Cutting Giant Holes in the Safety Net

From the nytimes.com By Eduardo Porter

A girl collecting plastic bottles from local parks in Arizona in 2012. Her mother was no longer receiving welfare checks because she had already participated in the program for the maximum amount of time allotted by the state. Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Arizona, where I was born, in July became the first state to cut poor families’ access to welfare assistance to a maximum of 12 months over a lifetime. That’s a fifth of the time allowed under federal law, and means that 5,000 more people will lose their benefits by next June.

This is only the latest tightening of the screws in Arizona. Last year, about 29,000 poor families received benefits under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, 16,000 fewer than in 2005. In 2009, in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Depression of the 1930s, benefits were cut by 20 percent.

And if Paul Ryan, the Republican lawmaker from Wisconsin who is expected to become speaker of the House, has his way, poor people in many other states can expect similar treatment in the years ahead.

A bit of history is necessary to understand how we reached this point. Two decades ago, when the Clinton administration agreed with a Republican-controlled Congress to “end welfare as we know it,” Washington replaced the poor’s entitlement to aid from the federal government with a fixed block grant to states.

The states were given great flexibility about how to spend the money and a powerful incentive not to give it to the needy. And for all the initial enthusiasm for the idea, welfare reform has fallen far short of the claims of its supporters.

Nonetheless, the block grant approach has emerged as the central plank of the Republican strategy to confront America’s intractable poverty. The party’s main presidential candidates have woven poverty and inequality into their campaign speeches. Nearly all of them are expected to show up in January at the Republican poverty summit meeting in Columbia, S.C., organized by Mr. Ryan, who has laid out detailed plans to overhaul what remains of the American social safety net.

Mr. Ryan has proposed to turn Medicaid into a block grant to the states. Last year, he put forth an “opportunity grant,” a block grant to replace just about everything else the federal government provides lower-income people — not just the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, known as TANF, but also food stamps, housing assistance and energy aid — into one dollop of money. The main exceptions would be Social Security and the earned-income tax credit.

For all the talk about creating opportunity for the poor, and how ill-served they are by the current mix of government programs, it’s hard to view these plans as anything but a bald effort to save money.

But don’t just take my word for it. Take it instead from Peter Germanis, one of the White House advisers who help write President Ronald Reagan’s welfare reform proposal of 1986, called “Up From Dependency.” He has been affiliated with the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, both conservative advocacy and research organizations in Washington.

Over the summer, Mr. Germanis published a startling confession. Writing “as a citizen and in my capacity as a conservative welfare expert,” he apologized for whatever role he may have had in the welfare reform enacted in 1996.

“To the extent that anything I ever wrote contributed to the creation of TANF or any block grant, I am sorry,” he wrote. “As I hope to demonstrate in this paper, a block grant for a safety net program is bad public policy.”

And he does. Among the easier charges to make against the Needy Families block grant is that it was not meant to adjust for inflation. It was $16.5 billion two decades ago; it is $16.5 billion today. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, it has lost more than a third of its buying power.

What’s more, states were given both incentives and tools to redeploy the money to other priorities. Notably, they could get around the requirement to meet job participation benchmarks simply by reducing the caseloads of beneficiaries — almost a direct instruction to bump people off.

“States did not uphold their end of the bargain,” said Ron Haskins, an expert on welfare who worked for more than a decade for House Republicans. “So why do something like this again?”

Arizona is a prime example of what has happened in states where Republicans rule. By now, only about nine out of every 100 poor families benefit from the cash welfare program, down from 55 percent two decades ago. This has nothing to do with the program’s objective of helping poor adults with children escape the stigma of welfare and get a job, still the best antipoverty tool there is. Arizona simply needed the money for something else.

Specifically, as noted in a report by researchers at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy, the state, facing a huge jump in the number of neglected children put in foster care, needed more money to “plug state budget gaps and to fund child protection, foster care and adoption services.” Rather than ask state taxpayers to help fill the gap, lawmakers took it from the pockets of poor people.

On average, states use only about a half of their funds under the TANF program to fund its core objectives: Provide the poor with cash aid or child care, or help connect them to jobs.

Ending the poor’s entitlement to government aid is counted as a success because it has reduced the rolls of people on welfare. But that is not the same as helping the poor get a job, overcome dependency and climb out of poverty. Welfare was essentially made irrelevant to the lives of the poor. It is meager yet increasingly difficult to get.

Today only 26 percent of families with children in poverty receive welfare cash assistance. This is down from 68 percent two decades ago.

And it’s not as though there are no more poor people in America. In 2012, one out of five households receiving food stamps reported no other source of income. Millions more scrape by on modest assistance and low-paying jobs. But by making the poor almost exclusively the responsibility of the states, our national politicians can claim the problem has been solved.

This is what’s most worrying about the block grant strategy to address the bane of poverty: It allows the assistance to wither while poverty survives.

Forum editorial: More ND children in poverty

inforum.com

Posted on Oct 20, 2015.

INFORUM

(701) 241-5406 (FAX)

Fargo ND 101 5th Street North 58102

North Dakota politicians and policy makers, proud of the state’s economic success, might not be so proud if they examined the latest child poverty statistics from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The children’s welfare foundation reported last month that North Dakota had the third-highest increase in child poverty in the nation from 2013-14. A jump of 25 percent in the child poverty rate in one year is nothing of which to be proud.

The disturbing statistic comes at a time when the state’s unemployment rate was the lowest in the nation. It comes at a time when the state’s economy – energy, agriculture and accelerating business and industry diversification – was exceptionally strong. Even with the significant downturn in the oil sector and a decline in farm commodity prices, North Dakota is doing well. And during the time the Casey Foundation measured child poverty, energy and Ag were not slowing.

Historically, legislators and others who dismissed the state’s child poverty rate pointed to conditions on American Indian reservations as skewing the statistics. But recent analyses of the numbers by North Dakota Kids Count and other social service agencies suggest an increase in child poverty in cities like Fargo and Grand Forks is a significant part of the problem.

Moreover, the research indicates children in poverty come from homes where parents are working, but not earning enough to lift their families out of poverty. So while the state can crow about a low unemployment rate, the underemployment rate is a more telling measure when examining child poverty.

The 2013-14 Casey survey shows the 25 percent increase in child poverty can be attributed in part to an endemic and mostly invisible low-wage economy that defies the fashionable mantra: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Even in a state whose leaders boast about a rising tide, the reality is that boats with children are taking on water and sinking. Surely, North Dakota can do better by its kids.

Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper’s Editorial Board.

Does the Social Safety Net Work?

The Inclusive Economy Blog

Last month, the Census Bureau released updated annual estimates of Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance Coverage. Nationally, many of the trends from recent years continued unabated: there was no change in median annual income or the official poverty rate. The stagnation in the income and poverty numbers remains troubling, but there is a silver lining: the social safety net is helping to ensure the well-being of American families.

These data are invaluable for tracking how Americans are faring in this economy, but the official poverty numbers still don’t give a complete picture of low-income families’ complex financial lives. Since the spike in the poverty rate in the wake of the recession, our nation’s social benefit programs have done incredible work, largely keeping household poverty at bay and families afloat. Nowhere is this role more evident, nor articulated more clearly, than in the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) estimates of household poverty.

The SPM is the Census Bureau’s more comprehensive view of both household poverty and the effect of public benefit programs on poverty alleviation. This measure has historically remained higher than the official poverty rate, particularly among the elderly and this year’s SPM estimates are no different. However, the share of children in poverty drops nearly five percentage points, from 21.5% according to the official poverty measure down to 16.7% in the SPM—a total of over 3.5 million fewer children living in poverty:

What accounts for these dramatic differences? These declines in childhood poverty can be traced back to the national Earned Income and refundable Child Tax Credits, without which the childhood poverty rate would have been 23.8%, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which lowered the childhood poverty rate by nearly three percentage points, from an estimated 19.5%. Both of these programs had significant effects on the overall poverty rate, as well, though the effect of both pales in comparison to that of the Social Security program, which keeps a full 26 million Americans above the SPM’s poverty threshold, and, without which, poverty in the United States would balloon to nearly a quarter of the population:

The Census Bureau’s estimates of Health Insurance Coverage provides further evidence of the real impact of the nation’s social safety net. The 2014 estimates represent the first full year of data after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its accompanying expansion of Medicaid benefits to the adult population living in households earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level.
The effects were big. Both the CPS health insurance survey (national only) and the American Community Survey (national and state) estimates show a three percentage point decline in the national uninsured rate, which is directly attributable to the implementation of the ACA. In other words, the share of uninsured Americans fell more after one year under the ACA than it had over the entire previous decade. As expected, the groups that experienced the largest declines in percentage uninsured were those with the highest historic rates: working age adults and communities of color, all of whom experienced declines greater than four percentage points:

What Can We Do?

The data are clear: U.S. safety net programs provide critical support to low-income children, families and individuals. While these programs have continued to keep millions of Americans out of poverty and away from disaster, they have collectively failed to bring down the poverty rate, which has hovered around 15 percent for far too long. Similarly, dogged improvements in the economy at large—such as steady job growth and low interest rates spurring private sector investment—have done little to tangibly improve the financial security of the majority of American households. The stubborn persistence of these historically high levels of poverty belie the superficiality of these improvements to our economy.

This is where states have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to pick up the slack where the private sector and federal government have fallen short and implement broad-based social reforms that provide all citizens the foundation necessary to thrive. Only half of the states and the District of Columbia offer a statewide EITC, to complement the federal tax credit. As demonstrated in Table 2, the EITC has served as one of the nation’s key weapons in the fight against childhood poverty; expanding this benefit at the state level will provide the youngest Americans the early support they need to develop and flourish throughout their formative years.

Additionally, while the ACA will continue to drive down the national uninsured rate by increasing access to affordable health care, 20 states have chosen not to expand Medicaid, leaving thousands of the poorest Americans without affordable health insurance coverage. Correcting this will not only result in fewer Americans in poverty, but will also create a healthier and more productive workforce.
States should also eliminate asset limits for public benefit programs, removing a major impediment facing many families and allowing a greater number of families at the margins to take advantage of our nation’s many foundational resources. Many states have already taken each these steps, but only when every state acts will the US truly have an opportunity economy, one in which all citizens can take part.

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Victory! Military Members Just Got Enhanced Consumer Protections Against Predatory Lending

The Inclusive Economy Blog

Military members are used to dodging bullets and watching out for enemy operatives. But when it comes to their finances, they have also had to watch out for predatory lenders who charge outrageous interest rates—and many of those who didn’t have gotten trapped in debt. That’s because, until just this week, consumer protections for service members were very limited.

 

On Saturday, however, updates to the rules governing the 2006 Military Lending Act (MLA) took effect, providing service members and their families with a set of strong protections against predatory lenders. Those updates, finalized by the Department of Defense (DoD) this summer, aim to enhance the MLA by expanding the scope of credit products covered under the law, as well as by closing loopholes that lenders have exploited to continue providing high-cost, predatory loans to service members.

A little history: prior to DoD’s effort to update their rules, the MLA established a number of key consumers protections for services members and their families, including setting an inclusive 36% Military APR (MAPR) cap for loans made to services members, prohibiting refinancing (unless at better terms than the initial loan), check-holding and automatic access to bank accounts or deduction from military pay. The law also prohibit forced arbitration against service members.

However, the 2006 MLA still left much to be desired. The law narrowly defined the covered “consumer credit” to just three closed-end products: payday loans up to $2,000 with a term of 91 days or less, vehicle title loans with terms of 181 days or less and tax refund anticipation loans. In addition to the narrow definition, the 2006 law also provided lenders with a number of loopholes to get around the law. For example, when it came to a payday loan or auto title, all a lender had to do was either increase terms of the loan past the defined covered length or simply lend more than the established cap. Just as many predatory lenders have done in the civilian lending market, they took notice of these loopholes and exploited them to their advantage.

This weekend, that changed. The new rules tip the scales in favor of service members by extending protections established under the 2006 law to a broad range of financial products, including private student loans as well as all deposit advance products, refund anticipation, payday and auto-title loans. Additionally, the law also enhances the 36% MAPR by including the cost of any add-on credit products, such as credit insurance protection, as part of the MAPR calculation. Credit cards are also included in the rules, but protections for these products will not begin until October 3, 2017. Moving forward, service members will have the enforcement backing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Trade Commission, along with strong mechanisms to ensure lenders follow these new rules. Among those mechanisms is the ability to void a loan that is in violation of the new standards.

While the new rules will work to ensure that these members and their families have the protections they need to keep from falling into debt traps, they are only limited to active duty members (as it was in the original 2006 law), leaving veterans in the same boat as civilian consumers—vulnerable to predatory lenders. Both of these groups also need strong protections from predatory lending. That responsibility, however, belongs to the CFPB. We hope that as the CFPB works its way towards releasing their much anticipated small-dollar credit rules, that they too also do the right thing by proposing strong protections that will benefit all consumers, including veterans.

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Active work on Housing and Childcare in Western North Dakota

From: The Vision West ND consortium housing committee is working on a template of available housing incentives that will be sent to the municipalities in the VWND region. The committee hopes this will help cities improve their capacity to attract housing developers. The Vision West ND Consortium held its regular meeting on September 15 via telephone conference call. Twenty five people, including consortium members, associate members, and state and federal agency staff participated in the call.  Buster Langowski, Hazen, chaired the consortium meeting. Vision West ND welcomed two new associate members during the consortium meeting. The members included Houston Engineering, Inc. and NDSU Extension Center for Community Vitality. The transportation committee is in the process of sending letters to the US and ND Departments of Transportation, the US Congressional delegation, Governor Dalrymple, and the ND House and Senate leadership in support of four-lane paving Highway 85 from I-94 to Watford City. The child care committee partnered with Child Care Aware to incorporate the child care portal into its website in an effort to take the information statewide.The child care portal, originally developed by The Strom Center in Dickinson and hosted on the state's SBDC website, connects those wishing to enter the child care industry with the resources necessarto start their business.   Experts reported it takes two months for required background checks to clear potential start up child care business owners, which puts an obstacle in the path for adding more child care spaces. The consortium declined to give associate members a vote, rather they kept them as participating, non-voting members. Karalea Cox from Common Sense Consulting reported on the VWND Technical Assistance Retreat held in Watford City, ND. The Retreat was for plan directors and consortium members to focus on economic development and diversity. The next consortium meeting will be held in Crosby, N.D. on October 20. More information can be found at www.visionwestnd.com. - article compiled with assistance from Katelin Dukart

Reducing Poverty Requires a Two-Generational Strategy

From the Early Learning Policy Group
September 28, 2015

On September 17, the U.S. Census Bureau released new poverty data for 2014.
For the fourth consecutive year, the number of people in poverty was not statistically different from the previous year’s estimates. See “Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014.”  In 2014, the official poverty rate was 14.8 percent – 46.7 million people living in poverty.

Children in Poverty
The poverty rate for children under age 18 was 21.1 percent (far higher than the poverty rate for people aged 18-64 at 13.5% and the elderly (over age 64) at 10%).

For children under age 6, the poverty rate was 23.5% (5.5 million children).

• 41.4% of African American children under age 5 live in poverty
• 34% of Hispanic children under age 5 live in poverty
• 19.7% of White children under age 5 live in poverty

More than half (55.1%) of children under age 6 in families led by a single mother were in poverty (while 11.6% of children under age 6 in married couple families lived in poverty).

What is the poverty threshold? For a single parent with 2 children, it’s about $19,073. To see a table of poverty thresholds by size of family, click here. To see the percentage of children under age 18 in poverty by state, click here.

Who is adult poverty highest for? Individuals without a high school diploma (where 28.9% live in poverty compared to 14.2% of those with a high school diploma, 10.2% of those with some college, and 5% for those with a college degree).

Why is that important? Because the reality today is that children from low income families are less likely to graduate high school. In fact, in some states, the gap is really quite large.

