What is the community context of families in the Descriptive Study?
Fulton County, Georgia, includes most of the city of Atlanta, as well as suburban and rural areas. Compared to both the United States as a whole and U.S. metropolitan areas, Fulton County has higher rates of overall poverty, child poverty, and mother-headed households. Fulton County was selected as a site for the JOBS Evaluation because it represents a southern, urban site with a welfare population that is relatively disadvantaged compared to other sites (Hamilton and Brock, 1994). Mothers in the Descriptive Study were asked to describe their neighborhoods. At the time of random assignment, about two-thirds of the sample reported that they lived in public (39 percent) or subsidized (29 percent) housing.10 At the time of the Descriptive survey, about half of the sample (55 percent) reported that “very few” of the other mothers in their neighborhoods worked regularly at paid jobs. Four in 10 mothers described their neighborhoods as a “not too good” or an “awful” place to raise children,
