TABLE 1.

—Sociodemographic Characteristics of Mothers of Chronically Ill Children, by Welfare Status (n = 504)

	Total	Nonrecipients	Current	Former	Denied	Pending
Age, y, mean	31.0	30.6	31.8	30.3	32.3	32.0
Income less than $1000/mo, %***	53.6	36.2	79.0	64.7	52.8	80.0
Highest grade, y, mean**	11.3	11.6	10.1	11.5	10.9	10.5
No high school diploma, %	35.2	32.9	54.0	26.7	37.7	40.5
Marital status, %***
Single/separated	49.1	30.7	68.3	64.2	54.7	69.0
Cohabitating/married	35.6	54.7	17.5	20.0	28.3	35.6
Cohabitating/not married	15.3	14.7	14.3	15.8	17.0	15.3
Ethnicity, %***
Mexican American/Hispanic	62.2	69.2	62.3	45.0	78.8	53.7
Black/African American	22.0	12.2	23.0	39.2	17.3	29.3
White/Anglo	10.5	14.9	4.9	7.5	3.8	12.2
Other	5.3	3.6	9.8	8.3	0	29.3
Born in US, %	87.9	84.1	87.3	93.3	86.8	95.2
Primary language Spanish, %*	11.5	15.1	15.9	3.3	13.2	7.1
Household size, mean No.	4.7	4.7	4.8	4.5	5.1	5.0
Employment,%
Currently employed***	42.3	48.2	17.5	47.5	52.8	19.0
Worked in past 3 years**	63.2	53.8	51.9	81.0	68.0	76.5
Tried or wanted to work in past 3 years	40.2	31.5	52.0	58.3	50.0	25.0
Has health insurance, %***	45.7	40.3	85.7	34.5	47.2	45.2
Hardship in past 6 months
Hardship scale, mean score**	1.2	1.0	1.3	1.4	1.3	1.7
Any hardship, %***	60.8	47.1	69.4	71.7	71.7	76.2
Housing, %	32.1	28.8	27.0	36.7	32.1	45.2
Food, %***	40.3	29.6	44.4	50.8	45.3	54.8
Telephone service cut off, %*	25.6	19.9	27.0	27.5	34.0	38.1
Utility service cut off, %	14.7	12.4	17.5	15.8	18.9	14.3

*P < .05; **P < .01; ***P < .001 (across-group trends).