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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

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.
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

National Poverty Center | University of Michigan - 2 views

www.npc.umich.edu/poverty

povertystats seniors children alternatives EITC

shared by Coonoor Behal on 19 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The methodology for calculating the thresholds was established in the mid-1960s and has not changed in the intervening years.
  • Money income does not include noncash benefits such as public housing, Medicaid, employer-provided health insurance and food stamps
  • The poverty rate for children has historically been somewhat higher than the overall poverty rate.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Since the late 1960s, the poverty rate for people over 65 has fallen dramatically.
  • The poverty rate for people in households headed by single women is significantly higher than the overall poverty rate.
  • In 2010, 19.9 percent of foreign-born residents lived in poverty, compared to 14.4 percent of residents born in the United States. Foreign-born, non-citizens had an even higher incidence of poverty, at a rate of 26.7 percent.
  • Children represent a disproportionate share of the poor in the United States; they are 24 percent of the total population, but 36 percent of the poor population.
  • The official poverty measure has been criticized for not accounting for several factors that can affect a family's economic well-being and for not having been updated, except for inflation, for four decades. 
  • For example, while cash benefits from government assistance programs are included in a family's income when calculating the official poverty measure, benefits received in-kind such as food stamps, Medicare or Medicaid, employer provided health insurance, housing subsidies, and other social services are excluded.  Taxes that families pay and tax credits they receive such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) do not enter into the official poverty determination.
  • Additionally, the threshold value a family must earn to escape poverty was developed in the 1960s by combining emergency food budget data from the US Department of Agriculture with an estimate of what fraction of income families spend on food. Although the thresholds are adjusted each year for inflation, some analysts believe that these numbers no longer accurately reflect the minimal resources a family requires.
  • These alternative measures tend to show lower levels of poverty than the official measure in any year, but the timing of increases and decreases in the poverty rate is very similar across measures. This similarity suggests that, despite the criticism it receives, the official poverty measure provides a reliable indicator of changes in the poverty rate from year to year.
  • These alternative definitions tend to show higher levels of overall poverty than the official measures in any year, although the difference is usually less than one percentage point.
  • Coonoor Behal on 25 Nov 12
     
    Nuts that the only time the poverty threshold is lower is for single individuals age 65 and older. Seems like you'd have greater expenditures in your old age considering health care costs.
Coonoor Behal

Casey B. Mulligan: Poverty Should Have Risen - NYTimes.com - 0 views

economix.blogs.nytimes.com/...poverty-should-have-risen

incentives perpetuatingpoverty recession povertyline povertyprograms

shared by Coonoor Behal on 05 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • When measured to include taxes and government benefits, poverty did not rise between 2007 and 2011, and that shows why government policy is seriously off track.
  • rnment help, that amounts to 100 percent taxation (providing more benefits as income falls is sometimes called “implicit taxation”).
  • It is almost as if our present programs of public assistance had been consciously contrived to perpetuate the conditions they are supposed to alleviate.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Under the Obama administration, workers with disposable income in the neighborhood of the poverty line did not, on average, see their job losses during the recession translate into significant reductions in their disposable income.
  • the percentage of people in households with disposable income less than the poverty line was 15 percent in 2011, just as it was in 2007 before the recession began.
  • The results suggest that the government was helping too much.
  • it is possible for the government to help too much
  • Erasing incentives is not the way to a civilized society but rather to an impoverished one.
Vetan Kapoor

Notes from "Poverty in America" by John Iceland (2012) - 0 views

Poverty in America: A Handbook (John Iceland, 2012) Chapter 4: Characteristics of the Poverty Population * 22.4% of Americans were poor in 1959, 11.1% in 1973, and 12.5% in 2003 * 70% of impoveri...

notes povertytraits books stats

started by Vetan Kapoor on 22 Mar 13 no follow-up yet
Coonoor Behal

http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acsbr10-17.pdf - 2 views

www.census.gov/...acsbr10-17.pdf

shared by Coonoor Behal on 19 Nov 12 - No Cached
    • Coonoor Behal
      Coonoor Behal on 26 Nov 12
       
      Why aren't poverty thresholds different based on cost of living across different states and cities? Does it make sense for the poverty threshold in NYC to be the same as Boise?
    • Vetan Kapoor
      Vetan Kapoor on 28 Nov 12
       
      Good point. My guess would be that the poverty line is calculated based on some basket of goods deemed vital to function at a basic level, and that most of these goods are within a fairly narrow price range (food, clothing etc.). Also the highest expenditures are probably in rent/housing (30-50% of income) and for low income folks these should be pretty comparable giving housing vouchers and other HUD type assistance?
  • Coonoor Behal on 26 Nov 12
     
    "People living in poverty tend to be clustered in certain neighborhoods rather than being evenly distributed across geographic areas."
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Coonoor Behal on 26 Nov 12
     
    "...living in areas with many other poor people places burdens on low-income families beyond what the families' own individual circumstances would dictate."
  • Coonoor Behal on 26 Nov 12
     
