Welfare, Work, and Poverty Status of Female- Headed Families with Children: 1987-2013
The report focuses on welfare dependency and work engagement among single mothers, a major dynamic that welfare reform and accompanying policy changes have attempted to affect. It also examines the role of programs other than Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in providing support to single female-headed families with children.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children
worth noting that every protection offered by the Social Security Act-by unemployment compensation, and by its provisions for old age-means more security for the children of the families affected. But whereas family security is, as it were, a by-product in these and other programs included in the Federal Act, it is an explicit objective in the program for aid to dependent children. Title IV of the Act is expressly intended to provide assistance for dependent children living with parents or other relatives in their own homes. By the autumn of 1938, well over 600,000 children in more than 250,000 families were thus being cared for at home with cash allowances from combined Federal, state, and local funds. This emphasis on the family in public provision for dependent children is as basic as it is familiar. But although it has been accepted in principle at least since the first state mothers' aid laws were passed in 1911, it appears that we are only just beginning to understand all of its implications, and that we still have a long way to go in discharging our full obligations toward the children and families for whom aid to dependent children is intended. Yet this point of view-focusing upon the family in its relationship to the individual child-is the key to a just evaluation of our present program, as regards legislation and administration, as well as service. SCOPE OF THE PROGRAM
Hydrogen-rich gas production from biomass air and oxygen/steam gasification in a downdraft gasifier
Biomass gasification is an important method to obtain renewable hydrogen. However, this technology still stagnates in a laboratory scale because of its high-energy consumption. In order to get maximum hydrogen yield and decrease energy consumption, this study applies a self-heated downdraft gasifier as the reactor and uses char as the catalyst to study the characteristics of hydrogen production from biomass gasification. Air and oxygen/steam are utilized as the gasifying agents. The experimental results indicate that compared to biomass air gasification, biomass oxygen/steam gasification improves hydrogen yield depending on the volume of downdraft gasifier, and also nearly doubles the heating value of fuel gas. The maximum lower heating value of fuel gas reaches 11.11MJ/Nm3 for biomass oxygen/steam gasification. Over the ranges of operating conditions examined, the maximum hydrogen yield reaches 45.16gH2/kg biomass. For biomass oxygen/steam gasification, the content of H2 and CO reaches 63.27–72.56%, while the content of H2 and CO gets to 52.19–63.31% for biomass air gasification. The ratio of H2/CO for biomass oxygen/steam gasification reaches 0.70–0.90, which is lower than that of biomass air gasification, 1.06–1.27. The experimental and comparison results prove that biomass oxygen/steam gasification in a downdraft gasifier is an effective, relatively low energy consumption technology for hydrogen-rich gas production.