the return to work, controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and the endogeneity of education. In addition, we allow for any enhanced employment effects of a unique wage subsidy program in Denmark, giving employers a partial wage subsidy for disabled workers’ wages, by distinguishing between education effects of a return to wage-subsidized work versus a return to ordinary work. Unlike previous studies, we find a positive impact of educational measures on the probability of returning to work for the work injured and a stronger effect for a return to wage-subsidized employment compared to a return to ordinary employment.

The Corporation has produced the most comprehensive national report ever conducted on college student volunteering in the United States. “College Students Helping America” concludes that college student volunteering increased by approximately 20 percent between 2002 and 2005, as students have become involved in helping their communities. The report presents data on student volunteering and volunteers in an easily accessible format that will be useful to people—whether experienced researchers, policy makers, or just concerned citizens—interested in learning more about volunteering in the states. “College Students Helping America” is based on statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report includes a state-by-state ranking of college student volunteering.

For decades, child care advocates, provider associations, and others in the field have worked together for increased public investment in child care, in order to improve the quality of child care and make it more affordable. This work has included efforts to improve the pay and working conditions of child care providers, including by securing more funding for child care assistance to help families pay for care, developing and encouraging greater education and training opportunities for providers, fighting for “a worthy wage” and benefits for the child care workforce, and giving child care providers an additional voice on policy and regulatory issues. Unions have been an important voice in the effort to increase public investment in child care and they share with the broader child care advocacy community a concern for improving the lot of child care providers. But unions have also begun to play a role in state campaigns for increased public investment in child care that is more akin to their traditional role: worker representative. Unionization of the child care workforce is not a new phenomenon. A small percentage of child care centers and Head Start programs have been unionized for decades.

This policy briefing is the latest in a series that has covered issues such as providing more settled homes, homelessness prevention, domestic violence, employment and health. The series offers advice to local authorities and their partners on the Government’s homelessness agenda and its key policy issues and priorities. This briefing focuses on the work of central Government, local authorities and the voluntary and community sector to prevent and tackle youth homelessness.

- According to the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS), seniors were three times less likely than nonseniors to experience a victimization in the 12 months preceding the survey (10% versus 31%).
- Seniors were far less likely than their younger counterparts to experience an assault, a sexual assault or a robbery. The violent victimization rate reported by seniors was almost four times lower than for 55 to 64 year olds (12 versus 45 incidents per 1,000 population), and almost 20 times lower than for 15 to 24 year olds (226 incidents per 1,000 population).
- Senior males were more likely than senior females to be victims of violent crime. In 2005, overall rates of police-reported violent crime were 1.5 times higher among senior men than senior women (200 versus 131 per 100,000 population).
- In 2005, police-reported data found that nearly 5 in 10 senior victimsAccording to the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS), seniors were three times less likely than nonseniors to experience a victimization in the 12 months preceding the survey (10% versus 31%).

In a field experiment of age discrimination, pairs of men aged twenty-seven and forty-seven, inquired, by email, about employment as waiters in twenty five Spanish towns. Discrimination against the older waiters, corresponded to the highest rates ever recorded anywhere, by written tests, for racial discrimination.

Whether they are helping a blind person see, a deaf person hear, or a double amputee walk, prostheses have come a long way since Captain Hook. What were once wooden limbs and glass eyes are now engineered electromechanical devices interfacing with human body systems and communicating, almost intelligently, with the human nerves and brain. For thousands of people living with disabilities, “smart” prosthetics could mean faster rehabilitation, more effective therapy, and even return to an independent life. From joint replacements, cochlear devices, and brain implants to artificial valves, hearts, and limbs, advancements in prosthetic devices are beginning to blur the line between technology and biology.

The new crime statistics for 2006 show a worsening of a trend first identified by PERF in mid-2005, when PERF began to hear rumblings from its members that “violent crime is making a comeback.” A number of cities, particularly in the middle part of the United States, were beginning to experience large increases in three major categories of violent crime: robberies, aggravated assaults, and homicides. Throughout 2006, PERF closely monitored violent crime rates. In an effort to obtain the latest trend information sooner than the FBI can provide with its massive Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, PERF obtained statistics from 56 jurisdictions across the nation for 2006. The findings are not uniformly discouraging. . . . But overall, the 24-month trend, starting on January 1, 2005, is unmistakable: Among the jurisdictions filing reports with PERF, total homicides in 2006 were 10.21 percent higher than they were in 2004. Robberies increased 12.27 percent; aggravated assaults increased 3.12 percent; and aggravated assaults with a firearm increased 9.98 percent.

This Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) addresses regulations made to prohibit discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation in the provision of goods, facilities, services, education, management and disposal of premises and the exercise of public functions. It considers the impact of the proposals in terms of race, age, disability, gender including gender reassignment, sexual orientation and religion or belief.

