The Handbook of Families and Poverty covers hotly debated issues associated with public policy and funded research as they relate to families and poverty. Contributors, bringing multiple perspectives to bear, aim to show alternatives to welfare in subgroups facing specific challenges that are currently not adequately addressed by the welfare system.

Table of Contents

• Introduction - D. Russell Crane, Tim B. Heaton
• What Welfare Can and Cannot Do
• Innovation in Social Policy: Evaluating State Efforts to Reform Welfare, Promote Work, and Help Low-Income Families - Gary Bryner, Ryan Martin
• Social Policy and Marriage - Lawrence M. Mead
• Working Families Should Not Be Poor: The New Hope Program - Anjali E. Gupta, Jessica Thornton Walker, Aletha C Huston
• Who Will Care When Parents Can't? An Overview of Trends in Kinship Care with a Focus on the Child-Only Provisions of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program - Kevin D. Blair, David B. Taylor
• Poverty among Diverse Populations and Settings
• Understanding the Processes Through Which Economic Hardship Influences Families and Children - Rand D. Conger, KATherine Jewsbury Conger
• Early Childhood Education and Care: An Opportunity to Enhance the Lives of Poor Children - Anna D. Johnson, Kate Tarrant, Jeanne Brooks-GUnn
• Appalachian Families and Poverty: Historical Issues and Contemporary Economic Trends - W. Sean Newsome, Kevin R. Bush, Charles B. Hennon, Gary W. Peterson, Stephan M. Wilson
• Poverty and Economic Polarization among Children in Racial Minority and Immigrant Families - Daniel T. Lichter, Zhenchao Qian, Martha L. Crowley
• Processes of Poverty and Social Exclusion in Poor Families - Angela Abela, Carmel Tabone
• Mexican American Families and Poverty - Scott Coltrane, Ross D. Parke, Thomas J. Schofield, Shigueru. Tsuha, Michael Chavez, Shoon Lio
• Mexican Immigrant Childbearing Women: Social Support and Perinatal Outcomes - Lynn Clark Callister, Ana Birkhead
• Food Insecurity and Provisioning: Chronic Challenges Faced by Families Living in Poverty on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation - Erin Feinauer Whiting, Carol J. Ward
• How Economically Disadvantaged Are American Elderly Women? Gender Differences in Economic Well-Being in Old Age - Martha N. Ozawa, Hong-SIK Yoon
• The Effect of Socioeconomic Status on the Community Functioning of People with Serious Mental Illness and Their Families - Eric D. Johnson
• Addiction and Medicaid: A Prairie Sighting of Califano's “Elephant in the Living Room of American Society” and State Budgets - Harvey H. Hillin
• Incarceration, Poverty, and Families - Stephen J. Bahr
• Children's Time Use and Parental Involvement in Low-Income Families - >W. Jean Yeung, Rebecca Glauber
• Cognitive and Emotional Outcomes for Children in Poverty - R. Gabriela Barajas, Nina Philipsen, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
• Challenging Social Inequalities in Health - Michael Murray, David F. Marks
• Intervention and Education for Working with Poor Families
• Giving Head Start a Fresh Start - Douglas J. Besharov, Caeli A. Higney
• Grandparents: A Family Resource? - Lynda Clarke
• Poor Fathers' Involvement in the Lives of Their Children - Melvin N. Wilson
• The Health-Care Safety Net for Mexican-Origin Families - Ronald J. Angel, Jacqueline L. Angel, Laura Lein
• Federal Policy Efforts to Improve Outcomes among Disadvantaged Families by Supporting Marriage and Family Stability - M. Robin Dion, Alan J. Hawkins
• Microenterprise: Building Well-Being among Poor U.S. Families - Warner P. Woodworth
• Working with Families in Poverty: Toward a Multilevel, Population-Based Approach - Matthew R. Sanders, William Bor
• Increasing Marriage Would Dramatically Reduce Child Poverty - Robert E. Rector, Kirk A. Johnson, Patrick F. Fagan
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors