In this month’s employment analysis, The Hamilton Project looks at current poverty trends in the United States, the important role of government support programs, and how sequestration could remove critical aspects of the safety net in the midst of continued labor-market weakness. The Project finds sequestration could throw many American families back into poverty during this sensitive period of economic recovery by cutting the very programs that are helping them stay above water.
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama outlined an ambitious second-term agenda focusing on policies to help strengthen America’s middle class through broad-based economic growth. Since its launch in 2006, The Hamilton Project has released a range of targeted policy proposals that provide innovative, evidence-based approaches to address many of the priorities set forth in this year’s address, which we offer as a resource to policymakers in response to specific ideas mentioned by the President this week.
The Hamilton Project examines the decline the marriages over the last 50 years, highlighting the correlation between income level and likelihood of marrying. The decline in marriage is concentrated among less-educated, lower-income Americans.
Less educated workers often experience prolonged periods of unemployment and stagnating wages because they lack the skills necessary to compete in a global economy. In a new Hamilton Project paper, Harry J. Holzer proposes a set of competitive grants to fund education, training, and career counseling initiatives that feature private sector connections based on the experience of existing successful workforce development programs.
Amid the Great Recession and rapid technological changes, both workers with less education and workers who have been displaced from long-tenured jobs face challenges because they lack the particular skills that employers demand for good-paying jobs. In a new Hamilton Project strategy paper, Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney address the importance of developing workers’ skills through training and workforce development programs, and examine newly available evidence on policies that boost job opportunities and wages.
After being displaced from long-tenured jobs, workers often experience persistent, significant earnings losses. New research suggests that retraining in certain “high-return” fields can substantially reduce these losses. In a new Hamilton Project paper, Louis S. Jacobson, Robert J. LaLonde and Daniel G. Sullivan propose the establishment of a Displaced Worker Training (DWT) Program to distribute grants to displaced workers so they can obtain longer-term training to substantially increase their earnings. The DWT Program would also leverage the nation’s One-Stop Career Centers to assess and counsel grantees.
June’s employment numbers highlight that our economic recovery is not yet on solid footing. An analysis by The Hamilton Project digs into the regional distribution of these unemployment trends and finds that, by one measure, the five hardest-hit states are Alabama, Delaware, Colorado, Georgia, and Utah.
The Hamilton Project held a policy forum and released a discussion paper by Rebecca Blank and Mark Greenberg on the need for a new national poverty measure that better reflects the actual economic conditions of low-income Americans.
This paper proposes a national prisoner reentry program whose core element is up to a year of transitional employment available to all parolees in need of work.
Edgar Olsen examines shortfalls with the current system of low-income housing assistance and proposes a transition to an entitlement housing assistance program that relies exclusively on tenant-based assistance.
According to the official poverty measure calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau, prior to the start of the recession in 2007, the poverty rate was only slightly below its 1980 level, and has since climbed to the highest level in over thirty years. Many economists, however, advocate using an alternative measure of poverty, developed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the 1990s. This NAS rate accounts for changes in the costs of goods other than food—notably, health care—and makes different adjustments for family size and inflation. Most importantly, the official poverty rate only considers a family’s pre-tax money income, while the NAS measure also accounts for tax credits and noncash benefits like the earned income tax credit (EITC), child tax credit, housing stipends, energy assistance, and food and nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps). When we take these programs into account, the pre-recession poverty rate had declined significantly since 1980.
The Project held a policy forum and released a discussion paper by Rebecca Blank and Mark Greenberg on the need for a new national poverty measure that better reflects the actual economic conditions of low-income Americans.
The Hamilton Project hosted a policy discussion on the challenges of prisoner reentry that featured a keynote address by U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.). The event also featured a policy roundtable with a diverse group of experts on the need for a national prisoner reentry strategy.
The Project released new discussion papers and hosted panel discussions on housing and credit markets. The first panel explored ways to reform low-income housing assistance, while the second focused on innovative mortgage ideas to help protect consumers.
The Project hosted a two-part forum on ways to encourage, facilitate, and reward work. Jason Furman provided an overview of a strategy paper, which suggested a long-term approach to expanding opportunity, along with specific near-term policies to promote work and reduce poverty.
According to the official poverty measure calculated by the U.S. Census Bureau, prior to the start of the recession in 2007, the poverty rate was only slightly below its 1980 level, and has since climbed to the highest level in over thirty years. Many economists, however, advocate using an alternative measure of poverty, developed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in the 1990s. This NAS rate accounts for changes in the costs of goods other than food—notably, health care—and makes different adjustments for family size and inflation. Most importantly, the official poverty rate only considers a family’s pre-tax money income, while the NAS measure also accounts for tax credits and noncash benefits like the earned income tax credit (EITC), child tax credit, housing stipends, energy assistance, and food and nutrition programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps). When we take these programs into account, the pre-recession poverty rate had declined significantly since 1980.
The Hamilton Project held a policy forum and released a discussion paper by Becky Blank and Mark Greenberg on the need for a new national poverty measure that better reflects the actual economic conditions of low-income Americans.
New York City Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda I. Gibbs on the necessity for practitioners for a new poverty measurement system at the Improving the Measurement of Poverty Hamilton Project event.
American Enterprise Institute scholar Douglas J. Besharov on the benefits of the current poverty measurement system at the Improving the Measurement of Poverty Hamilton Project event.
U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) gives keynote remarks on the importance prisoner reentry reform at the From Prison to Work: Overcoming Barriers to Reentry Hamilton Project event.
The Hamilton Project hosted a policy discussion on the challenges of prisoner reentry featuring a keynote address by U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.). The event also featured a policy roundtable with a diverse group of experts on the need for a national prisoner reentry strategy.
Council on Foreign Relations Co-Chair and Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin says putting former inmates into productive jobs is an important economic issue at the From Prison to Work: Overcoming Barriers to Reentry Hamilton Project Event.
Harvard University Professor Bruce Western offers an overview of his Hamilton Project paper on prison reentry followed by roundtable discussion among experts with on-the-ground work in the field at the From Prison to Work: Overcoming Barriers to Reentry Hamilton Project event.
Then-Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair on the affect of credit distress on banks at The Future of Housing and Credit Markets Hamilton Project event.
Then-Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Rebecca M. Blank on bringing low-skilled men into the workforce and providing additional mental health services for women not currently receiving public assistance at the Facilitating and Rewarding Work Hamilton Project event.
A periodic newsletter of events, policy briefs, and working papers from The Hamilton Project.
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