Our goal in this paper is to examine empirically the role that the employment of mothers plays (and might play) in keeping (or getting) families above poverty. We use the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), a relatively new longitudinal data set available from the Census Bureau and consider two years of income experience for the families in the survey.

Our interest in this topic stems from several recent phenomena: 1) relatively stagnant family incomes in real terms since the mid 1970's; 2) the rapid increase in the employment of mothers in the 1960's and 1970's; and 3) various policy prescriptions that call for the education, training, and employment of mothers (of even very young children) who receive AFDC (other policy issues related to mothers’ employment and currently under discussion include subsidizing child care costs and providing tax credits to parents).