We provide new results regarding the identification of peer effects. We consider an extended version of the linear-in-means model where each individual has his own specific reference group. Interactions are thus structured through a social network. We assume that correlated unobservables are either absent, or treated as fixed effects at the component level. In both cases, we provide easy-to-check necessary and sufficient conditions for identification. We show that endogenous and exogenous effects are generally identified under network interaction, although identification may fail for some particular structures. Monte Carlo simulations provide an analysis of the effects of some crucial characteristics of a network (i.e., density, intransitivity) on the estimates of social effects. Our approach generalizes a number of previous results due to Manski (1993), Moffitt (2001), and Lee (2006).

HIV/AIDS is a growing problem among American Indians and Alaska Natives. Even though the numbers of HIV and AIDS diagnoses for American Indians and Alaska Natives represent less than 1% of the total number of HIV/AIDS cases reported to CDC’s HIV/AIDS Reporting System, when population size is taken into account, American Indians and Alaska Natives in 2005 ranked 3rd in rates of HIV/AIDS diagnosis, after African Americans and Hispanics [1]. American Indians and Alaska Natives make up 1.5% (4.1 million people) of the total US population [2]. The rate of AIDS diagnosis for this group has been higher than that for whites since 1995.

View image of Food Stamp Benefit Erosion

In 2008, food stamp benefits for a typical working parent with two children will be about $37 a month lower than they would have been without the across-the-board benefit cuts included in the 1996 law. By 2017, the average benefit reduction from those provisions will reach almost $45 a month in 2008 dollars. (See figure 1.) In fact, by 2017 a typical working parent of two will, over the course of a year, miss out on more than one and a half months-worth of food stamps, compared to the amount of benefits she or he would have received under the law in place prior to 1996. Under current rules, this lost ground will never be recovered.

Anticipating that welfare reform might pose particular challenges to urban areas — where poverty and welfare receipt are most concentrated — MDRC launched the Project on Devolution and Urban Change (Urban Change, for short) in 1997 to chronicle TANF programs and the resulting changes in the lives of low-income families and in the institutions that serve them in four urban counties: Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, and Philadelphia. Between 2002 and 2005, MDRC released reports on each of the four cities to tell the stories of welfare reform up until 2001. These reports found four different approaches to welfare reform but remarkably similar results. In all four counties, welfare caseloads were down; conditions improved in high-poverty and high-welfare neighborhoods; and welfare recipients who were surveyed at two points in time were more likely to be working and to be financially better off in 2001 than in 1998, even though most remained poor. This report updates the story of welfare reform in two of the four Urban Change cities: Cleveland and Philadelphia.

The State of Aging and Health in America 2007 provides a snapshot of our nation’s progress in promoting the health and well-being of older adults and reducing behaviors that contribute to premature death and disability. The report also highlights three key areas that can signifi cantly improve the quality of life for older adults: reducing falls, maintaining cognitive health, and improving end-of-life care. Improved medical care and prevention eff orts have contributed to dramatic increases in life expectancy in the United States over the past century. Th ey also have produced a major shift in the leading causes of death for all age groups, including older adults, from infectious diseases and acute illnesses to chronic diseases and degenerative illnesses. Currently, about 80% of older Americans are living with at least one chronic condition. The growth in the number and proportion of older adults is unprecedented in the history of the United States. Two factors — longer life spans and aging baby boomers — will combine to double the population of Americans aged 65 and older during the next 25 years.

Geographic mobility is important for the functioning of labor markets because it brings labor resources to where they can be most efficiently used. It has long been hypothesized that individuals' migration propensities depend on their attitudes towards risk, but the empirical evidence, to the extent that it exists, has been indirect. In this paper, we use newly available data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to measure directly the relationship between migration propensities and attitudes towards risk. We find that individuals who are more willing to take risks are more likely to migrate between labor markets in Germany. This result is robust to stratifying by age, sex, education, national origin, and a variety of other demographic characteristics, as well as to the level of aggregation used to define geographic mobility. The effect is substantial relative to the unconditional migration propensity and compared to the conventional determinants of migration. We also find that being more willing to take risks is more important for the extensive than for the intensive margin of migration.

Government expenditure on formal residential care and home-help services for the elderly significantly reduces 45-59 year old women’s informal care-giving affecting both the extensive and the intensive margin. Allowing for country fixed-effects and country-specific trends and correcting for attrition, the estimates – based on the European Community Household Panel – imply that a 1000 Euro increase in the government expenditure on formal residential care and home-help services for the elderly decreases the probability of informal care-giving outside of the caregiver’s household by 6 percentage points. Formal care substitutes for informal care that is undertaken outside of the carer’s own household, but does not substitute for intergenerational household formation. A simulation exercise shows that an increase in government formal care expenditure is a cost- effective way of increasing the labour force participation rates.

This report looks at the link between parents’ roles in caring for their children and their status in the labour market, and how family policy becomes relevant to gender equality issues in employment.

