The structure of a family plays an important role in children's well-being. A contributing factor to the high rates of child poverty over the long-term, and the increase in child poverty during the period from 2001-2007, was the increasing likelihood of children living in families headed by a single female. In 2012, about one-third of all children lived in families without their biological father present. According to some estimates, about 50% of children (who are currently under age 18) will spend or have spent a significant portion of their childhood in a home without their biological father. In 2011, the poverty rate for children living in female-headed families (usually headed by a single mother) was 48%, compared to 11% for children living in married-couple families. Policies enacted in the mid-1990s focused on moving single mothers from the welfare rolls to work; with these policies in place and the economic expansion of the late 1990s, child poverty rates fell. However, these gains in the economic well-being of children were limited and temporary, as child poverty increased again in the 2000s, even before the onset of the recession that spanned from December 2007 to June 2009. An option to improve the well-being of children living in single-mother families is to seek greater financial and social contributions from fathers, particularly noncustodial fathers. However, the ability of noncustodial fathers to support their children has been complicated by certain economic and social trends. Over the past three decades, changes in the labor market have led to less employment and lower typical wages for men. The wages of men with lower levels of educational attainment have fallen since the mid-1970s. Criminal justice policies have changed, leading to increases in the rate of incarceration of men. These trends, while affecting all racial and ethnic groups, had a disproportionate impact on African American men. The most recent recession has hit men's employment hard; and it has hit employment of young, African American men particularly hard. Although social science research and analysis acknowledge a father's influence on the overall well-being of his children, federal welfare programs have to a large extent minimized or underplayed the role of fathers in the lives of children. Noncustodial fathers and other men are largely invisible to these programs as clients or recipients. They become visible only in their role as family income producers (e.g., payers of child support). Other federal programs and/or systems that have included many men on their rolls (such as employment and training programs and the criminal justice system) have not fully addressed the unique needs and circumstances of fathers, particularly those who do not have custody of their children. The potential for revisions to the tax code in 2013 raises the issue of whether policies to "make work pay" for low-wage earners-an important part of the welfare reforms of the 1990s for custodial parents-could be extended to noncustodial parents. Additional potential policy options might include examining strategies for reducing child support arrearages; changing the financing structure of Child Support Enforcement (CSE) access and visitation programs for noncustodial parents; enhancing or expanding job training and education programs to assist low-income men and youth, which in turn can help them in providing for their (current or future) families; and redefining eligibility for certain programs so that disadvantaged young adults can receive more holistic training and other services that can better prepare them for adulthood.

In an increasingly global economy, and with retirement starting for the Baby Boomer generation, Congress has indicated a strong interest in ensuring that today's young people have the educational attainment and employment experience needed to become highly skilled workers, contributing taxpayers, and successful participants in civic life. Challenges in the economy and among certain youth populations, however, have heightened concern among policymakers that some young people may not be prepared to fill these roles. The employment levels for youth under age 25 have declined markedly in recent years, including in the wake of the 2007-2009 recession. Certain young people-including high school dropouts, current and former foster youth, and other at-risk populations-face challenges in completing school and entering the workforce. While the United States has experienced a dramatic increase in secondary school achievement in the past several decades, approximately 9% of youth ages 18 through 24 have not attained a high school diploma or its equivalent. In addition, millions of young people are out of school and not working. This report provides an overview of federal employment programs for vulnerable young people. It begins with a discussion of the current challenges in preparing all youth today for the workforce. The report then provides a chronology of job training and employment programs for at-risk youth that began in the 1930s and were expanded or modified from the 1960s through the 1990s. It goes on to discuss the five youth programs authorized under WIA, and draws comparisons between these programs. Following this section is a detailed discussion of each of the programs. This report accompanies two CRS reports-CRS Report R40930, Vulnerable Youth: Issues in the Reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act; and CRS Report R40830, Vulnerable Youth: Federal Funding for Summer Job Training and Employment.

Congress has indicated a strong interest in ensuring that today's young people-those ages 16 through 24-attain the education and employment experience necessary to make the transition to adulthood as skilled workers and taxpayers. In the wake of the December 2007-June 2009 recession, questions remain about the employment prospects of youth today and the possible effects on their future earnings and participation in the labor market. This report provides current and historical employment and unemployment information about young people ages 16 through 24. It begins with a brief background on the December 2007-June 2009 recession and its lasting effects on youth currently in the labor force. It then discusses employment and education pathways that young people today can pursue. Following this section is a description of the labor market data used in the report. The report goes on to provide data on labor force participation, employment, and unemployment in the post-World War II period, with a focus on trends since 2000. This discussion compares rates based on age, gender, race/ethnicity, and income, where applicable. The report concludes by exploring the factors that influence the extent to which youth participate in the labor force and their prospects for employment. This last section also discusses the possible consequences of decreasing employment and increasing unemployment among youth. The Appendix includes supplemental tables and figures on the youth employment situation. The findings of the report are discussed in the summary.

