Skip to main content

Home/ Domestic Poverty Analytics/ Group items tagged design

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Coonoor Behal

What Strategies Work for the Hard-to-Employ? | mdrc 2012 - 0 views

www.mdrc.org/at-strategies-work-hard-employ

behaviors barrierstowork employment MDRC ACF

shared by Coonoor Behal on 25 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Coonoor Behal on 25 Mar 13
     
    "In the context of a public safety net focused on limiting dependency and encouraging participation in the labor market, policymakers and researchers are especially interested in individuals who face obstacles to finding and keeping jobs. The Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ (HtE) Demonstration and Evaluation Project was a 10-year study that evaluated innovative strategies aimed at improving employment and other outcomes for groups who face serious barriers to employment. The project was sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with additional funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. This report describes the HtE programs and summarizes the final results for each program. Additionally, it presents information for three sites from the ACF-sponsored Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project where hard-to-employ populations were also targeted. Three of the eight models that are described here led to increases in employment. Two of the three - large-scale programs that provided temporary, subsidized "transitional" jobs to facilitate entry into the workforce for long-term welfare recipients in one program and for ex-prisoners in the other - produced only short-term gains in employment, driven mainly by the transitional jobs themselves. The third one - a welfare-to-work program that provided unpaid work experience, job placement, and education services to recipients with health conditions - had longer-term gains, increasing employment and reducing the amount of cash assistance received over four years. Promising findings were also observed in other sites. An early-childhood development program that was combined with services to boost parents' self-sufficiency increased employment and earnings for a subgroup of the study participants and increased the use of high-quality child care; the program for ex-prisoners mentioned abov
Coonoor Behal

Behavioral Economics and Marketing in Aid of Decision Making Among the Poor - 2 views

psych.princeton.edu/...aking%20among%20the%20poor.pdf

behavioraleconomics marketing ideas42 decisionmaking programdesign TANF

shared by Coonoor Behal on 24 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Coonoor Behal on 24 Mar 13
     
    This article considers several aspects of the economic decision making of the poor from the perspective of behavioral economics, and it focuses on potential contributions from marketing. Among other things, the authors consider some relevant facets of the social and institutional environments in which the poor interact, and they review some behavioral patterns that are likely to arise in these contexts. A behaviorally more informed perspective can help make sense of what might otherwise be considered "puzzles" in the economic comportment of the poor. A behavioral analysis suggests that substantial welfare changes could result from relatively minor policy interventions, and insightful marketing may provide much needed help in the design of such interventions.
Coonoor Behal

Involvement of TANF Applicants with Child Protective Services (July 2001) - 0 views

www.irp.wisc.edu/...dp122901.pdf

behaviors policy TANF children overlap data

shared by Coonoor Behal on 15 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Coonoor Behal on 15 Feb 13
     
    This paper presents findings from an exploratory study of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) applicants in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. We examine the level of involvement of TANF applicants with the child welfare system both before and after their application for TANF assistance and inclusion in our study. We also present preliminary multivariate models of the hazard of our sample's CPS involvement with child protective services subsequent to their application for TANF. We find a high level of overlap between TANF and child welfare populations. We also find a set of correlates of CPS involvement after TANF application that are robust to a variety of model specifications. Although our findings are preliminary and further analyses based on longer-term follow-up of our sample will no doubt provide greater clarity, we believe that our findings to date provide food for thought for the designers and administrators of both TANF and child welfare programs.
Coonoor Behal

In the Fight Against Poverty, Time for a Revolution - NYTimes.com - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...erty-its-time-for-a-revolution

povertyprograms povertyassessment methods

shared by Coonoor Behal on 19 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • United States Census bureau has produced what may become another landmark reference. Based on an updated method for assessing poverty, the bureau has found that far more Americans are scraping by than was previously known: 100 million Americans — one in three — are “deep poor,” “poor,” or “near poor.”
  • As Harrington observed, poverty is more than lacking minimum standards of health care, housing, food and education. “Poverty,” he wrote, “should be defined psychologically in terms of those whose place in the society is such that they are internal exiles who, almost inevitably, develop attitudes of defeat and pessimism and who are therefore excluded from taking advantage of new opportunities.”
  • Researchers in the United Kingdom have developed tools to measure “well-being,” looking at such things as material goods, relationships and self-beliefs.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • But there is a problem: the system of social services that has been built up over past generations isn’t designed to increase poor people’s “capacity to aspire” and pursue their goals. Social services aren’t treated as part of an integrated process of human development. Just the opposite. Services are fragmented and clients are regularly shunted from agency to agency. Caseworkers serving people who are applying for public benefits don’t have the time, or the discretion, to get to know their clients, let alone brainstorm with them about problem solving.
  • Many Americans struggling in poverty today need more than financial assistance; they need help figuring out how to plug into a changing economy.
  • LIFT’s approach is grounded in the principle that change happens through relationships.
  • LIFT has spent more than a decade systematizing what amounts to a social technology.
  • They have looked closely at the human qualities required to address poverty. Above all, LIFT looks for volunteers who have demonstrated empathy.
  • Advocates are trained to treat clients with courtesy, to value their time, and to listen to their stories (while maintaining clear boundaries).
  • “Being treated politely is for many people a new experience.”
  • In fact, LIFT is seeing more people in the “near poor” or “newly poor” category.
Coonoor Behal

Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income - USATODAY.com - 0 views

usatoday30.usatoday.com/...1

low-income supplementalmeasure

shared by Coonoor Behal on 19 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That is up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure.
  • Among low-income families, about one-third were considered poor while the remainder, 6.9 million, earned income just above the poverty line.
Coonoor Behal

'Why television is more important than food' | Firstpost - Page 2 - 0 views

www.firstpost.com/...2

deferredgain international pleasure incentives immunization alcohol decisionmaking rational choice

shared by Coonoor Behal on 26 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Firstpost Economy ‘Why television is more important than food’ by Vivek Kaul Dec 14, 2012 #Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee #India #Morocco #Poverty #VeryCloseUp Share 21 0 8 Email13 Comments Print Adult Vaccinations Learn More About a Pertussis Vaccine for Adults. SoundsOfPertussis.comExclusive Masaba Gupta Designer Dresses,Saris And Jackets. Available Only @Pernia's PopupShop perniaspopupshop.com/Free-Shippinghttp://www.google.com/url?ct=abg&q=https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py%3Fcontact%3Dabg_afc%26url%3Dhttp://www.firstpost.com/economy/why-television-is-more-important-than-food-557010.html/2%26gl%3DUS%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dca-money_t
  • People with vouchers had were worse off in  nutrition. They felt that now that they have the vouchers, they are rich and no longer need to eat rice. They could eat pork, shrimps etc. They went and bought pork and shrimps and as a result their net calories went down. This is perfectly rational. These people were waiting for pleasure.
  • They could improve their nutrition or for the next ten days they could also eat a little bit better. Fun is something that we forget about.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Let me give you an example of the auto-rickshaw drivers in Chennai, where one of my students did a survey. The survey found that 40% of their income goes into drinking. If you were to ask why they are doing that, the answer is “my body hurts and I want something to stop the hurt”. You are in an auto-rickshaw 12 hours a day. Your body is bouncing. Your bones are hitting against each other. At that point you want something.  I understand that alcohol is not the best possible relief. But whenever we want to be judgemental of the poor, and whenever we don’t want to trust their judgement, the question for us is to ask first is what is it that makes them make that choice? Unless we ask that question we are often tempted to impose our own conditions on their lives.
  • We need to understand how difficult it is to be poor. That is the first fact to keep in mind. Every poor person is much more in control of his life than I am of mine. I don’t know how much my salary is. I don’t how much my pension is. I don’t know where my water comes from. I have automatic health insurance. I don’t have a choice. Most of my choices have been taken out of my life. In fact, wait, I don’t want those choices.
Coonoor Behal

Welfare Reform and the Work Support System | Brookings Institution - 0 views

www.brookings.edu/...welfare-sawhill

welfarereform work EITC policy 1996 povertyprograms worksupport

shared by Coonoor Behal on 09 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Among other provisions, the 1996 reforms required work of almost every adult that joined the welfare rolls. In addition, with some exceptions, a limit of five years was placed on the receipt of cash welfare by individual families.
  • Beginning roughly in the mid-1970s with the enactment of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the federal government originated or expanded a series of programs that provide benefits to working families. Unlike welfare benefits, which are intended primarily for the destitute, these work support benefits are designed to provide cash and other benefits to working adults and their families. In addition to the EITC, the major benefits in the system include the child tax credit, the minimum wage, state income supplement programs, food stamps, health insurance, and child care.
  • This evolution toward a work-based system of support progressed further as a result of state responses to the 1996 welfare law.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • As a result, the typical one-parent family with children was far better off working than on welfare, and employment rates among this group increased dramatically, due to the strong economy of the 1990s, welfare reform, and the availability of these expanded work supports
  • The value of these new work support programs at both the federal and state level cannot be overemphasized. The EITC alone provides roughly $4,000 a year in extra benefits to a low-wage worker with two or more children, and the children remain eligible for Medicaid. The average woman leaving welfare earns about $7 an hour, or $13,000 in after-tax income. The combined value of food stamps and the EITC, then, brings her total income up to about $19,000—enough to boost a single parent family with three or fewer children above the federal poverty line
  • Polls show that the public is willing to do more for those who work.
  • Many of these policies respond to complaints that the 1996 welfare law placed too much emphasis on reducing caseloads and not enough on reducing poverty.
  • The work support system serves three primary goals. First, it provides incentives for work.
  • A second goal of the work support system is to help ensure that parents working at low-wage jobs have enough total income to provide an adequate standard of living.
  • The third goal of the work support system is to insure that those who lose their jobs or cannot find work will not be destitute.
  • The minimum wage is not very well-targeted. Only one quarter of minimum-wage earners live in poor families.
  • By 2000, the federal EITC was providing over $30 billion in cash supplements to working families, making it the biggest program other than Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income that provides benefits to low-income families. And unlike nearly every other program for low-income families, it provides benefits only to families that work. It is, in short, the quintessential work support program.
  • States have taken two major approaches to improving work incentives. First, since enactment of the 1996 reforms, nearly every state has allowed parents who find jobs to retain more of their welfare benefit. This policy enables many families to work and continue receiving earnings supplements from welfare.
  • under current federal rules, working families can exhaust their five-year limit on welfare while receiving just a small supplement to their earnings. For this reason, time limits may actually discourage work
  • A second approach states have followed is to create their own EITC programs.
  • nearly all the families leaving welfare are eligible for food stamps
  • less than half the families leaving welfare receive the food stamp benefits to which they are entitled.
1 - 10 of 10
Showing 20▼ items per page