From a policy standpoint, we need better strategies to assist low income parents in getting a job and in getting a job with higher wages. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program allocates funds to states to assist families, but over the past two decades, states have only spent a tiny fraction of the funds they receive to support work strategies for these parents. There is no question, TANF is in need of reform. The House Ways and Means Committee has held several hearings this year and in July released a discussion draft to revamp the program to be more effective.

Assisting parents is one strategy to reduce poverty. Another strategy is to stop the cycle of dependency by investing in children. What we know about families with young children is that they need child care in order to work. A few are lucky and may have relatives available, able, and willing to assist with child care. However, most families are not so lucky, particularly low income parents who cannot afford market costs for child care.
 
Studies show that high quality child care makes a difference for all children, but particularly for low income children. One of the main goals of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 is to increase the number and percentage of low income children in high quality care. The message is clear: child care is a key work support for parents, however, it is also a setting that should promote the healthy development of children. For low income children, starting school ready to succeed can lead to an increase in the high school graduation rate of low income students (which is currently 15% below their more economically well-off peers).

Unfortunately, over the last couple of years, CCDBG has served fewer and fewer children. A few months ago, the FY2014 CCDBG data was released, which showed that 1.4 million children received child care assistance each month – a reduction of 48,800 children from FY2013. And, the 1.45 million children who received assistance in FY2013 was a reduction of 47,500 children from FY2012. Therefore, in the last two years alone, nearly 100,000 fewer low income children have received child care assistance.

We know families on welfare need child care in order to work. We know low wage working families struggle with the cost of care and that child care assistance enables them to access higher quality care than they otherwise would be able to access. Does the quality of child care that low income families have access to really matter? The research demonstrates that it does. The neuroscience reveals that brain development, the wiring for social and emotional development as well as cognitive development, is formed in a child’s earliest years.
 
When the Census Bureau released the newest poverty data, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said, “This data should be acceptable to no one…. Our current approach to fighting poverty, though well-intended, is failing too many Americans. Solving the poverty challenge will require us to go into poor communities, customize approaches based on people’s needs, and focus our resources on what produces results. Rather than just treating the symptoms of poverty, our goal must be to help people move from welfare into work and self-sufficiency.”

Chairman Ryan is right. Another year with no reduction in poverty is unacceptable. However, to reduce poverty, a “parent-only” strategy is only half the battle. We need to focus as well on the low income children in these families so that the path forward is not another cycle of poverty but a roadmap to complete high school college or career ready. The gateway to a new roadmap begins with high quality child care.

LETTER: Lawmakers should note N.D.'s poverty numbers - and act.

grandforksherald.com

By Josef Kolosky 10/14/15

 

The North Dakota Economic Security and Prosperity Alliance is a statewide coalition supporting policies to alleviate North Dakota's poverty and helping North Dakotans build assets for our future.
We urge North Dakotans to consider that this story does not constitute some "other North Dakota." This story is about all of us—our neighbors and family members, children in school with our children, families sitting next to us in houses of worship, children who eat the food in the backpacks we fill on Friday.

Perhaps teachers, police officers and hospital workers are not writing letters to the editor because they are unwilling to expose themselves to criticism and pity when they find themselves struggling to make ends meet—working a "good job" now paying a salary insufficient to meet basic needs.
North Dakotans are proud Midwesterners; it's not our style to talk about what we earn.

Every legislative session, each of us can help by changing the rules. Herald readers should contact their legislators to ask them what can be done to help people in poverty. Ask them if they supported policies that help people earn a living wage and even earn enough to save a little for the future.

In 2015, several bills would have helped but failed to pass: a state Earned Income Tax Credit, a minimum wage increase, a tipped worker wage increase and funding for Head Start programs for preschoolers living in families with low incomes.

We can do better for all North Dakotans.When we change the root causes of poverty through a combination of support services and effective public policies,we can and will lift people out of poverty.

Josef Kolosky
Mandan, N.D.

Kolosky, director of the West River Head Start program in Mandan, N.D., wrote this letter on behalf of the North Dakota Economic Security and Prosperity Alliance.

US wealth gap a bigger problem than growth: Harvard survey

From CNBC

Wednesday, 9 Sep 2015

Reuters

Getty Images

 

Fixing America's worsening wealth gap is more important to the country's ability to compete globally than boosting overall economic growth, according to a Harvard Business School survey of its alumni published on Tuesday.

The report, "The Challenge of Shared Prosperity," showed alumni of the elite school generally believed American companies have been recovering their competitive edge on the world stage since the financial crisis, but that U.S. inequality posed a large and growing threat.

"Two-thirds of respondents consider it a higher priority for American society to address rising inequality, middle-class stagnation, rising poverty or limited economic mobility than to boost overall economic growth," according to the report, which was based on a survey of 2,716 alumni around the globe.

Survey respondents predicted that America's richest 1 percent of the population would capture 41 percent of the country's income growth over the next decade, a figure they preferred would be closer to 16 percent.

Wealth inequality has emerged as a major issue in the U.S. presidential race, with leading candidates on both sides of the political divide calling it a key problem.

The Harvard report, the latest in a series of polls conducted by Harvard's U.S. Competitiveness Project since 2011, showed alumni were concerned about perceived declines in U.S. infrastructure, workforce skills, the political system, the tax code, health care and education.

"Many of the factors that determine workers' prosperity—including K-12 education, skills and infrastructure—are among the nation's perceived weaknesses or declining strengths," Harvard said in its summary of the poll.

