From the summary:
Weathering the Great Recession shows that the economic downturn had devastating impacts for families at every rung of the economic ladder. However, in many ways, families in high-poverty neighborhoods were already experiencing their own hard times before the official downturn, making any additional losses that much more harmful to their economic prospects.
The key findings of this analysis include:
- There were no differences by neighborhood type in the proportions of residents who had wage losses or family income losses greater than 20 percent.
- Families in high-poverty neighborhoods experienced smaller absolute dollar losses in wealth but higher percentage losses than those in low-poverty neighborhoods.
- Families in low-poverty neighborhoods were the most likely to be homeowners and to have experienced home equity losses. However, families in high-poverty neighborhoods were the most likely to be behind on mortgage payments and to expect to be behind on payments in the next 12 months.
- Those in high-poverty neighborhoods were the least likely to be employed and the most likely to be unemployed during the recession. However, the chance of becoming unemployed during the recession did not differ across neighborhood types.
- These findings provide insight for policy makers working to design effective and targeted policy interventions to strengthen the recovery and address pre-existing challenges faced by residents of high-poverty neighborhoods.
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From the abstract:
A growing economics literature establishes a causal link between in utero shocks and health and human capital in adulthood. Most studies rely on extreme negative shocks such as famine and pandemics. We are the first to examine the impact of a positive and policy-driven change in economic resources available in utero and during childhood. In particular, we focus on the introduction of a key element of the U.S. safety net, the Food Stamp Program, which was rolled out across counties in the U.S. between 1961 and 1975. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to assemble unique data linking family background and county of residence in early childhood to adult health and economic outcomes. The identification comes from variation across counties and over birth cohorts in exposure to the food stamp program. Our findings indicate that the food stamp program has effects decades after initial exposure. Specifically, access to food stamps in childhood leads to a significant reduction in the incidence of "metabolic syndrome" (obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes) and, for women, an increase in economic self-sufficiency. Overall, our results suggest substantial internal and external benefits of the safety net that have not previously been quantified.
From the press release:
According to the report, a higher wage floor equivalent to $25,000 per year for a full-time, year-round employee for retailers with more than 1000 employees (such as Walmart, Target and Best Buy) would lift 1.5 million retail workers and their families out of poverty or near poverty, add to economic growth, increase retail sales and create over 100,000 new jobs.
With $4 trillion in annual revenue, over 15 million employees and projections to be one of the largest sources of new jobs in the next decade, the retail sector plays a vital role in the economy, wielding great influence over the living standards of many Americans.
There is a flaw in the conventional thinking that profits, low prices and decent wages cannot co-exist. Retail profits have recovered from the Great Recession, yet the average pay of employees has not. The typical retail cashier makes an annual income of just $18,500--not enough to escape poverty. This type of low wage can be a drag on our economic recovery, as employees working full-time are still unable to make ends meet and contribute spending to the broader economy....
With low-income households more likely to channel additional income immediately back into the economy, the study shows a "multiplier effect" from their increased purchasing power would:
-Create between 100,000 and 130,000 jobs across all sectors
-Increase the next year's retail sales by $4 to $5 billion--an amount equal to about 1/3 the sales growth expected this holiday shopping season
-Increase the GDP between $11.8 and $15.2 billion in the next year
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From the press release:
The Census Bureau, with support from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, today released its second annual report, The Research Supplemental Poverty Measure: 2011, describing research on a new supplemental poverty measure. This measure extends information provided by the official poverty measure, released Sept. 12, by explicitly including benefits from many of the government programs designed to assist low-income families and individuals.
Today's report compares 2011 supplemental poverty estimates to 2011 official poverty estimates for numerous demographic groups at the national level. In addition, for the first time, the report presents supplemental poverty estimates for states, using three-year averages. At the national level, the report also compares 2010 supplemental poverty estimates with 2011 estimates and examines the effect of excluding individual resource or expenditure elements.
According to the report, the supplemental poverty measure rate was 16.1 percent last year, which was higher than the official measure of 15.0 percent. Neither the supplemental measure nor the official poverty rate was significantly different from the corresponding rate in 2010.
]]>From the blog entry:
The annual PHI analysis of wage trends for personal care aides (PCAs) -- the nation's fastest-growing occupation -- once again shows low and stagnant wages for these critical workers who provide supports and services to elders and individuals with disabilities.
In 2011, the national median wage for PCAs ($9.49) increased by less than one percent from the previous year. In 16 states, wages actually declined. By contrast, the average wage for all jobs in the economy increased from $16.27 to $16.57 over that time period.
Of all states, 33 reported average hourly wages for PCAs that fell below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, according to the analysis reported in the most recent PHI State Chart Book on Wages for Personal Care Aides (pdf).
]]>From the press release:
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that in 2011, median household income declined, the poverty rate was not statistically different from the previous year and the percentage of people without health insurance coverage decreased.
Real median household income in the United States in 2011 was $50,054, a 1.5 percent decline from the 2010 median and the second consecutive annual drop. The nation's official poverty rate in 2011 was 15.0 percent, with 46.2 million people in poverty. After three consecutive years of increases, neither the poverty rate nor the number of people in poverty were statistically different from the 2010 estimates. The number of people without health insurance coverage declined from 50.0 million in 2010 to 48.6 million in 2011, as did the percentage without coverage - from 16.3 percent in 2010 to 15.7 percent in 2011.