The aging of the population is not the primary factor affecting the growth of entitlement programs, however. Instead, the most important cause is the projected increase in health care costs. Federal health spending, mostly in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, has been consuming a growing share of the nation’s economic output for several decades. Costs per beneficiary, even after adjusting for changes in the population, have, on average, increased about 2.5 percentage points faster than has average per capita GDP.2 The rate of growth in health costs is unusually difficult to project, but even if growth falls well below historical levels, spending on Medicare and Medicaid will continue to grow faster than the economy and faster than other major government programs.

Baby Boomers today have the highest volunteer rate of any age group. They also, as this report notes, volunteer at higher rates than past generations did when they were the same age. While much attention has focused on how to recruit Baby Boomers into the ranks of volunteers, relatively little attention has been paid to ensuring that those who choose to volunteer one year continue to do so the next. Because three out of every ten Boomer volunteers choose not to volunteer in the following year, a key aspect of keeping Boomer volunteer rates high is to learn how to retain existing Boomer volunteers. To better understand this dynamic, the Corporation for National and Community Service looked at data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2002-2006. The data trace the volunteer habits of the same sample of Baby Boomers over two consecutive years, as well as a similar sample of pre-Boomers.

The Corporation has produced a national report that for the first time tracks volunteering over a 30-year period. “Volunteer Growth in America: A Review of Trends Since 1974” illustrates how volunteering has rebounded to a 30-year high today – rising by more than 32 percent over the past 16 years – after declining between 1974 and 1989. The report found that older teenagers (ages 16-19) have more than doubled their time spent volunteering since 1989; that far from being a “Me Generation,” that Baby Boomers are volunteering at sharply higher rates than did the previous generation at mid-life; and that the volunteer rate for Americans ages 65 years and over has increased 64 percent since 1974; and the proportion of Americans volunteering with an educational or youth service organization has seen a 63 percent increase just since just 1989. “Volunteer Growth in America” is based on statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The findings are encouraging while demonstrating that more engagement is needed to achieve a national goal of raising the number of volunteers from 65 million in 2005 to 75 million by 2010.

The claim that voter fraud threatens the integrity of American elections is itself a fraud. It is being used to persuade the public that deceitful and criminal voters are manipulating the electoral system. No available evidence suggests that voters are intentionally corrupting the electoral process, let alone in numbers that dilute and cancel out “the lawful votes of the vast majority of Americans.” The lack of evidence is not due to a failure to codify voter fraud as a crime, nor is it due to the inability or unwillingness of local law enforcement agencies to investigate or prosecute potential cases of voter fraud. In fact, when we probe most allegations of voter fraud we find errors, incompetence and partisanship. The exaggerated fear of voter fraud has a long history of scuttling efforts to make voting easier and more inclusive, especially for marginalized groups in American society. With renewed partisan vigor fantasies of fraud are being spun again to undo some of the progress America has made lowering barriers to the vote.

In the last few years, new popularity for an old form of tobacco use has been gaining ground within this already susceptible group. Waterpipes (also known as hookahs) are the first new tobacco trend of the 21st century. This Trend Alert looks at the emerging waterpipe tobacco use trend and the widespread misperceptions that exist about its use. Existing evidence on waterpipe smoking shows that it carries many of the same health risks and has been linked to many of the same diseases caused by cigarette smoking. Access to this “new” form of tobacco use continues to grow, especially in hookah cafes targeting 18-to-24-year olds.

In his 2007 State of the Union Address, President Bush called for legislation creating a "legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis." Doing so, the president said, would mean "they won't have to try to sneak in." Such a program has been central to Bush's past immigration reform proposals. Similarly, recent congressional proposals have included provisions that would bring potentially millions of new "guest" workers to the United States. What Bush did not say was that the United States already has a guestworker program for unskilled laborers — one that is largely hidden from view because the workers are typically socially and geographically isolated. Before we expand this system in the name of immigration reform, we should carefully examine how it operates. Under the current system, called the H-2 program, employers brought about 121,000 guestworkers into the United States in 2005 — approximately 32,000 for agricultural work and another 89,000 for jobs in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agricultural industries.

Strengthening Professional Identity: Challenges of the Addictions Treatment Workforce summarizes trends in addictions treatment and the challenges that confront the treatment workforce. Importantly, it also articulates a vision for the treatment and recovery support workforce by presenting a series of recommendations aimed at strengthening the field’s professional identity. The recommendations in this report reflect some of the best thinking in the field and are intended to provide momentum for ongoing discussions among stakeholders about specific implementation strategies. The report discusses current trends in funding, staff recruitment and retention, patient characteristics and clinical practice and identifies recommendations in the following six areas: infrastructure, leadership and management, recruitment, education and accreditation, retention and studies priorities. Strengthening Professional Identity focuses on all professionals who provide addictions treatment and recovery support services, e.g., addictions counselors, physicians, psychologists, nurses, outreach and intake workers, case managers, social workers, marriage and family therapists, recovery support workers and clergy.