The report's authors called on corporate leaders and policy makers to help solve America's wealth gap by working to buttress the education system and transportation infrastructure. They also said policy-makers should consider helping redistribute wealth through tax reforms and minimum wage increases.

"Such steps deserve serious public consideration: they can play a valuable role in boosting the incomes of working and middle-class citizens, generating greater tax revenues to support investment, and restoring a sense of fairness to economic growth," according to the report.

University of California, Berkeley research published in June showed America's richest 1 percent captured 55 percent of total real income growth between 1993 and 2014.

Local and National Partnership Expands Economic Opportunities for Louisville's Disabled Community

September 17, 2015 

From Lousiville's City Website

Convening on September 18 calls on partners to share lessons learned, plan next steps
After nearly a year-and-half of collaborating to improve employment and advancement opportunities for people with disabilities in Louisville, partner organizations will reconvene to evaluate progress and plan next steps.   The event will take place on September 18 at the Charles W. McDowell Center, 8412 Westport Rd., from 9 – 11 a.m. bringing together disability advocates and representatives from the employment, financial services, workforce and asset development communities.

Coined the “Workforce Development/Financial Empowerment Collaborative (WD/FE),” this unique partnership was formed following Louisville’s Economic Advancement Assembly in May 2014. Sponsored by National Disability Institute’s (NDI) LEAD Center, with the support of Louisville Metro Community Services and Bank On Louisville, the Assembly focused on identifying and advancing opportunities to improve the financial capability of Kentuckians with disabilities. Bolstered with the knowledge that one in three Americans with disabilities live in poverty, attendees saw firsthand the critical need to continue working together to increase our community's awareness for greater access and coordination of services.

At the September 18 event, time will be spent reviewing tools, and resources developed to date which include:

• Expanded provider training and the development of a train-the-trainer series to further embed financial empowerment strategies into service delivery models.
• Development of a Financial Health Assessment Tool, which includes a series of questions designed to aid service providers in engagement of their clients in financial empowerment services.
• Creation of the Louisville Community Financial Empowerment Resource & Referral Guide. From banking to first-time home buying, to benefits counseling, front line staff will be able to direct clients to the agency with the appropriate services and supports they need.
• Creation of the Kentucky Disability & Accessibility Resource and Referral Guide which lists resources at the local, state and federal levels to help appropriately meet the accommodation needs of clients.  

Presenters at the event include Katina Whitlock, Director of Louisville Metro Community Services; Michael Morris, Executive Director of National Disability Institute; and Angelisa Harris, Regional Manager, Community Affairs, for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Chicago Regional Office. Presenters will discuss efforts underway locally and nationally to integrate financial empowerment strategies into the workforce development system, and look to the future on ways of improving employment goals and financial behaviors for individuals with disabilities.

“Community Services is proud to work with so many outstanding partners through this collaborative – and grateful for NDI’s support – to help educate and prepare our residents in building and securing brighter economic futures,” said Tina Lentz, Executive Administrator of Community Services’ Advocacy and Empowerment Division and chair of the Workforce Development/Financial Empowerment Collaborative. “Together we have opened doors to ensure everyone can take concrete steps toward financial independence.”

Along with Community Services, collaborative members include the Center for Accessible Living, Goodwill Industries, Jewish Family & Career Services, KentuckianaWorks, Kentucky Office for the Blind, Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehab, Community Services' Office for Aging and Disabled Citizens, Options Unlimited, ResCare, and the Zoom Group.

For more information, visit the Workforce Development/Financial Empowerment Collaborative webpage at: http://louisvilleky.gov/government/community-services/workforce-development-financial-empowerment-collaborative. If your organization could benefit from having copies of the resource guides listed above, contact Breanne Nugent with Community Services at: breanne.nugent@louisvilleky.gov.

##

Support for this convening is provided by the National Center on Leadership for the Employment and Economic Advancement of People with Disabilities (LEAD), a collaborative of disability, workforce and economic empowerment organizations led by National Disability Institute with funding from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, Grant No. #OD-23863-12-75-4-11. The information shared at this event does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Office of Disability Employment Policy, U.S. Department of Labor, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

One Thing HUD Can Do To Save Trailer Parks

From CityLab

If the agency required localities to provide data on mobile home parks and their closing, scholars could begin to understand “the social and spacial pressures that under-gird them."

AP/Jae C. Hong

Trailer park residents across the country are facing eviction because owners are intent on developing the land beneath their not-so-mobile homes to more lucrative ends. This is a big deal: Trailer parks make up the largest portion of non-subsidized affordable housing in the country, says Esther Sullivan, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Denver who spent two years living in and getting evicted from trailer parks for her research.

But few policymakers take the issue seriously in part because of the lack of data available. We cannot understand the scope of what advocates describe as a crisis, and act to confront it, if we don't have that data. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development could do at least one relatively easy thing to help: compel localities to provide data on mobile home parks and their closing as part of the consolidated plans required of jurisdictions receiving funding from programs like the Community Development Block Grant.

"HUD should require that jurisdictions, as part of their comprehensive planning process for CDBG, HOME and other federal funds, track the closure and redevelopment of, as well as the resident evictions from, manufactured and mobile home communities," emails Doug Ryan, the director of affordable housing initiatives at the Corporation for Enterprise Development, a D.C.-based nonprofit. "Why? These actions directly impact a community's ability to preserve affordable housing, which, in the age of declining federal support, is the most tangible affordable housing strategy many communities have."