Beginning in the late 1970s, highly publicized cases of children abducted, sexually abused, and sometimes murdered prompted policy makers and child advocates to declare a missing children problem. At that time, about 1.5 million children were reported missing annually. Though dated, survey data from 1999 provide the most recent and comprehensive information on missing children. The data show that approximately 1.3 million children went missing from their caretakers that year due to a family or nonfamily abduction, running away or being forced to leave home, becoming lost or injured, or for benign reasons, such as a miscommunication about schedules. Nearly half of all missing children ran away or were forced to leave home, and nearly all missing children were returned to their homes. The number of children who are sexually exploited is unknown because of the secrecy surrounding exploitation; however, in the 1999 study, researchers found that over 300,000 children were victims of rape; unwanted sexual contact; forceful actions taken as part of a sex-related crime; and other sex-related crimes that do not involve physical contact with the child, including those committed on the Internet. Recognizing the need for greater federal coordination of local and state efforts to recover missing and exploited children, Congress created the Missing and Exploited Children's (MEC) program in 1984 under the Missing Children's Assistance Act (P.L. 98-473, Title IV of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974). The act directed the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to establish a toll-free number to report missing children and a national resource center for missing and exploited children; coordinate public and private programs to assist missing and exploited children; and provide training and technical assistance to recover missing children. Since 1984, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has served as the national resource center and has carried out many of the objectives of the act in collaboration with OJJDP. In addition to NCMEC, the MEC program supports (1) the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force program to assist state and local enforcement cyber units in investigating online child sexual exploitation; (2) training and technical assistance for state AMBER (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alert systems, which publicly broadcast bulletins in the most serious child abduction cases; and (3) other initiatives, including a membership-based nonprofit missing and exploited children's organization that assists families of missing children and efforts to respond to child sexual exploitation through training. The Missing Children's Assistance Act has been amended multiple times, most recently by the Protecting Our Children Comes First Act (P.L. 110-240). This authorization, which expires at the end of FY2013, outlines the duties of OJJDP and NCMEC in carrying out activities intended to assist missing and exploited children. The ICAC Task Force program is authorized separately under the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-401), as amended, through FY2018. The AMBER Alert program is authorized under the PROTECT Act (P.L. 108-21). P.L. 108-21 authorized funding for the program in FY2004. Congress has continued to provide funding in each year since then. Missing and exploited children's activities are collectively funded under a single appropriation for the MEC program. For FY2012, Congress appropriated $65 million to the program.

The majority of young people in the United States grow up healthy and safe in their communities. Most of those of school age live with parents who provide for their well-being, and they attend schools that prepare them for advanced education or vocational training and, ultimately, self -sufficiency. Many youth also receive assistance from their families during the transition to adulthood. During this period, young adults cycle between attending school, living independently, and staying with their families. Approximately 60% of parents today provide financial support to their adult children who are no longer in school. This support comes in the form of housing (50% of parents provide this support to their adult children), living expenses (48%), cost of transportation (41%), health insurance (35%), spending money (29%), and medical bills (28%). Even with this assistance, the current move from adolescence to adulthood has become longer and increasingly complex. For vulnerable (or "at-risk") youth populations, the transition to adulthood is further complicated by a number of challenges, including family conflict or abandonment and obstacles to securing employment that provides adequate wages and health insurance. These youth may be prone to outcomes that have negative consequences for their future development as responsible, self-sufficient adults. Risk outcomes include teenage parenthood; homelessness; drug abuse; delinquency; physical and sexual abuse; and school dropout. Detachment from the labor market and school-or disconnectedness-may be the single strongest indicator that the transition to adulthood has not been made successfully. The federal government has not adopted a single overarching federal policy or legislative vehicle that addresses the challenges vulnerable youth experience in adolescence or while making the transition to adulthood. Rather, federal youth policy today has evolved from multiple programs established in the early 20th century and expanded in the years following the 1964 announcement of the War on Poverty. These programs are concentrated in six areas: workforce development, education, juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, social services, public health, and national and community service. They are intended to provide vulnerable youth with opportunities to develop skills to assist them in adulthood. Despite the range of federal services and activities to assist disadvantaged youth, many of these programs have not developed into a coherent system of support. This is due in part to the administration of programs within several agencies and the lack of mechanisms to coordinate their activities. In response to concerns about the complex federal structure developed to assist vulnerable youth, Congress passed the Tom Osborne Federal Youth Coordination Act (P.L. 109-365) in 2006. Though activities under the act were never funded, the Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs was formed in 2008 under Executive Order 13459 to carry out coordinating activities across multiple agencies that oversee youth programs. Separately, Congress has considered other legislation (the Younger Americans Act of 2000 and the Youth Community Development Block Grant of 1995) to improve the delivery of services to vulnerable youth and provide opportunities to these youth through policies with a "positive youth development" focus.

The causes of homelessness and determining how best to assist those who find themselves homeless became particularly prominent, visible issues in the 1980s. The concept of homelessness may seem like a straightforward one, with individuals and families who have no place to live falling within the definition. However, the extent of homelessness in this country and how best to address it depend upon how one defines the condition of being homeless. There is no single federal definition of homelessness, although a number of programs, including those overseen by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Department of Labor (DOL) use the definition enacted as part of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (P.L. 100-77). The McKinney-Vento Act definition of a homeless individual was recently broadened as part of the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-22). Previously, a homeless individual was defined as a person who lacks a fixed nighttime residence and whose primary nighttime residence is a supervised public or private shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations, a facility accommodating persons intended to be institutionalized, or a place not intended to be used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. The new law expanded the definition to include those defined as homeless under other federal programs, in certain circumstances, as well as those who will imminently lose housing. In the 112th Congress, a bill that would further expand the McKinney-Vento Act definition, the Homeless Children and Youth Act of 2011 (H.R. 32), has been approved by the House Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity. A number of federal programs in seven different agencies, many originally authorized by the McKinney-Vento Act, serve homeless persons. These include the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program administered by the Department of Education (ED) and the Emergency Food and Shelter program, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program run by the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) administers multiple programs that serve homeless individuals, including Health Care for the Homeless, Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness, and the Runaway and Homeless Youth program. This report describes the federal programs that are targeted to assist those who are homeless; includes recent funding levels; discusses current issues, including homelessness after the economic downturn and federal efforts to end homelessness; and provides information on recent legislation. Among active legislation are bills to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which includes transitional housing for those who are homeless as a result of domestic violence (S. 1925 and H.R. 4970) and legislation that would, among other things, reauthorize the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program (H.R. 3989 and H.R. 3990).