    "some government programs target resources to communities with concentrated poverty. Many of these programs use the Census Bureau's definition of "poverty areas" (census tracts with poverty rates of 20 percent or more)"
  • Coonoor Behal on 26 Nov 12
     
    "the South had a larger proportion of people (27.4 percent) living in poverty areas than any other region, followed by the West (21.6 percent)."
  • Coonoor Behal on 26 Nov 12
     
    "Nearly half (49.0 percent) of the 10.3 million people residing in category IV tracts lived in poverty, while a little more than a quarter (27.3 percent) of the 56.6 million in category III were in poverty."
  • Coonoor Behal on 26 Nov 12
     
    "More than one-half of the families in categories I, II, and III were married-couple families while only 43.2 percent of families in category IV tracts were married couples. Female householder families represented about 14 percent of families in category I tracts, but 46.2 percent of families in category IV tracts."
  • Coonoor Behal on 26 Nov 12
     
    "The poverty thresholds are updated annually to allow for changes in the cost of living using the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). They do not vary geographically."
Coonoor Behal

Poverty Program: USA Poverty - 0 views

www.povertyprogram.com/usa.php

povertystats

shared by Coonoor Behal on 19 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Characteristics of the average homeless family:
  • These families were very low income—the average income for all families was only $573/month
  • Coonoor Behal on 19 Nov 12
     
    Lots of statistics on US poverty and poverty factors/indicators
Coonoor Behal

Casey B. Mulligan: A Tale of Two Welfare States - NYTimes.com - 0 views

economix.blogs.nytimes.com/...a-tale-of-two-welfare-states

Britain ACA taxrates incentives

shared by Coonoor Behal on 19 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Beginning next month, Britain will strive to put its welfare system on a different path by unifying many programs under a single “universal credit” system, what the department describes as an “integrated working-age credit that will provide a basic allowance with additional elements for children, disability, housing and caring.” The department forecasts that its “universal credit will improve financial work incentives by ensuring that support is reduced at a consistent and managed rate as people return to work and increase their working hours and earnings.”
  • The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Affordable Care Act’s means-tested subsidies and cost-sharing will implicitly add more than 20 percentage points to marginal tax rates on incomes below 400 percent (see Page 27 of the C.B.O. report) of the poverty line (a majority of families fit in this category) by phasing out the assistance as family incomes increase, although a number of families will not receive the subsidies because they already get health insurance from their employer.
  • In summary, the United States intends to move in the direction of more assistance programs and higher marginal tax rates, while Britain intends to move in the direction of fewer programs and lower marginal tax rates.
Coonoor Behal

The Hidden Prosperity of the Poor - NYTimes.com - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...-hidden-prosperity-of-the-poor

nytimes poor consumption buyingpower discretionaryincome

shared by Coonoor Behal on 31 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Coonoor Behal on 31 Jan 13
     
    Discussion of the left wing argument of income inequality v. the right-wing argument of consumption (buying power) inequality.
Coonoor Behal

The poor in America: In need of help | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...election-campaign-they-deserve

povertyprograms systemic

shared by Coonoor Behal on 19 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Mr Obama’s re-election and Democratic control of the Senate give federal anti-poverty programmes a level of security they would have lacked under a Romney administration. But America’s poor face systemic challenges beyond the aid of any single administration or programme.
  • Most counties exhibiting persistent poverty—meaning counties with poverty rates of 20% or higher, consistently, from 1990 to 2010—are indeed in rural America (see map).
  • For most, poverty will be a temporary condition; chronic poverty remains relatively rare. But it does seem to be growing more common.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Another problem which got worse during the crisis, but was growing beforehand, is suburban poverty.
  • As of 2008 more than a third of America’s poor live in suburbs.
  • The number of poor people living in the suburbs grew 53% between 2000 and 2010
  • The eightfold growth in the prison population from 1970 to 2010 has turned ever more poor decisions into poor lives.
  • Most poor children live in single-parent homes, and most families that are poor lack married parents.
  • The amount the federal government spends on food stamps hit a record $75.7 billion in the 2011 fiscal year—more than double the level of 2008. Enrolment in Medicaid, through which federal and state governments provide health care to low-income Americans, has grown every year since 2008, though its 2012 growth was the slowest since the recession began, and its spending grew at a lower level than enrolment because of federal and state cost-control measures. In 2011 states disbursed $113.3 billion in unemployment benefits to 9.9m recipients, as well as roughly $16.6 billion received in block grants as part of a federal programme called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
  • America is unusually reluctant, compared with other rich countries, about giving cash transfers to the poor.
  • Its benefits skew overwhelmingly toward families: the most a single person can claim is around $500, while a married couple with three or more dependent children can receive $5,000 or more. In 2010 $55 billion was paid out through the EITC, and $23 billion for the child tax credit.
Vetan Kapoor

Notes from "The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity" by J... - 0 views

Ch 3: The Free-Market Fallacy * 63% of Americans concur that "It is the responsibility of government to take care of people who can't take care of themselves. The sentiment that government should h...

started by Vetan Kapoor on 22 Mar 13 no follow-up yet
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.
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