The impact of welfare reform for families with children: Evidence from NewYork: A report of the New York City social indicators center, Columbia University school of social work

This paper uses data from the Current Population Survey and administrative data from New York to simulate the poverty impact of the recent federal and state welfare reforms. We find that the federal welfare reforms would in t he absence of additional state or local aid raise the poverty rate of famil ies with children and the poverty gap (the amount needed to raise poor fami lies' incomes up to the poverty line). Although New York state and local we lfare programs will offset much of this impact, we find that even with stat e and local aid, 16,000 families with children will move into poverty and 6 3,000 families with children, most of them already poor, will move into sev ere poverty, while the aggregate poverty gap will increase by nearly 25%.