There are an estimated 8,462,461 mobile homes nationwide... But data on evictions is mostly nonexistent.

 

Trailer parks are what affordable housing looks like for many in today's private-sector dominated housing market: the number of mobile home soared during the 1980s at a time when direct federal funding for public housing was slashed. Because so much affordable housing is in private hands, it seems, the federal government can get away with holding itself not responsible for its wellbeing.
There are an estimated 8,462,461 mobile homes nationwide, according to recently released U.S. Census data. But data on evictions is mostly nonexistent. California is one state that maintains data on mobile home park closures, and it's not clear if any others do. In that state, nearly 4,800 mobile home lots were closed between 1995 and 2014, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

"In order to understand the scope and shape of the problem, more information is crucial," emails Sullivan. "Municipalities have no vested interest in recording or reporting these closures without external pressure. Scholars would benefit greatly from documentation on the total number and location of these closures so that we can begin to understand the social and spacial pressures that under-gird them."

A HUD spokesperson said that no one could comment on the proposal. It may take a lot of public pressure to make them do so.

New Research on Grandfamilies: The Resounding Resiliency of Grandfamilies: Financial Stories from Older Relatives Caring for Children in Lower-Income Communities

Resource Information

Author(s): Pamela Chan & Jaia Peterson Lent
Date Published: September 2015
File Type: PDF

View this Resource

Published by CFED & Generations United

To deepen our understanding of the financial situations facing grandfamilies, particularly those in low- to moderate-income households, Citi Community Development convened Generations United and CFED to interview grandparent caregivers. The purpose of these interviews was to gain an understanding of grandfamilies’ individual household finances, including how they earn and spend money, what financial products they use to transact and store money, what challenges they face and what strengths they draw upon. Their stories open a discussion about how organizations that offer social or financial services to grandfamily caregivers can help build financial stability and increase mobility for these multi-generational families.

Fargo-Moorhead Workforce Study Review: Part 4

This is a continuation of the North Dakota Economic Security and Prosperity Alliance’s  (NDESPA) consideration of Fargo-Moorhead’s Workforce Study.  The Fargo-Moorhead Workforce Study repeatedly impresses me every time I pull it out to take a look at it.  The depth and breadth of the study is amazing. 

The focus of NDESPA’s examination of the workforce study is on the BUILD section.  BUILD is dedicated to an effort to “Develop a framework for financial independence and upward mobility for workers in low-wage and basic-skill jobs.” (Study link, p 25)

The study recognizes that 45% of the job openings forecasted to be created between 2014 and 2019 would be low-skill occupations, “in hospitality, food service, and retail which are important contributors to the region’s quality of place.” (Study link, p 25)  Other openings forecasted are in “occupations that are vital supports for families, including child care workers….” (Study link, p 25)

The study goes on to state that, “Valuable skills can be gained in each of these occupations, but a strong framework for financial independence and upward-mobility must be developed to support these workers.” (Study link, p 25)  It goes on to state that without such a framework the region’s economic growth would not be inclusive and residents of low-income would not be in positions to take advantage of economic opportunities. 

Today’s examination impacts one of the vital supports for everyone in the Fargo-Moorhead region, not just families with low income, childcare. 

Childcare is a need throughout the state. Childcare Aware ND’s “Potential Demand for Child Care (2014)” report only 37% of the childcare needs in North Dakota in 2014 were met by licensed childcare providers.   The same report shows that Cass County has 56% of its childcare needs met by licensed childcare providers, but if you include the laborshed as a whole, which consists of Stutsman, Steele, Traill, Grand Forks, Cass and Barnes Counties, only 38% of the childcare needs are being met. 

The study takes a two-pronged approach to increasing the capacity of childcare in the Fargo-Moorhead regions.  The two prongs of the workforce study’s approach are to help interested employers establish near-site child care centers, and exploring creative solutions for meeting childcare needs among workers of low income, such as cooperative models, intergenerational care, or innovative subsidies.

The multi-employer approach to increasing childcare capacity is one that is gaining traction in North Dakota.  This can be seen by the recent announcement from Basin Electric, Sanford, and the Bismarck YMCA to start a cooperative childcare facility with each employer taking a specified number of slots and providing an additional source for childcare slots in Bismarck. 

This model helps revolutionize the childcare business structure, because it provides business support for the largest roadblock for the development of childcare in any area, which is infrastructure costs. 

The second prong of the Workforce study’s plan to increase the childcare capacity in the Fargo-Moorhead region is to explore creative solutions such as cooperative models, intergenerational care, or subsidies. 

It is obvious that creative solutions are going to be necessary to deal with the high level of unmet demand for childcare services across the state.  But, in the development of these solutions North Dakota, and Fargo-Moorhead specifically, cannot shortchange quality of care for quantity. 

If any subsidies are provided from the federal, state, city, or county levels those entities must make sure that the creative solution providers, be they providers who care for children in the provider’s residence or larger centers, provide quality care as defined by Bright+Early, ND’s quality assurance program for child care..  

In the end, the issues with childcare in North Dakota are twofold.  First, North Dakota cannot afford to create a two-tiered system, which continues to leave children of families whose parents have low-wage jobs providing them a lower level of care and education. 

Second, we need to figure out a way to deal with the biggest barrier to the creation of a quality childcare system, the cost of infrastructure.  While the cooperative model is a great start, with current and necessary licensing requirements it is only applicable in larger cities with an employer base able to support it.

