In this brief, we use data from the first two waves of the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF) to examine how living arrangements for families with children changed between 1997 and 1999. We find that the share of families composed of a single mother living independently declined; at the same time, the share of families composed of cohabiting couples with children rose. In addition, we find larger changes in living arrangements among the population subgroups most likely to be affected by welfare policies–lower-income and less-educated families–than among other subgroups, such as moderate-income families. This suggests that welfare policies may have contributed to the decline in single parenting and the rise in cohabitation between 1997 and 1999.