Brookings: Topics - Children and Families

Is There a Better Way to Prepare Disadvantaged Students for College?

Tue, 07 May 2013 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

May 7, 2013
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

A major barrier to college education for students from low-income families is that they are poorly prepared to do college work. Since the War on Poverty of the 1960s, the federal government has funded several programs to help prepare disadvantaged students to succeed in college. Evaluations show that these programs are at best only modestly successful.

On May 7, Princeton University and the Brookings Institution released the latest issue of The Future of Children—a journal that promotes effective, evidence-based policies and programs for children—which examines the state of postsecondary education in the United States. Journal co-editor Cecilia Rouse provided an overview of the issue’s contents. Ron Haskins of Brookings presented findings from an accompanying policy brief that proposes a plan to improve college preparation programs for students from disadvantaged families by consolidating them into a single grant program and requiring that funded programs be backed by rigorous evidence. Following their presentations, Harry Holzer of Georgetown University responded to the proposal from the policy brief. A panel of experts then discussed the proposed reform and offered their own thoughts on the value of postsecondary education for low-income students.

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Do Budget Commitments to the Old Shortchange the Young?

Gary Burtless — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Federal spending on children edged down last year. As a result of the phase-out of stimulus programs as well as budget cuts imposed by the sequester, federal spending on children’s programs is expected to drop still further this year and next. Meanwhile, outlays on federal programs for the elderly continue to rise. Most of this spending consists of transfer payments under Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Virtually all that spending is protected against cuts connected to the sequester.

According to recent estimates published by the Urban Institute, the average American older than 65 now receives $6.66 in federal outlays for every $1.00 received by a child under age 19. Moreover, an overwhelming share of the spending on the aged is determined by benefit formulas that boost spending per person in line with increases in the cost of living or medical prices. Because medical costs have risen without interruption in recent decades and the share of the population past age 65 is increasing steadily, child advocates fear that kids’ programs will become orphans in a storm. Government spending on children will inevitably be squeezed as more public resources are diverted to fund programs for the elderly.

This fear is not without foundation. Based on the historical record, however, it appears wildly overblown. Core programs for children – providing public schooling and health insurance – have proven to be surprisingly resilient. Despite budget pressures to fund programs for the aged and for national defense and to pay interest on the national debt, per capita government spending on public schools and child health insurance programs has continued to climb. Big public programs for the aged may appear to operate on automatic pilot and hence to be immune to budget cuts. But presidents, governors, and legislators have also displayed an enduring regard for programs that educate and protect the health of children.

For example, per pupil spending on K-12 education has increased with virtually no interruption over the past 120 years. In the three decades between 1980 and 2009 real spending per pupil increased 2.3% a year (see Chart 1). True, per pupil spending on public schools climbed more slowly in the most recent decade than it did in the previous two. It only increased 2.1% a year between 2000 and 2009. Still, this rate of increase is considerably faster than the growth in per capita personal income during the same period. Notwithstanding the impact on government budgets of two recessions and two wars, per pupil spending on K-12 education continued to rise. The end of federal stimulus payments to state and local governments combined with state and local revenue problems have undoubtedly slowed educational spending growth since 2009. Nonetheless, it is hard to see evidence in the historical record that legislators will savagely cut outlays on public schools.

Government spending on child health insurance has also climbed steeply in recent years. The Census Bureau estimates that almost 4 in 10 children under 18 now obtain health coverage under a public insurance program. This represents a major increase in public coverage compared with the situation in the late 1990s. Rising rates of public health coverage have more than offset losses in child health insurance obtained under private insurance. In fact, since 1999 children under 18 and young adults between 18 and 24 are the only age groups in the population that have seen an increase in health coverage. All of the improvement has been due to expansions in government coverage. Meanwhile, Americans older than 25 have seen health coverage rates fall (see Charts 2 through 4).

Much of the concern over the future prospects of children’s programs arises from an understandable confusion over the source of funding for these programs. Since establishing the Social Security program in the great depression, the federal government has assumed a major role in assuring Americans’ old-age income security. Because personal savings and private pensions proved inadequate to assure safe retirement incomes in the 1930s, the national government established a contributory pension system that provided predictable, but modest, public pensions. The federal government has thus assumed the leading role in collecting contributions and disbursing benefits for old-age income security.