In just the next thirty-four years, the Census Bureau tells us, we 300 million Americans will be joined by another 92 million. Where will all these people – mostly us and our direct descendants – live, work, play, worship, buy, sell, and serve? Where will 40 million additional households be located? What sort of built environment will we produce, and what will be the results for the nation’s and the environment’s well-being? The prevailing form of land development is popularly known as sprawl or exurban sprawl. Sprawl is characterized by low density development that rigorously separates residential uses from other land uses, and that relies entirely or almost entirely on automobile transportation to connect the separate uses. There are strong reasons to prefer that the nation’s future development does not reproduce this pattern -- reasons that have nothing to do with the price or availability of gasoline.

Approximately 1.4 million nonprofit organizations are registered with the IRS. The figure includes a diverse group of organizations, both in size and mission, which range from hospitals and human service organizations to advocacy groups and chambers of commerce. When compared to other sectors of the economy, the nonprofit sector accounts for 5.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and 8.3 percent of wages and salaries paid in the United States. While these figures shed light on the size and scope of the sector, a complete picture cannot be obtained without considering two critical components of the sector, voluntarism and charitable giving.

In the mid-1990s, the Worker Representation and Participation Survey (WRPS) of U.S. private sector workers documented a large gap between the kind and extent of workplace representation and participation that U.S. workers had and the kind they desired (Freeman and Rogers 1999 and 2006). The WRPS revealed that this sizable representation/participation gap spanned diverse groups of workers (men and women, different races, skilled and unskilled, etc.) and work issues (compensation, supervision, training, availability of information on firm plans, use of new technology, etc.). Given a choice between a union and no representation, 32% of nonunion workers reported that they would vote for a trade union in a representation election; while 90% of unionized workers said they would vote for their union in a new election. In the sample as a whole, 44% of workers favored union representation. Even among those who did not seek union representation and collective bargaining there was a large group who desired representation through worker committees that met regularly and discussed matters with management.

This publication presents new data showing the foster care system’s significant reliance on relatives, and highlighting the need for federally funded subsidized guardianships as another permanency option for children for whom reunification with parents or adoption is not viable. Roughly one-quarter of all children in foster care are living in grandfamilies. “Grandfamilies” are families in which grandparents or other relatives are primarily responsible for caring for children who live with them. About 20,000 children have lived for a year or more in grandfamilies in the foster care system, but they cannot leave the system because they do not have any other options. A court has ruled that reunification with the parents or adoption is not feasible. The relative caregivers often cannot afford to give up the financial assistance that foster care provides for these children they did not expect to raise. So, despite the fact that the children are in loving, safe homes, the children and their relative caregivers remain in the system. They have to routinely meet with social workers and judges who could at any time remove a child from the relative’s care. Because the state has legal custody of the child and is the only legally recognized decision-maker, the caregiver and child have to get permission for ordinary childhood activities that most of us take for granted.

While some analysts forecast the worst in terms of costs to public services and labour market shortages, others argue that Canada is well-equipped to face this social and demographic phenomenon – and that people shouldn’t worry that much about the growing percentage of seniors in the population. . . . Some of the chapters in “A Portrait of Seniors in Canada” will provide information that will feed these debates and discussions. However, the objective of this publication is not to determine whether Canadians should or should not worry about an aging society. This report is mainly about the situation of the current generation of seniors, as full-fledged members of society. Specifically, the goal of this report is to draw an up-to-date portrait of the general well-being of seniors, in absolute terms, in comparison with previous cohorts of seniors and in comparison with persons of younger ages. Several challenges associated with portraying the general well-being of seniors should be noted. Firstly the population of seniors, i.e. the population of individuals aged 65 and over, is a very heterogeneous population in terms of health status, cultural origins, financial situations, living arrangements, and so on.

Self-employment increases with age. About one-third of all self-employed workers become self-employed at or after age 50, according to this AARP Public Policy Institute Issue Paper that explores patterns of self-employment at older ages . . . . Self-employed workers were found to be, on average, much better prepared for retirement than are wage and salary workers—they are more likely than wage and salary workers to own all types of property and financial assets and to have much higher levels of all types of non-pension wealth.

The yawning gap between the robust demand to join unions and the anemic membership numbers reflects the fact that, for many Americans, joining a union has become a risk rather than a right. In 2005, over 31,000 people—one worker every 17 minutes—were disciplined or even fired for union activity, according to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) annual report, resulting in a big chill on labor's numbers and a "democracy deficit" for the entire society. Shrinking union membership affects all Americans. Unions paved the way to the middle class for millions, pioneering benefits along the way such as paid pensions and health care. Now, labor's decline squeezes the middle class, raises inequality, and undermines democratic values.

Using the Health and Retirement Survey and standard wage decomposition techniques, this paper finds that the difference in intermittent labor force participation between men and women accounts for 47 percent of the contribution to the wage gap of differences in observed characteristics. Not controlling for intermittent behavior results in too much importance being placed on gender differences in job characteristics.