An independent licensed childcare provider is required to purchase or rent a building for their location.  Then, they have to make necessary modifications to make it a safe and quality place for the children in their care. 

Current financing mechanisms only allow for loans, which force the provider to make a choice between paying on the loan or paying their staff a living wage.  It really isn’t a choice. 

The Fargo-Moorhead workforce study opens the door to the conversation regarding how to increase the capacity of licensed childcare in their region.  But, this is a conversation that needs to happen on a much larger scale around the state. 

Larger Census Survey Indicates Poverty Down, Income Up in 2014: American Community Survey May Be More Telling Than Yesterday’s “Official” Survey

September 17, 2015 

by Arloc Sherman and Isaac Shapiro

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey (ACS), which it released today, found that poverty fell and median income rose in 2014 — in contrast with yesterday’s Census release, based on the Current Population Survey (CPS), which showed that poverty and income were statistically unchanged in 2014 compared to 2013.  The ACS is the nation’s main source of state and local demographic data; it provides reliable information about national income and poverty trends; The ACS may provide a more accurate picture of recent poverty and income trends.and, in this case as explained below, it may provide a more accurate picture of recent poverty and income trends.

The ACS findings show that poverty fell from 15.8 percent in 2013 to 15.5 percent in 2014, while real median household income rose by 1.1 percent, or about $600, from $53,059 to $53,657.  Both changes are statistically significant.

While, in most years, analysts favor the CPS as a source of national income and poverty data due to its more extensive income questions, this year several reasons suggest that the ACS results may be more revealing:

• The ACS’ large size adds to the statistical reliability of the results.  The ACS surveys about 3 million households while the CPS results are based on about 100,000 households for 2014 and only about 30,000 households in 2013.
• The ACS data for 2013 and 2014 are fully comparable.  The CPS survey released yesterday included a number of methodological changes in 2013 and 2014 that may have made comparisons across years more difficult.  Census attempted to adjust the comparisons to address these issues, but it’s possible that these adjustments were not sufficient.
• The ACS survey results are more consistent with the labor market’s substantial improvements in 2014.  The average annual number of nonfarm jobs rose by 2.7 million in 2014, the largest increase since 2000, according to the Labor Department.  And the employment rate of adults in their prime working years of 25 to 54 rose more (in percentage-point terms) than in any year since 1988, from 75.9 percent to 76.7 percent.  Such progress usually tracks drops in poverty and gains in income.

The two surveys’ differing findings do suggest that observers should be cautious in placing sole emphasis on one set of results.  Of particular note, the two surveys cover somewhat different time periods.  The CPS survey was conducted in March 2015 and asked questions about income in 2014.  The ACS survey reflects data collected in each month of 2014 on income levels in the 12 months prior to the survey month.  This means that what the ACS calls 2014 data is actually a combination of 2013 and 2014 information, and what it calls 2013 data is actually a combination of 2012 and 2013 information.

If longer time periods are examined, both surveys have some discouraging findings.  Under both surveys, poverty remains higher and median income remains lower than pre-recession levels.
Nonetheless, the positive national patterns that the 2014 ACS data depict deserve careful consideration.  Living standards may be improving in a manner not indicated by the typically more widely used Census survey released yesterday (9/16/15).

Using the new Census data on poverty for your State

State and some local poverty, income, and health insurance data from the American Community Survey are now on the Census.gov website.

ACS includes national figures, and their direction is different from what yesterday's data showed.  ACS shows poverty declining (a statistically significant reduction):  Total poverty dropped from 15.5% in 2013 to 15.3% in 2014; child poverty dropped from 22.2% to 21.7%  Looking back to 2010, total poverty increased, up from 15.3% (a significant increase).  The child poverty change since 2010 was not considered statistically significant.

As you saw, yesterday's Current Population Survey data showed total poverty stuck at 14.8% in 2013 and 2014.  Child poverty did not show a statistically significant decline either.  Looking back to 2010, total poverty declined from 15.1% to 14.8%.  We don't know if that is a significant change - will find out.


We will provide you with more expert guidance about the way to analyze the national data.  Keeping it all in perspective, poverty remains far too high, and it is clear that relying on economic growth to lift people out of poverty is not working.  

Here is the link to the ACS comparison profile table that shows national income, health insurance and poverty figures (percentages) for 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010:  http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_14_1YR_CP03&prodType=table

You can find the same table for your state:  
Start here:  http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t

Then click on "Geographies" - use the scroll down menu to select state, and then to pick your state - remember to click on "Add to your selections" below that menu box.  Click "close" and look for (and click on) CP03:  Comparative Economic Characteristics:  2014 ACS 1 year estimates.

Remember:  the ACS data is all that is available at the state or local level.  

Want to compare your state to others?  Look at the ACS Ranking Tables, all of them here: (If the following link does not get you to ranking tables, just go to Topics, on the left, click on product type, and select ranking tables.  You should remove your state's name from your selected items first.)

http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t

Total poverty ranking table (R1701) here:  http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_14_1YR_R1701.US01PRF&prodType=table 

Child poverty ranking table (R1704):  http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_14_1YR_R1704.US01PRF&prodType=table

Lots of additional poverty information.  Start here:  http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t#none

And then select your state from Geographies, as above.  Then go to topics, then product type:  select detailed tables; search for poverty.  Remember to select ACS 2014 1-year estimates.

