Page 11 - Vulnerable Populations

• Increased impoverished populations may be due to:
• Decreased earnings

• Increased rates of unemployment

Poverty • Changes in the labor force
•
More female-headed households
and • Inadequate education and job skills

•
Inadequate antipoverty programs
Health • Low benefits from Aid to Families with Dependent

Children (AFDC—which is now TANF or Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families)
• Weak child support enforcement

• Dwindling Social Security payments to children
• Increased proportion of births out of wedlock

• The poor population has a higher rate of
• chronic illness
• higher infant morbidity and mortality rates

• shorter life expectancy
• more complex health problems

• greater physical limitations resulting from chronic

disease.