Young people with complex needs (which include combinations of acute and chronic medical conditions, multiple and profound impairments, behaviour problems and learning disabilities) and their families are experiencing considerable diffi culties when the young person reaches adulthood and moves from children’s services to adult services. Whilst some people have good experiences, there is clearly a problem for many young people and their families. Some say it can be a ‘nightmare’. This is an important issue. Young people are losing out on their independence and opportunities to meet their aspirations where adult services have not developed at the same pace as children’s services and do not offer the same level of support. From the perspective of resources, it is wasteful if steps taken to support a child to be independent are not carried through into adult life and people end up in expensive and unsatisfactory residential establishments rather than living independently.

The majority (58%) of workers ages 50+ who are likely to be eligible for FMLA leave reported that they have taken time off from work during the past five years for a medical- or family-related reason such as their own serious health condition, caring for a family member with a serious health condition, the birth of a child, or caring for a newborn.1 Nearly half (47%) of respondents reported having taken time off for their own serious health condition while one in four (25%) reported having taken leave to take care of a family member with a serious health condition. When asked about their longest continuous period of time off from work during the past five years for any of these reasons, nearly one in four (23%) respondents reported that their longest period of time off was less than one week, while nearly one in five (19%) have taken off at least five consecutive weeks or longer. Women were more likely than men to have taken longer periods of leave, just as lower-income respondents were more likely than higher-income respondents to report longer periods of leave.

The association between parental mental health problems and child wellbeing has rarely been examined in the context of non-traditional families. Using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), this analysis exploits the full range of parent relationship types, including married, cohabiting, and non-resident relationships, to examine the effects of having one parent with major depressive disorder (MDE) and/or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and two parents with MDE/GAD on child’s behavior problems at age three. We find that maternal mental illness is associated with increased odds of child’s anxious/depressed, attention deficit, and oppositional defiant disorders, regardless of family structure, whereas the effect of paternal psychopathology depends primarily on fathers’ residential status. We find some evidence of a multiplicative effect associated with having two ill parents, but only when fathers are coresident. Overall, the negative impact of dual-parent psychopathology appears to be additive. Among coresident parents, results do not vary by whether parents are married or cohabiting, and among non-coresident parents, they do not different by the level of father involvement. The findings suggest that mothers’ mental health is ultimately more important than fathers’ for healthy child development.

This report presents State estimates for 23 measures of substance use or mental health problems based on the 2004 and 2005 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUHs). Sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), NSDUH is an ongoing survey of the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States aged 12 years or older. Interview data from approximately 136,100 persons were collected in 2004-2005. Separate estimates have been produced for four age groups: 12 to 17, 18 to 25, 26 or older, and all persons 12 or older. For each measure, States have been ranked and categorized into quintiles, or fifths, in order to simplify the discussion. Estimates presented in this report are based on hierarchical Bayes estimation methods that combine survey data with a national model.

Major work stoppages idled 70,000 workers with 2.7 million lost workdays in 2006, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The number of workers involved declined from 2005, but the number of workdays lost increased by an additional 1 million over the 2005 figure. The major work stoppages series, which dates back to 1947, covers strikes and lockouts involving 1,000 or more employees and lasting at least one shift. For work stoppages that began in 2005, only days of idleness in calendar year 2006 are counted.

National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP). Healthy eating and activity together (HEAT) clinical practice guideline: identifying and preventing overweight in childhood. Cherry Hill (NJ): National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP); 2006. 78 p.

The Annual Homeless Assessment Report marks the first time since 1984 that HUD has reported the number of homeless people in the United States. The Department used electronic person-based Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) data and locally implemented homeless counts to arrive at the number of sheltered and unsheltered homeless people and the characterisitcs of homeless people living in shelters. The report offers a baseline for future reports that will explore patterns of homelessness over time.

Statistical neighbour models provide one method for benchmarking progress in children's services. This tool allows the user to display up to five outcome measures from a list. The outcome measures displayed will be updated regularly by DfES.

This report presents findings from a fiscal impact study of the Allegheny County Mental Health Court (MHC) Program. We acquired and linked individual-level data on 365 MHC participants from six state and local public agencies to generate a combined data set that included all relevant criminal justice, mental health, and welfare (cash assistance) utilization. Comparison conditions were constructed to determine the net savings or increase in expenditures of the MHC program as compared to routine adjudication and processing. The results indicate that the MHC program is diverting mentally ill offenders into treatment. In the first year, decreased jail expenditures approximately offset increased costs of treatment. The findings also suggest that, over a longer time frame, the MHC program may result in a net savings to taxpayers.

Applications for asylum, excluding dependants, fell by 24% in 2005 to
25,710. The nationalities accounting for the highest numbers of applicants were Iranian, Somali, Eritrean, Chinese and Afghan. . . Including dependants, applications to the rest of the EU25 fell by 11% in 2005, compared with a 24% fall for the UK.

