Political Science 138:
Quantitative Reasoning in Political Science

Homework Assignment 5

 When Congress passed the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, many predicted that it would negatively affect the conditions of the nation’s poor families, particularly families with children who were the primary recipients of the nation’s AFDC (later renamed TANF) program.   In 1995, there were over 5 million families with children on AFDC, today the number is close to 2 million.

Poverty rates have fallen since 1995, but for some groups more than others.   For this assignment, you are to find data on the poverty rates for at least two different demographic grouping (e.g., age, family status, race and ethnicity) to measure how their level of poverty has changed sine 1995.  The general question you will address is: Which groups have most improved their poverty status since 1995?

Present the data in a table or chart and write a summary of the information.

 The data are here (you can use either the data families or the persons).

 Note:

• After the 2001 Census, racial classifications have changed.  For Whites, use the “White alone” data.  For Blacks use the “Black or in combination” data.

• Copy the data using Internet Explorer.  After you paste it into Excel, you will have to use the Data | Text to columns – fixed width   command to get the data into the proper cells.

 Save it as a Word document and set up a link.