Patterns of Multiple Instability among Low-Income Families with Children

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Low-income families experience multiple forms of instability, yet researchers have often focused on a single type of instability. This study used data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and examined patterns of multiple instability among low-income families with children, focusing on income, family structure, and residential instability. We employed sequence and cluster analyses to identify five distinct longitudinal profiles of multiple instability over five time points in a 2-year time period. The two largest profile groups experienced moderate overall and multiple instability (32 percent of families) or no instability (24 percent of families), with the remaining families experiencing increasing, decreasing, or persistent patterns of instability. There were stark differences between families in the no-instability group and the other families. Our findings suggest safety net programs must be more responsive to multiple forms of instability for all low-income families, and for certain subgroups of highly unstable groups in particular.