The policies, institutions, and practices governing employment relationships in America no longer serve the needs of today's working families and society at large. At a time of increased profits and productivity, wages have stagnated for everyday families, pension and health care coverage are declining, and costs are being shifted to workers. People are working harder and smarter, but they are not sharing in the gains from their efforts. The benefits of our economic growth have gone to the richest 10% of families, adding to our increasing economic inequality. Both mothers and fathers are working, yet most workplaces are outdated, forcing parents to choose between being a productive worker or a good family member. At the same time, America's safety net is being eroded at a time when jobs have become more insecure.

The science, practice, and application of psychology depend on science education and the culture of evidence and critical thought to which it contributes. Evolutionary theory is one of the most powerful elements of contemporary science. With due diligence in repudiating misappropriations of evolution to justify social injustices, scholars informed by evolutionary theory can unify scientific knowledge and serve public interests in invaluable ways. Proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) present ID theory as a viable alternative scientific explanation for the origins and diversity of life. However, ID has not withstood the scrutiny of scientific peer review of its empirical, conceptual, or epistemological bases and thus is not properly regarded as a scientific theory.

This report explores LISC's role in promoting community safety through partnerships between police and community organizations. Highlighting the work and lessons from the Community Safety Initiative as well as other LISC supported, community based safety efforts, the report profiles three communities - the Olneyville neighborhood in Providence, Columbia City in Seattle, and Franklin Avenue in Southeast Minneapolis.

Across the nation there is a high degree of concern about the state of the behavioral health workforce and pessimism about its future. Workforce problems have an impact on almost every aspect of prevention and treatment across all sectors of the diverse behavioral health field. The issues encompass difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff, the absence of career ladders for employees, marginal wages and benefits, limited access to relevant and effective training, the erosion of supervision, a vacuum with respect to future leaders, and financing systems that place enormous burdens on the workforce to meet high levels of demand with inadequate resources.

Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) are endorsed as the “state of the art” intervention for effective, sensitive investigation of allegations of child abuse. The core element of CACs, the multidisciplinary investigation team, is used in hundreds of communities across the country. Those familiar with CACs believe that the centers have a wide array of positive effects, from reducing stress on children and families, to increasing the yield in accuracy and information of investigations, to promoting more effective criminal justice and human service responses. Yet the impact of CACs has never been adequately evaluated, and the research knowledge base about CACs is limited.

States have a variety of approaches regarding training and assessment for kinship caregivers. We have assembled some here. This information was provided by state foster care and kinship care specialists. Note that this is not a comprehensive list of all policies.

The review concludes that the Government has made strong progress in its Welfare to Work agenda, but that further evolution is necessary. Welfare to Work and the New Deals have been a success as has been the creation of the Government’s main delivery arm, Jobcentre Plus. The Government now needs to build on these successes, ensuring that resources are targeted in the most effective manner and on those who need them most, and that the expertise that exists across the public, private, voluntary and community sectors is fully utilised in tackling the challenge of extending employment opportunity to all. The Government’s aspiration to achieve an employment rate of 80% is extremely challenging. Its achievement would establish the UK as a world leader in employment. It would also produce many other substantial benefits in helping to deliver other social goals, including, most importantly, that of reducing child poverty.

This factsheet provides an overview of the prevalence and characteristics of child abuse-related fatalities, including information about how many children die each year from maltreatment, which groups of children are most vulnerable, how the deaths occur, and what is known about the perpetrators. It also discusses the role of the community in preventing and responding to child deaths, and provides a list of organizations to contact for more information.

Throughout our country’s history, people of varying race, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation have been the victim of hate crimes. The justice system has worked to reduce these crimes through efforts to provide greater retribution to victims of hate crimes by further penalizing perpetrators and by discouraging potential attackers by imposing stricter punishment. Yet homeless victims have been denied this equal opportunity alongside other minority groups. Between 1999 and 2005 there have been 82 homicides classified as the result of hate crimes according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino. Over that same period there have been 169 deaths as a result of violent acts directed at homeless people. This is more than twice the amount of deaths than those resulted from categorized hate crimes. The past eight years have witnessed 614 violent acts against homeless individuals. These attacks occurred in 200 cities throughout our country in 44 states and Puerto Rico. They know no boundary and are not limited to coast, region or state. These attacks have permeated every corner of our society, resulting in 189 deaths and 425 non-lethal attacks, ranging from beatings with golf clubs to setting a man on fire while sleeping. The victims have endured humilities both great and small and the injuries they sustained created not only physical pain and scars, but the crippling effects of wounded self-esteem and dignity of the human spirit.

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Between 1989 and 2004, middle-income parents experienced moderate income growth, but only married parents have gained net worth—a significant fact given that the share of households headed by an unmarried parent increased from 26 to 33 percent over the same period. Using data from the Federal Reserve Board's Surveys of Consumer Finances, income measures alone show that middle-income unmarried parents gained some ground relative to married parents. However, trends in net worth—the value of what households own minus the value of what they owe—diverged by marital status, demonstrating the importance of looking beyond income data.

