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Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: Are Wages and Welfare Enough?

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Abstract

Low-income mothers are caught in a conundrum: Neither the income from the jobs they get, nor welfare—when they are eligible and can receive it—is sufficient to support their households. The pressures of their situation are exacerbated by at least three aspects of their lives: The need to deal with multiple agencies and complex bureaucracies in order to gain the goods and services they need for their families; the combination of their own and their children’s heightened probability of medical conditions coupled with irregular access to medical insurance; and the frequent household and community crises that sap their personal and financial resources.

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© 2005 Jill Duerr Berrick and Bruce Fuller

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Lein, L. (2005). Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: Are Wages and Welfare Enough?. In: Berrick, J.D., Fuller, B. (eds) Good Parents or Good Workers?. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-8053-3_2

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