It has not assumed a similar role in assuring public benefits for children. The primary source of income support for children is parental earnings. State and local governments continue to play the leading role in education and public health insurance, though federal aid to states and localities is increasingly important in funding state and local commitments. Whereas the federal government spends $6.66 on each aged American for every $1.00 it spends on a child, state and local governments spend $8.88 on each child under 19 for every $1.00 they spend on a person older than 65. Since the federal government spends considerably more than states, total per capita public spending on the aged is higher that per capita spending on the young.

The crucial point, however, is that state and local governments are the primary source of funds for programs that provide education and other benefits to children. It is conceivable that budget pressures arising from increased health costs and an aging population will eventually cause public spending on youngsters to fall. The historical record provides little evidence to support this view, however. Long-term spending trends, both at the federal and local levels, suggest that core programs for children receive roughly the same budget protection as programs for the aged.

Authors

Gary Burtless

Publication: Real Clear Markets

Image Source: © ERIC THAYER / Reuters

Knot Yet: The Future of Marriage in the U.S.

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

March 20, 2013
9:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

One of the major demographic and social changes of the last four decades has been the dramatic increase in the average age at which Americans first marry, from the early twenties in 1970 to the late twenties today. Delayed marriage in America has helped to bring the divorce rate down since 1980 and increased the economic fortunes of educated women, according to “Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America,” a new report from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and the RELATE Institute.

But another important consequence of this change is that a majority of young adults under 30 now have their first child before they marry. “Knot Yet” explores the causes and consequences of this revolution in family composition and explains why premarital childbearing is associated with dramatically different family formation strategies. The great crossover in childbearing and marriage is concentrated among the 60 percent of young adults who have a high school degree but not a college degree.

On March 20, the Center on Children and Families at Brookings hosted a discussion to explore the policy and cultural responses that may help reconnect marriage and parenthood. One of the report’s authors summarized the findings and recommendations; several authors and critics, representing an array of political viewpoints, provided their reactions.

Video

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20130320_knot_yet_marriage_transcript

Shame and Teen Pregnancy

Richard V. Reeves — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Does shame perform a useful social function? Is it legitimate for the state to engender feelings of shame to further public goals? Is the answer to either of these questions affirmative, in the case of teen pregnancy?

These are the key questions raised by the decision by New York officials to use controversial advertisements that highlight the impact of teen pregnancy on the life chances of the child. The apparently ‘liberal’ response has been to rail against Mayor Michael Bloomberg for shaming teen parents. The very idea of passing moral judgment makes many people of a liberal orientation queasy, especially in the U.S.

I have argued, by contrast, that there is a liberal case for shame as a form of non-coercive regulation towards better choices – including avoiding teen pregnancy.

So, question 1: does shame ever have any positive role to play in a liberal society? Yes: it is in fact a valuable form of non-coercive regulation of behavior. As a general rule, we hope that illegal activities are also shameful ones. In many cases the shame might do more work than the sheriff. Drunk driving is a case in point.

Shame also helps to regulate activities that are legal, but unwise - either because of their implications for the individual themselves, or, especially, for innocent second parties. Racists and homophobes should be made to feel ashamed of themselves. But surely so should those who hit their child, or surround them with smoke, or drink heavily or smoke when pregnant with them.

The second question is whether official bodies have any business being in the shame game. You might agree that shame can be useful, but disagree with state-sponsored shame. Given that tax dollars are being deployed in a campaign like the current New York one, the decision has to be clearly justified - on the grounds of both efficacy and legitimacy. New York has tested its ads extensively, and is confident that they will have an impact by making teens think harder about choices leading to a risk of pregnancy. Time will tell if they are right, but we certainly not assume they are wrong.

Even if the ads work, the legitimacy question remains. The state should only be using shame to combat a legal activity or choice when there is real, significant harm involved, not for the individual but for other individuals or the broader community.

There is, for instance, no good liberal argument against ads invoking shame to try and stop people hitting their children or smoking while pregnant. Real harm is being done to real people. Government officials should exercise great care when it comes to the use of shame. But they should not rule it out.

The third question is whether shame can legitimately be attached to teen pregnancy, if there is reason to believe (as New York does) that is will help to lower rates. Is teen pregnancy really bad enough to justify such an emotional campaign? The short answer: yes. Not because of the impact on the parent, but on the child. Having kids in your teens actually has a small influence on life chances, as Alex Sanger shows in Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21st Century, albeit for the depressing reason that the youngsters most likely to become teen parents have such narrow life chances anyway.