This report presents results from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) for clients discharged from substance abuse treatment in 2004. The report provides information on treatment completion, length of stay in treatment, and demographic and substance abuse characteristics of approximately 1,000,000 discharges from alcohol or drug treatment in facilities that report to individual State administrative data systems. . . . A total of 1,105,644 records for clients discharged in Year 2004 were submitted by 28 States. Ninety-five percent of these records (n = 1,046,522) could be linked to a TEDS admission record from 2001, 2002, 2003, or 2004.

This is a report of findings from Wave VII of the Poverty Pulse survey, a study designed to evaluate attitudes toward poverty in America. This is the seventh in a series of studies conducted annually beginning in December of 2000. The results of each Poverty Pulse are used by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) to promote understanding of poverty in America and greater awareness of the problem in our society. . . . Many (but not all) of the questions in this year’s survey were also asked in previous waves of the Poverty Pulse. In some cases, results from previous years are presented in this report for reference purposes. It should be noted that prior to 2005, the Poverty Pulse was conducted using a telephone methodology. Because of this difference in data collection, comparisons between studies from 2000-2004 and subsequent waves (2005
and 2006) should be made with caution. While general comparisons can be made, numerical differences may reflect the difference in data collection technique rather than true differences in people’s opinions.

Data contained in this bulletin represent the complete and final count of employment and wages for workers covered by State Unemployment Insurance (UI) laws and the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) program during 2005 for the 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Data are aggregated by geography at the county, metropolitan statistical area, combined statistical area, State, and national levels; by ownership under private industry or Federal, State, or local government; and by industry as defined under the 2002 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). County, State, and national level aggregates appear in the tables in this publication. These data are the product of a Federal-State cooperative program, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), also referenced as ES-202. State workforce agencies compile the data for both private- and public-sector workers from reports filed by employers each quarter and report it to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS; the Bureau).

Marking the first comprehensive overhaul in more than three decades, the Government has published a White Paper setting out landmark proposals for the reform of the regulation of health professionals in the United Kingdom. Trust, Assurance and Safety - The Regulation of Health Professionals in the 21st Century includes proposals which will ensure patient, public and professional confidence in the health professionals' watchdogs, improving patient safety and ensuring the fair treatment of health professionals. At the same time, the Government is publishing its response to the Fifth Report of the Shipman Inquiry. Together, the two publications make the protection of patients and the public the first priority of all who are concerned with healthcare, set out proposals which will sustain and enhance the high regard in which the public hold health professionals and ensure that good regulation does not get in the way of good patient care.

Good practice in building community relations already exists throughout the mental healthcare system. Positive Steps will give practitioners access to the many good ideas that are already making a difference to services across the country. Compiled with the help of health care staff and service users, this guide contains hints and tips for simple things that can be done to improve treatment for all patients.

data from the Medicaid Statistical Information Summary files. Medicaid long-term care users accounted for 7 percent of the Medicaid population in 2002 but over half of total program spending. Three-quarters of these dollars were spent on long-term care and 25 percent were spent on acute care and supportive services. About 55 percent of long-term care spenders were elderly and 34 percent were nonelderly disabled individuals. Children and adults not deemed disabled but using long-term services are a unique population whose medical needs should be assessed in light of recent DRA-related Medicaid changes.

This brief uses the 2005 Current Population Survey to examine national patterns of coverage among families with SCHIP eligible children. Key findings are that: close to 2 million uninsured children are eligible for SCHIP, the majority of SCHIP enrollees could not be enrolled in an employer plan that covers their parents, and almost 40% of SCHIP enrollees lives with an uninsured parent. This implies that federal funding will have to be increased substantially to cover the remaining eligible but uninsured children and that many children stand to lose coverage altogether if federal funds are inadequate to meet existing program needs.

Some of the major causes of death in western societies are now associated with conditions such as obesity, heart disease and alcoholism. Improving public health requires a commitment to change the individual behaviours that underpin these lifestyle-related illnesses, alongside efforts to tackle the other factors that can negatively affect health. This paper sets out some of the key challenges the Government faces in changing the public’s health-related behaviour and examines the Government response. It then outlines whose behaviour we need to target by considering the impact of our environment, psychology and biological characteristics. Finally, a strategy is put forward for changing and maintaining desired health behaviours.

Federal expenditures for USDA’s food assistance programs totaled almost $53 billion in fiscal 2006, a 4-percent increase over the previous fiscal year. This was the sixth consecutive year in which food assistance expenditures increased and the fourth consecutive year in which they exceeded the previous historical record. The five largest food assistance programs—the Food Stamp Program, the National School Lunch Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the School Breakfast Program—accounted for 95 percent of USDA's total expenditures for food assistance. This report uses preliminary data from the Food and Nutrition Service to examine trends in the programs at the through fiscal 2006. It also discusses a recent ERS study that examined income volatility among households with children and the implications of volatility for eligibility in the National School Lunch Program.

