Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

Last Hired, First Fired

Jan 26, 2002

**Last Hired, First Fired
After welfare reform was signed into law in 1996, the booming economy
of
the late 1990s helped many women find jobs, but these jobs are now at
risk. According to this Economic Policy Institute issue brief, it will
now
be difficult for these workers to maintain their tenuous foothold in
the
labor market and those who lose their jobs will find a much-weakened
safety net.
http://www.epinet.org/Issuebriefs/ib171.html

**Frequently Asked Questions about Working Welfare Leavers
Even when welfare recipients leave cash assistance programs and become
employed, they face significant financial instability, according to
this
analysis by the Center on Law and Social Policy. They typically earn $8
or
less an hour, work irregular hours, go without health insurance, and
often
suffer from serious hardships.
http://www.clasp.org/pubs/TANF/leaversFAQ.pdf

**Helping the Working Poor: A New Approach
When families leave welfare for work, independent work support programs
like food stamps, Medicaid, child care, children?’s health insurance and
tax credits should help them move out of poverty, argues this study
from
Mathematica.
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/

**Low-Wage Workers: Challenges and Prospects
Stephen Lerner of the Service Employees International Union says ?“we
[unions] have this very radical solution to poverty, which is pay
people
enough to live on.?” Hear more from Lerner and researcher Harry Holzer
on
low-wage families in a WAMU radio broadcast with Kojo Nnamdi in
Washington, DC.
http://www.urban.org/cityscape/cityscape_121701.html