Greenstein: New Census Data Show Historic Health Coverage Gains, Though Disappointing Results on Poverty and Income

CBPP Statement: September 16, 2015

by Robert Greenstein

Today’s Census data provide striking evidence that health reform is dramatically reducing the ranks of the uninsured, with 2014 witnessing the largest single-year drop on record — along with other evidence, however, that the economic recovery has yet to do much to reduce poverty or raise the typical household’s income.

The number of uninsured Americans fell by 8.8 million in 2014, while the share of Americans without insurance fell by 2.9 percentage points.  These are the largest single-year declines on record in data back to 1987, according to Census data supplemented by other surveys going further back in time.

Both private health coverage and coverage through public programs such as Medicaid grew robustly in 2014.  A simultaneous rise in both public and private coverage is rare over recent decades and reflects health reform’s approach to covering the uninsured by bolstering both private and public insurance.  The new data show that 90 percent of the population — and 94 percent of children — had health coverage last year.  Surveys show further substantial coverage gains in 2015 (see box).

Today’s data underscore the importance of state participation in health reform’s Medicaid expansion.  As a group, the 25 states (including the District of Columbia) that expanded Medicaid by January 2014 had much larger declines in their uninsured populations than the other 26.  If the uninsured rate had fallen in non-expansion states at the same rate as in expansion states, an additional 2.6 million uninsured Americans would have gained coverage last year.

Disappointing Results on Poverty and Income

Although today’s health insurance results are very positive, the data on poverty and income are disappointing.  Poverty remained statistically unchanged at 14.8 percent, or 46.7 million people.  (Under the Supplemental Poverty Measure or SPM, which counts non-cash and tax-based benefits and thus provides a fuller picture of poverty, the poverty rate fell by half a percentage point in 2014, but the change wasn’t statistically significant.)  Median income remained statistically unchanged for the third straight year.

Moreover, the poverty rate remained substantially higher in 2014 — and median income markedly lower — than in 2007, before the Great Recession.  Median income was 6.5 percent — or $3,700 — below the 2007 level, adjusted for inflation.

CDC and Other Surveys Show Further Health Coverage Gains in 2015

Today’s Census data do not include health coverage estimates for 2015, but preliminary 2015 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the Urban Institute’s Health Reform Monitoring Survey show further substantial reductions this year in the uninsured. In the NHIS data, the uninsured rate fell from 11.5 percent in 2014 to 9.2 percent in the first quarter of 2015, with the number of uninsured falling from 36 million to 29 million — on top of the 8.8 million-person decline between 2013 and 2014. Since health reform’s major coverage expansions began taking effect in January 2014, the number of uninsured has fallen by 15.8 million — or more than 35 percent — under the NHIS. Similarly, the Urban Institute survey data show the uninsured rate among adults aged 18-64 falling from 12.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 to 10.1 percent in the first quarter of 2015, with a total decline since 2013 in the number of uninsured non-elderly adults of 15 million.

These results come despite a large increase in 2014 in the number of Americans who were working.  Some 2.8 million more Americans worked full-time year-round in 2014 than in 2013, the new Census data show.

The lack of improvement in poverty and income in recent years reflects, in part, limits in the labor market’s recovery as well as the marked rise in income inequality over the past decade and a half (though inequality didn’t rise between 2013 and 2014).  Median wages remained largely flat in 2014, while large numbers of people who sought full-time work could only find part-time work and many others didn’t seek work actively because they thought they had little chance of finding it.

The Federal Reserve should take the new Census data into account in deciding this week whether to raise interest rates, which would slow the economic recovery and job creation.

On inequality, the Census data show large increases between 1999 and 2014, with incomes falling in real terms by 16.5 percent at the bottom of the income scale (at the 10^th percentile) and by 7.2 percent in the middle (at the 50^th percentile), while rising at the top.

Importance of the Safety Net

Without the safety net, the picture would have been much worse.  Today’s data show that SNAP (formerly food stamps) lifted 4.7 million people out of poverty in 2014 under the SPM.  (Other research suggests SNAP kept substantially more people out of poverty once the Census data are adjusted for the underreporting of SNAP benefits.)  The new data also show that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit lifted roughly 10 million people out of poverty in 2014, including more than 5 million children, while Supplemental Security Income for very low-income elderly and disabled people lifted 3.8 million out of poverty.  And using a version of the SPM, Columbia University researchers last year found that the poverty rate has been cut by two-fifths since the late 1960s, with virtually all of the improvement due to the increased scope and anti-poverty impact of safety-net programs.

These figures come amid mounting evidence that income support and health insurance programs not only reduce poverty and expand medical coverage in the short run but can also have important long-run benefits.  Children exposed to poverty experience greater learning and health problems, adverse effects on brain structure, and high risk of adult poverty, compared with non-poor children.  A growing and impressive array of rigorous studies indicate that low-income children who receive safety net assistance tend to experience significantly fewer deficits in educational attainment, health status, and employment and earnings as they grow up.

These findings, along with today’s disappointing poverty data, suggest that policymakers should seek common ground on measures that can make public policies still more effective in reducing poverty.  Examples include strengthening the inadequate EITC for low-income childless workers, as both President Obama and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan have proposed; enabling more low-income households with housing subsidies to live in lower-poverty neighborhoods; instituting criminal justice reforms to reduce incarceration without jeopardizing public safety; expanding access to pre-school and child care; and enacting a long-overdue increase in the federal minimum wage.  Today’s data also underscore the importance of health reform’s historic coverage expansions — and of spreading its Medicaid expansion to all states.