This article connects the constitutional jurisprudence of the family to debates over reproductive technology and surrogacy. Despite the outpouring of literature on reproductive technologies, courts and scholars have paid little attention to the constitutional foundation of parental rights. Focusing on the structural/political function of parental rights, I argue that a gestational mother has a constitutional claim to be recognized as a legal parent. I begin with the “unwed father cases” from the 1970s. Despite believing that natural sex differences justified distinctions in parental rights, the Court crafted a test giving men parental rights if they established relationships with their biological children. I argue that this test was modeled on what the Court saw as the essential attributes of motherhood. I offer this reading as an alternative to the standard feminist critique that the unwed father cases are notable only for their zeal to enforce the traditional family. I also show how the theoretical approach of these cases supports feminist claims for equal treatment despite biological difference (such as accommodation of pregnancy). Turning to current debates, my focus is on divided motherhood: usually surrogacy contracts, but also embryo mix-ups at fertility clinics. Rather than following existing precedent on parental rights, the law of high-tech parenthood is tending sharply in the direction of denigrating gestation, defining parenthood exclusively in terms of genes or contracts. I show that conferring parental rights on gestational mothers would produce better outcomes and be more consistent with the best aspects of existing constitutional precedents.

This document provides guidance on the new Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy service, in England, and the new criminal offence in England and Wales that are introduced by the Mental Capacity Act from April 2007. It also covers the planned implementation of the whole Act by October 2007. . . . What is the Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) service? . . . . The purpose of the IMCA service is to help particularly vulnerable people who lack the capacity to make important decisions about serious medical treatment and changes of accommodation. It is available to those people who have no family or friends whom it would be appropriate to consult about those decisions. The service was extended by regulation to include two further situations, adult protection cases and care reviews – where an IMCA may be instructed.

This report updates the story of welfare reform in two of the four Urban Change cities: Cleveland and Philadelphia. As it turned out, the 1990s represented the best environment in which to implement welfare reform. Poverty rates among children reached record lows during the decade, and employment levels among single-parent women reached a record high. By March 2001, the national economy fell into a recession that would officially last eight months, although employment continued to decline through August 2003. Welfare-to-work budgets and civil service workforces were scaled back in response to state budget deficits. It was during this period of job losses and budget deficits that families started reaching the federal five-year time limit on cash assistance, in 2002. How have state service delivery systems evolved as a result of these changing conditions? And how have the longer-term effects of welfare reform played out in caseload dynamics and in social and health indicators in low-income neighborhoods?

This is a completely revised and updated version of a report originally issued three years ago (Ku and Nimalendran, 2004). Given current concerns about the pending reauthorization of SCHIP, it is relevant to provide clear and updated information about the important role these public insurance programs play in the lives of America’s low-income children. This report complements other recent reports about public insurance programs for children, such as the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured’s review of the evidence about health insurance for low-income people (2006) or its summary of SCHIP’s first ten years (2007), the Congressionally-mandated evaluation of SCHIP by Wooldridge et al. (2005), or the series of reports by the Children’s Health Insurance Research Initiative (which is sponsored by the Agency for Health Care Quality, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Health Resources and Services Administration).

There is perhaps no political issue more volatile in the United States than abortion, no Supreme Court ruling subject to such a well-organized and well-funded attack as Roe v. Wade. Since it was decided in 1973, Roe has been under constant attack. Since 1995 alone, state legislatures have enacted 380 measures restricting abortion, and in November 2003, Congress passed the first-ever federal ban on abortion procedures. Anti-choice forces are counting on new appointments to the Supreme Court in the next few years to totally overturn Roe. What would happen if Roe were to fall? This study by the Center for Reproductive Rights provides a detailed state-by-state analysis of the impact of a reversal of Roe. A Supreme Court decision overturning Roe would not by itself make abortion illegal in the United States. Instead, a reversal of Roe would remove federal constitutional protection for a woman’s right to choose and give the states the power to set abortion policy. Of course, all 50 states run the risk of their state legislatures enacting new abortion bans if Roe is overruled. But this study of current state laws, state constitutions, and the composition of state legislatures identifies five different categories that determine different levels of risk to the right to choose in each state.

With the support of the Ford Foundation, the Work, Family, and Equity Index is the first venture to systematically define and measure successful public policies for working families in 177 countries. The evidence-based study uses extensive data from independent research, government sources, academic institutions, professional organizations, and a wide range of international bodies including the UN, OECD, the World Bank, and the ILO. The Work, Family, and Equity Index is part of the Project on Global Working Families, the first program devoted to understanding and improving the relationship between working conditions around the world and family health and well-being.

Health insurance and the need for and receipt of substance abuse treatment among adults aged 18 or older was examined using annual averages based on combined 2004 and 2005 SAMHSA National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. Types of health insurance included Medicare, Medicaid/CHIP, military health care, and private insurance. Adults who met the criteria for either substance abuse or dependence or who had received substance abuse treatment at a specialty substance abuse treatment facility in the past year were defined as in need of treatment.

Funding by larger private and community foundations continued to grow in 2005, albeit at a more moderate pac