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From the press release:
Low- and middle-income workers and their families would have had far better income growth over the past 30 years if economic policies had not directed the fruits of economic growth to the highest-income Americans, a new Economic Policy Institute book, "The State of Working America, 12th Edition" finds. For example, had there been no growth in income disparities since 1979, annual income for a middle-income household would have been $88,875 in 2007, $18,897 higher than the $69,978 it actually was. The median household lost wealth between 1983 and 2010 and had just $57,000 in net worth in 2010, rather than the $119,000 it would have had if wealth had grown equally across all households over this period....
..."The State of Working America, 12th Edition" explains that economic policies, including policymakers' actions and failures to act, have undercut the ability of workers to benefit from economic growth in the United States. Its primary findings include:
- America's vast middle class has suffered a "lost decade" and faces the threat of another...
- Income and wage inequality have risen sharply over the last 30 years....
- Rising inequality is the major cause of wage stagnation for workers and of the failure of low- and middle-income families to appropriately benefit from growth....
- Economic policies caused increased inequality of wages and incomes....
- Claims that growing inequality has not hurt middle-income families are flawed....
Inequalities persist by race and gender....
..."The State of Working America, 12th Edition" includes new and compelling data on:
Income, Mobility, Wages, Jobs, Wealth, Poverty...
From the abstract:
An estimated 85.1 percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2011, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.9 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security--meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. The prevalence rate of very low food security increased from 5.4 percent in 2010, returning to the level observed in 2008 and 2009. The change in food insecurity overall (from 14.5 percent in 2010) was not statistically significant. The typical food-secure household spent 24 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition. Fifty-seven percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs during the month prior to the 2011 survey.
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Related:
Southern states have greater risk of hunger / Report says many households have trouble putting food on the table
Source: Larry Conley, American City and County, September 10, 2012
States Perform provides users with access to interactive, customizable and up-to-date comparative performance measurement data for 50 states in six key areas: fiscal and economic, public safety and justice, energy and environment, transportation, health and human services, and education. Compare performance across a few or all states, profile one state, view trends over time, and customize your results with graphs and maps.
]]>Economics assumes people are rational actors in the market, but we know a lot less about how to manage money than we think....The conservative approach to government stems from a basic tenet of free-market economics: that people always act rationally to maximize their own benefits, and that from this rises a general state of well-being for society as a whole. But this isn't always true. One of the hottest academic disciplines to arise in the last few decades is behavioral economics, which explores the ways in which people behave irrationally. In addition, easy-predictable problems with certain markets prevent us from achieving the best outcomes. These two facts have consequences for how we should think about government in certain instances. There are many ways in which the government can make better decisions with our money than we can, and there are many ways that the Ryan budget would make society worse off by getting rid of government programs. Here are five:
Retirement Insurance...Health Care...Addressing Poverty...Disaster Relief...
All the Little Things
While I've been focused so far on specific things that the federal government can do better than individuals or the private market, there are a number of tiny things that local governments do to create the world in which you live--building roads, taking out the trash, keeping traffic flowing, and turning street lights on at night. Basically, we can call this "running your community." ...
From the abstract:
This brief provides new national and state-level information about the uninsured adults with incomes below 138 percent of FPL who could become eligible for Medicaid if states decide to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). At present, few states cover non-disabled, non-pregnant parents with incomes up to 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and even fewer cover such adults without dependent children. This analysis shows that the approximately 15 million uninsured adults who could gain coverage under the ACA Medicaid expansion are a diverse group in terms of their age, gender and race/ethnicity.
From the summary:
Six of the 10 states reviewed by GAO took steps aimed at preventing certain Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) transactions determined to be inconsistent with the purpose of TANF, despite no federal requirement to do so at the time. Restrictions are based on selected states' laws, executive orders, and other regulations, and generally cover certain locations or certain types of purchases such as alcohol. In some cases, states' restrictions are broader than the new federal requirements. These restrictions vary in their degree and means of implementation, including widespread disabling of Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) access at automated teller machines located at certain locations across a state, such as at casinos. The other 4 states had no restrictions because no laws, executive orders, or other regulations prohibited certain transactions based on the location of the transactions or the nature of the goods or services purchased. These states did not implement restrictions due to concerns about cost-effectiveness or technical limitations, according to state officials.
Pensions were once an integral part of the American dream, a pledge by corporations to their employees: For your decades of work, you can count on retirement benefits. Not everyone had a pension, but from the 1950s to the 1980s, the number of workers who did rose steadily -- until 1985. Since then, more and more companies have walked away from pensions. Before today's workers reach retirement age, decisions by Congress favoring moneyed interests will drive millions of older Americans -- most of them women -- into poverty and push millions more to the brink.
From the press release:
The Annie E. Casey Foundation's latest KIDS COUNT Data Book shows both promising progress and discouraging setbacks for the nation's children: While their academic achievement and health improved in most states, their economic well-being continued to decline.
Over the period of roughly 2005 to 2011, the improvements in children's health and education include a 20 percent decrease in the number of kids without health insurance; a 16 percent drop in the child and teen death rate; an 11 percent reduction in the rate of high school students not graduating in four years; and an 8 percent reduction in the proportion of eighth-graders scoring less than proficient in math.
The 2012 Data Book indicates kids and families nationwide are still struggling economically in the wake of the recession. In 2010, one-third of youths had parents without secure employment -- an increase of 22 percent, or about 4 million children, in just two years. From 2005 to 2010, the number of children living in poverty rose by 2.4 million.
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