So the New York campaign focuses on what teen parenthood means for the child. They are not saying, ‘becoming a parent in your teens will be bad for you’; they are saying ‘becoming a parent in your teens will be bad for your child’. And that is not a claim: it is a fact.

One last, vital point: there is no justification for doing less to help teen parents or their their children because they have made bad choices. We need, in fact, to do very much more to improve the life chances of children born to teen parents. Shame legitimately attaches to teen pregnancy. It is also a crying shame that so many kids born to teens are effectively abandoned to their fate.

Authors

Richard V. Reeves

Image Source: © ERIC THAYER / Reuters

In Reducing Teen Pregnancy, Shame Is Not a Four-Letter Word

Richard V. Reeves — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:36:00 -0400

New York is deploying a powerful weapon to reduce teen pregnancy: shame. New advertisements around the city dramatize the truncated life chances of children born to teenagers; in one, a tear-stained toddler stares out, declaring: “I’m twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen.”

Nobody is arguing the facts. But plenty of people are furious at the decision to highlight them. “Hurting and shaming communities is not what’s going to bring teen pregnancy rates down,” declared Haydee Morales, the vice president for education and training at Planned Parenthood of New York City.

This is the allegedly “liberal” response. But liberals should think twice: shame is an essential ingredient of a healthy society, particularly a liberal one. It acts as a form of moral regulation, or social “nudge,” encouraging good behavior while guarding individual freedom.

Read the rest of the op-ed at the New York Times website »

Authors

Richard V. Reeves

Publication: The New York Times

Image Source: © Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Three Simple Rules Poor Teens Should Follow to Join the Middle Class

Ron Haskins — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Policy aimed at promoting economic opportunity for poor children must be framed within three stark realities. First, many poor children come from families that do not give them the kind of support that middle-class children get from their families. Second, as a result, these children enter kindergarten far behind their more advantaged peers and, on average, never catch up and even fall further behind. Third, in addition to the education deficit, poor children are more likely to make bad decisions that lead them to drop out of school, become teen parents, join gangs and break the law.

In addition to the thousands of local and national programs that aim to help young people avoid these life-altering problems, we should figure out more ways to convince young people that their decisions will greatly influence whether they avoid poverty and enter the middle class. Let politicians, schoolteachers and administrators, community leaders, ministers and parents drill into children the message that in a free society, they enter adulthood with three major responsibilities: at least finish high school, get a full-time job and wait until age 21 to get married and have children.

Our research shows that of American adults who followed these three simple rules, only about 2 percent are in poverty and nearly 75 percent have joined the middle class (defined as earning around $55,000 or more per year). There are surely influences other than these principles at play, but following them guides a young adult away from poverty and toward the middle class.

Consider an example. Today, more than 40 percent of American children, including more than 70 percent of black children and 50 percent of Hispanic children, are born outside marriage. This unprecedented rate of nonmarital births, combined with the nation’s high divorce rate, means that around half of children will spend part of their childhood—and for a considerable number of these all of their childhood — in a single-parent family. As hard as single parents try to give their children a healthy home environment, children in female-headed families are four or more times as likely as children from married-couple families to live in poverty. In turn, poverty is associated with a wide range of negative outcomes in children, including school dropout and out-of-wedlock births.

It is sometimes said that Americans are turning their back on the marriage culture. The high divorce rate, soaring nonmarital birth rate and consequent rise of single-parent families are certainly weakening marriage as an institution. But look again and discover that college-educated women have high marriage rates, low nonmarital birthrates, and low divorce rates. The marriage culture seems to be alive and well for those with a college degree. These families usually not only have enough money to afford good schools for their children, but they also provide a stable family environment that allows children to flourish.

The recent attacks by Planned Parenthood on Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s mayor, for launching a campaign designed to inform teenagers of the consequences of teen pregnancy provides a good example of how many in our society face the effects of nonmarital births on teen mothers and their children. In one of the campaign posters, a baby with tears rolling down his face says: “I’m twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen.” Another shows a girl saying to her mom: “Chances are he won’t stay with you. What happens to me?” Planned Parenthood criticized the ads, displayed in the subway and bus shelters, for ignoring racial and economic factors that contribute to teen pregnancy. Other critics say the ads stigmatize teen parents and their children.

Granted, most teen moms are from low-income families and face a number of barriers to success. Along comes Bloomberg with a direct message to get the attention of teenage girls and warn them not to make their situation worse and to think more about their future. If the mother wants to improve her future by continuing her education, being a teenage parent is precisely the wrong way to do it. As for blaming the victim, no one is blaming the baby—yet the baby will also bear long-term consequences.

