ABSTRACT
Self-Sufficiency: Employment, Earnings, and Receipt of Public Benefits by Former Foster Youth: Former foster youth (FFY) often leave care without a job or educational program. Research that has followed these youth into their late twenties has found that they are less likely to be employed than their peers in the general population, who did not spend part of their childhood in out-of-home care. When FFY are working, they do so in jobs that are without benefits, and receive wages that often do not raise them out of poverty or provide sufficient income to meet basic needs, much less accumulate assets. The economic stress that many experience is seen in their reliance on public benefits for survival in larger proportions than their non-foster-care peers. The transition from foster care to emerging adulthood provides an opportunity to correct previous disadvantages through interventions that seek to ameliorate the intergenerational transmission of poverty among families. Strategies for improving employment outcomes are discussed.
