Six Strategies for Self-Sufficiency—Overview

• The Self-Sufficiency Standard
• Targeting Higher-Wage Employment
• Nontraditional Employment for Women
• Functional Context Education
• Microenterprise Training and Development
• Individual Development Accounts

Why the Six Strategies?

• Because women currently earn 74¢ for every dollar men earn.
• Because 60% of all minimum wage workers are women.
• Because most welfare recipients leaving the rolls for work earn very low wages.
• Because nearly one in three American households possesses zero or negative assets.

These realities demonstrate the critical need for strategies that will help families move out of poverty and into lasting economic sD coity. The Six Strategies are tools for individuals, community-based organizations, and state- and local-level policymakers to use to truly help low-income families move out of poverty and achieve long-term economic stability and independence.

In today's policy environment—in which welfare and workforce legislation have devolved power to states and localities—new and effective strategies are urgently needed to aid low-income people:

• The 1996 welfare legislation ended the 60-year-old federal program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and replaced it with a new state level, time-limited program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF);
• The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 substantially alters the federally funded system of job training and other employment-related services. These two policy changes make it more important than ever for states and localities to have innovative tools to move families out of poverty.