Latest Urban Institute Reports

Children of immigrants have nearly doubled as a share of pre-K to 3rd grade students since 1990. The share of children under age 8 with immigrant parents stood at 24 percent in 2008, up from 13 percent in 1990. Young children of immigrants account for more than 30 percent of children in seven states, with California leading the nation at 50 percent. The majority (93 percent) of children of immigrants are U.S. citizens. This fact sheet also includes state-by-state data on the number of children of immigrants and the number of children whose parents come from more than 130 countries.

Intervening in the parent generation can improve current and future prospects in the child generation. Such two-generation strategies target either parents’ life circumstances or parenting behaviors. Because many immigrants do not have the English capabilities, inside knowledge about schools, or social standing, engaging them more fully in the educational process in the home, school, and community could bring academic returns for children. This paper describes two-generation approaches to the education of young children from immigrant families that center on parental involvement in education. It focuses on Latin American and Asian immigrants, who make up the bulk of the immigrant population.

Children from immigrant families are the fastest growing group of children in the United States. High-quality child care and early education opportunities will be critical to these children’s success in school and in life. Yet, the early experiences of children in immigrant families are as diverse and varied as immigrant families themselves. While many immigrant families face numerous barriers to accessing high-quality child care and early education for their young children, these barriers are not insurmountable. The paper discusses state and local solutions to improving access for immigrant families and specific strategies and collaborations among providers, policymakers, and immigrant-serving organizations.

This brief examines the scope and composition of housing assistance being provided through HUD programs to residents of the 10 neighborhoods that have been a part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Making Connections initiative. It also describes selected characteristics of the families that receive housing assistance and how their circumstances changed between surveys conducted in 2002/03 and 2005/06 in comparison to unassisted renters and homeowners living in these neighborhoods. At the latter date, the average share of eligible households that received assistance was 25 percent, the same as the national average, but there was considerable variation across sites.

This report is based on research conducted by the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center on the violence prevention activities taking place at the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School during the 2008-2009 school year. Based on an assessment of the school's violence prevention approach using qualitative and quantitative data from stakeholder interviews, field observations, programmatic records, and surveys with students and faculty, this report includes: a logic model of the school's violence prevention approach; detailed information on each of the violence prevention activities within the violence prevention approach and how they compare to national best practices; student and faculty perceptions of the school climate and the violence prevention approach; and recommendations to the school administrators on how to strengthen their violence prevention approach based on the assessment findings. The report concludes with brief remarks on next steps in school violence prevention research.

Roberton Williams, Senior Fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, talks about how recent troop reductions in the Middle East, and war spending overall, impacts the nation's growing budget deficit. [video, 3:23 minutes]

In commentary for the San Francisco Chronicle, Gene Steuerle asserts that all of the following myths about Social Security retirement ages are wrong: (1) increasing the retirement age will reduce benefits; (2) increasing the retirement age discriminates against lower-income workers with shorter life expectancies; (3) increasing the retirement age makes Social Security reform regressive; (4) Social Security Old Age Insurance goes to the old; and (5) the elderly need to fear such Social Security reforms as increasing the retirement age.

Traditional analyses of retirement decisions focus on the age, from birth, of the individual making choices about how much to work, consume, and save for old age. However, remaining life expectancy is arguably a better way of examining these issues. As mortality rates decline, people at a given age now have more remaining years of life expectancy than they did in the past. If participation rates at older ages remain constant (or decline), then average time spent in retirement will increase. Additionally, because health status and mortality are positively correlated, adults with more expected years of life are generally in better health (and better able to work) than those with fewer years of remaining life. This paper examines labor force participation rates of older workers considering both chronological age and remaining life expectancy.

This brief offers a first-time national look at the characteristics, access to services, and parenting approaches for infants living in poverty whose mothers are depressed. Results reveal that eleven percent of infants living in poverty have a mother suffering from severe depression. At the same time, many of these families are connected to services, such as WIC, health care services, food stamps, and TANF, presenting opportunities for policymakers and service providers to help these families. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation funded this research as part of an Urban Institute project identifying service strategies to help connect depressed mothers with treatment.