This study integrates models of income redistribution developed by economists, who suggest that citizens voluntarily redistribute because of interdependent preferences and rely on the state for implementation owing to the public-good nature of redistribution, and political scientists, who focus on conditions that lead to demands that the state intervene to assist the poor and on the development of institutions that facilitate such demands. We propose a testable theory of redistribution and apply it to data from the American states.The empirical analysis addresses determinants of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children guarantee, adjusted for Medicaid and food stamps to which a family receiving the guarantee would be entitled. We posit significant links between the guarantee and both observable explanatory variables, such as per-capita income, and latent constructs, such as liberal party control. We specify observable indicators for the latent constructs and use the LISREL method to estimate parameters for the indicators and structural coefficients. The findings show that both political and economic variables significantly affect the level of the guarantee.

This paper evaluates the wage, employment, and hours effects of the first and second phase-in of the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance, which raised the minimum wage from $9.47 to as much as $11 in 2015 and to as much as $13 in 2016. Using a variety of methods to analyze employment in all sectors paying below a specified real hourly wage rate, we conclude that the second wage increase to $13 reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs by 6-7 percent, while hourly wages in such jobs increased by 3 percent. Consequently, total payroll for such jobs decreased, implying that the Ordinance lowered the amount paid to workers in low-wage jobs by an average of $74 per month per job in 2016. Evidence attributes more modest effects to the first wage increase. We estimate an effect of zero when analyzing employment in the restaurant industry at all wage levels, comparable to many prior studies.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of Wisconsin Press and The Board of Regents of the University of WisconsinSystem are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Human Resources. ABSTRACTWe estimate the relationship between teenage childbearing, human capital investment, and wages in early adulthood, using a sample of women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a large set of potential instruments for fertility-principally state and county-level indicators of the costs of fertility and fertility control. Adolescent fertility substantially reduces years offormal education and teenage work experience and, for white women only, early adult work experience. Through reductions in human capital, teenage childbearing has a significant effect on market wages at age 25. Our results suggest that public policies which reduce teenage childbearing are likely to have positive effects on the economic well-being of many young mothers.

This study examines the influence of self-esteem, locus of control, and attitudes toward women's family roles and school on the probability of teenage premarital pregnancy and, given a pregnancy, whether it is resolved by abortion, having the birth premaritally, or marrying before the birth. The data are drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and analyzed using the nested logit method. The evidence suggests that for both whites and blacks the four attitude variables are associated with premarital pregnancy and its resolution in the directions predicted by theory. The Effect of Attitudes on Teenage Premarital Pregnancy and Its ResolutionTeenage premarital childbearing is associated with a number of negative consequences for both mother and child such as lower earnings and increased chances of poverty Pofferth, 1987) and leads to substantial public costs for income support, health care, and social services @urt with Levy, 1987). Because many observers believe that the adverse consequences are indeed caused by teenage premarital childbearing, and because teenage premarital childbearing violates mainstream norms, it emerged as a national concern during the 1980s and has remained the focus of heated debate. For these reasons and because the analysis of nonnormative behaviors has been of long-standing sociological interest, understanding the determinants of premarital childbearing can contribute to both public policy debate and social science.Many social, economic, and psychological factors are likely to influence adolescent women's sexual behavior and, consequently, their chances of becoming premaritally pregnant and an unmarried mother. That these factors include attitudes and other psychosocial variables is an intuitively plausible proposition, and one that can be deduced from behavioral theory. Psychosocial variables may mediate the effects of family background and other personal characteristics, exert independent influence on premarital childbearing, or both. Improved knowledge about the relationships among attitudes, family background and other personal characteristics, and premarital childbearing will increase our understanding of the determinants of sexual and marriage behavior and of the mechanisms through which background characteristics influence such behaviors.Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this paper provides evidence on the relationship between teenage premarital childbearing and four psychosocial variables:self-esteem, locus of control, attitudes toward women's family roles, and attitudes toward school.'Recognizing that a premarital birth results from a premarital pregnancy followed by a decision to bear the child before marriage, the analysis examines the relationship of such variables to both premarital 2 pregnancy and its resolution. Along the way it explores plausible theoretical arguments why each of the four characteristics would tend to influence behaviors related to premarital childbearing and offers new evidence about the validity of mode...

Since 1984, policymakers have increasingly turned their attention to reforming the child support system. Despite this attention, the child support system has often failed to increase the economic security of single-parent families. This article analyzes findings from recent qualitative studies to explain why the child support system breaks down for so many low-income families. This research suggests that parents often prefer informal arrangements of support and do not comply with child support regulations they perceive to be unfair, counterproductive, or punitive. It also suggests that there is a mismatch between the premises and goals of child support policy and what low-income parents desire from the system. This mismatch impedes low-income parents' willingness and ability to comply with existing policy, even when they wish to do so, and will make reform difficult.

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Public sector investment in higher-quality foster care services could substantially improve the long-term mental and physical health of foster care alumni.