Eradicating child poverty in Britain: welfare reform and children since 1997

Over the past 20 years the incidence of relative poverty among Britain’s children has tripled. These changes are related to increased earnings inequality, growth in the number of single (lone) parent households, and an increased share of households with children with no working adult. The Labour Government has responded by adopting as a policy objective ending child poverty by 2020. Initial steps toward this end include increasing direct financial support to families with children, creating financial incentives for work for parents, adopting more intensive case management for the welfare caseload, and ameliorating the long-term consequences of the deprivation poverty brings. The Working Families’ Tax Credit (WFTC) is the centerpiece of the financial support innovations but there is a broader swathe of welfare reforms which has received less attention. Overall, the U.K. system provides more generous support to the lowest-income families than is available in the U.S., and recent reforms have directly reduced child poverty. For most households, the reforms have reduced marginal benefit deduction rates and increased incentives to work. Preliminary evidence suggests the changes have had greatest effect on single parents. Continued progress requires the adoption of a more specific procedure for defining and measuring child poverty

An Evolutionary View of the Critical Functions of Slot Machine Technology

The U.S. gaming industry has grown from its infancy in the early 1930s to a maturing giant in the 1990s. With this growth has come an evolution in management functions associated with one of the major components of casino operations, the slot department. These functions; counting, analysis, security, maintenance, and marketing, have evolved through an iterative process of technology; applying science to enhance functionality. This paper traces the expanding applications of gaming technologies, and provides a framework for understanding the past, present and future uses of technology in casino slot operation

New genus of primitive wombat (Vombatidae, Marsupialia) from Miocene deposits in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area (Queensland, Australia)

Copyright Palaeontological Association, March 2015. This is an open access article, available to all readers online, published under a creative commons licensing (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Implications of the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program for Young Adults

On December 17, 1999, President Clinton signed the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act (P.L. 106-170) into law establishing in section 101(a) the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program (Ticket to Work Program) as well as several other provisions to support the movement of beneficiaries with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) into employment. The Ticket to Work Program was established to expand the universe of providers available to beneficiaries with disabilities as they are afforded the opportunity to choose from whom they access their needed employment services and supports. The Ticket to Work Program also increased provider incentives to serve these individuals. The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers this new program with the support of Maximus, Inc, the entity contracted with by the SSA to serve as the program manager. The SSA is currently contracting with agencies to serve as Employment Networks (EN). These ENs perform an array of duties under the law, including providing employment services, vocational rehabilitation (VR) services, and other support services to assist individuals with disabilities to obtain and maintain employment. Under this program, the SSA is directed to provide to beneficiaries with disabilities who meet certain eligibility criteria a Ticket they may use to obtain employment services, VR services and/or other support services from an EN of their choice. “A Ticket under the Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program is a document that provides evidence of SSA’s agreement to pay an EN or a State VR agency for providing employment services, VR services and/or other support services to a Ticket recipient who requests such services.” (SSA 2001, p. 12) The Ticket to Work Program will be phased in nationally over a three-year period beginning in January, 2002, with beneficiaries in 13 states: Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Wisconsin. The remaining states will be included by January, 2004

The political dimension of seasonal allocations: Developing a seasonal allocation strategy in a water-short system in Sri Lanka

Water allocation, Irrigation programs, Reservoirs, Participatory management, Farmer participation, Water rights, Irrigated farming, Rice, Water shortage, Farmers' attitudes, Farmer-agency interactions, Sri Lanka

American career of James Connolly

So badly wounded that he had to be propped up in a chair to face the firing squad, James Connolly was executed by the British on May 10, 1916 in Dublin\u27s infamous Kilmainham Jail. He had been one of the leaders of the abortive Easter \u27Rising against English control of Ireland. This event in itself was sufficient to guarantee him a significant place in Irish history but Connolly had achieved prominence in other activities as well. Besides being a revolutionary nationalist he had been a Marxist and a labor leader, had founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party and had played a major role in the general strike in Dublin from August, 1913 through March, 1914. Altogether, it is not surprising that all the biographies of Connolly have concentrated on his role in Irish history and that little if any attention has been given to his significance in the history of American radicalism

On the Way to the Truth

A title, like On the Way to Truth , requires an explanation, in fact, a two-fold explanation. It requires such an explanation because it is both methodologically and thematically suggestive. These aspects of the title will be discussed in the next sections of this introduction. The first of these sections will deal with the methodological implications. The second section will contain an introductory discussion of the subject indicated by the title

Reflection high-energy electron diffraction experimental analysis of polycrystalline MgO films with grain size and orientation distributions

Analysis of biaxial texture of MgO films grown by ion-beam-assisted deposition (IBAD) has been performed using a quantitative reflection high-energy electron diffraction (RHEED) based method. MgO biaxial texture is determined by analysis of diffraction spot shapes from single RHEED images, and by measuring the width of RHEED in-plane rocking curves for MgO films grown on amorphous Si3N4 by IBAD using 750 eV Ar+ ions, at 45° incidence angle, and MgO e-beam evaporation. RHEED-based biaxial texture measurement accuracy is verified by comparison with in-plane and out-of-plane orientation distribution measurements made using transmission electron microscopy and x-ray rocking curves. In situ RHEED measurements also enable the analysis of the evolution of the biaxial texture which narrows with increasing film thickness. RHEED-based measurements of IBAD MgO biaxial texture show that the minimum in-plane orientation distribution depends on the out-of-plane orientation distribution, and indicates that the minimum obtainable in-plane orientation on distribution is 2°