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Project Description

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Rural Sociology and the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service are collaborating to monitor the impacts of the 1996 welfare reform legislation in several rural counties that have consistently high rates of poverty. The project will use national, state, and county level data to monitor changes in indicators that are likely to show short-term and long-term impacts of welfare reform on welfare program participation, employment, health, and other indicators of individual, family, and community well-being. This project will assist the USDA in assessing the underlying causes of rural poverty, the socioeconomic conditions of people living in nonmetropolitan areas, and the effects of policies designed to improve those conditions.

Project duration: Oct 1997 - Sep 1999

Sites studied include McCreary and Owsley Counties, Kentucky
Holmes and Sunflower Counties, Mississippi
Todd and Shannon Counties, South Dakota
Maverick and Starr Counties, Texas

Sample Characteristics and Sites Studied

County is unit of analysis.

Recent Findings in Brief

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