Rochard Wertheimer, Poverty

Richard Wertheimer, PhD, area director for Welfare and Poverty at Child Trends, earned his PhD in economics from the University of Maryland. Dr. Wertheimer directs research projects at Child Trends in four areas: the determinants of teenage childbearing; the economic and social conditions of poor, working families with children; the number and characteristics of vulnerable youth transitioning to adulthood; and the well-being of adolescents whose parents participated in welfareto- work programs. His recent work includes updates of an assessment of the role of state government policies and programs and socioeconomic factors on teen pregnancy and fertility rates; a descriptive analysis of poor, working families with children using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Current Population Survey; and state- and city-level data on the conditions of children and their mothers at childbirth. He also recently estimated the number of vulnerable youth who were transitioning to adulthood and the number of kindergarteners who were lagging behind their peers.