Teenagers are capable of understanding principles and of using them to help make decisions. Anyone who delivers messages to teens about the consequences of decisions that could affect them and others for many years should be praised not criticized.

Bloomberg should next launch a public campaign about the value of marriage to adults, children and society. There will be at least as many critics of this message as the message that young people should avoid teen pregnancy. Good. The bigger the controversy, the more the media will cover the debate, and the more the nation will have the opportunity to reflect on what is at stake. I am confident that most Americans will conclude that organizations like Planned Parenthood have it wrong, and Bloomberg has it right.

Authors

Ron Haskins

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Brian Snyder / Reuters

Robert Gordon, OMB Acting Deputy Director, to Join Brookings

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Robert Gordon, acting deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and an expert on education policy, will join the Brookings Institution as a guest scholar in April, Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced today.

In addition to participating in the major budget negotiations of the last two years, Gordon has led OMB’s effort to increase the use of evidence and evaluation to guide federal policymaking. He has also played a key role in developing and shepherding the administration’s early childhood, education, training, and social insurance initiatives.

“Robert’s work at OMB and impressive background in education policy make him a perfect fit for our Center on Children and Families,” said Brookings Vice President and Co-Director of Economic Studies Karen Dynan. “Robert spearheaded the Obama administration’s historic attempt to base policy innovations on rigorous social science research,” said Ron Haskins, senior fellow in Economic Studies and co-director of Brookings’ Center on Children and Families.

Robert is a graduate of Harvard College, summa cum laude, and Yale Law School. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Robert led an overhaul of the New York City Department of Education’s system for allocating $5 billion among 1,400 schools. While a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, he co-authored a widely cited study of teacher effectiveness, one of the first papers produced by the Hamilton Project at Brookings; wrote a cover article on education reform for The New Republic; and published widely on other domestic issues. Robert has been a consultant to major foundations and school systems, and he was the senior domestic policy aide to Senator John Edwards between 2002 and 2004. Earlier in his career, Robert was a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; a Skadden fellow and staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society in New York City; and an analyst for the National Economic Council and White House Office of National Service, where he helped to create AmeriCorps.

In addition to his work at Brookings, he will be working on a project with the College Board aimed at understanding and measuring inequities in student skills and learning at the earliest ages.

Population, Policy, and Politics: How Will History Judge China’s One-Child Policy?

Feng Wang, Yong Cai and Baochang Gu — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

One of the main puzzles of modern population and social history is why, among all countries confronting rapid population growth in the second half of the twentieth century, China chose to adopt an extreme measure of birth control known as the one-child policy. A related question is why such a policy, acknowledged to have many undesirable consequences, has been retained for so long, even beyond the period of time anticipated by its creators.

With the world’s population growth rate now at half its historical peak level and with nearly half of the world’s population living in countries with fertility below replacement level, we can look back at the role politics played in formulating, implementing, and reformulating policies aimed at slowing population growth (Demeny and McNicoll 2006; Robinson and Ross 2007; Demeny 2011). In this context, an examination of China’s unprecedented government intervention in reproduction offers valuable lessons in appreciating the role of politics in the global effort of birth control in the twentieth century.

Aside from the rise and fall of Communism, family planning programs along with the Green Revolution could be considered two of the most consequential social experiments of the twentieth century. These two experiments differ, however, in both content and approach. The Green Revolution was aimed at feeding the population, while family planning programs were designed to curtail its growth. The Green Revolution was technological, economic, and global, while family planning programs were social, political, and often country specific.

Nowhere in the world did politics and policies figure more prominently in the effort to control population growth than in China. The policy of allowing all couples to have only one child finds no equal in the world and it may be one of the most draconian examples of government social engineering ever seen. In this essay, we cast China’s one-child policy in the changing global context of population policymaking, we revisit the supposed necessity of such a policy by examining the claim that the policy was responsible for preventing 400 million births, and we discuss the reasons such a policy, with all its known negative consequences, has been allowed to stay in place for more than thirty years since its inception.

Editor's Note: this paper first appeared in Population and Development Review, published by the Population Council.

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Authors

Feng Wang
Yong Cai
Baochang Gu

Publication: Population and Development Review 38 (Supplement): 115–129 (2012)

Let's Have More Immigrants, Not More Babies

Isabel V. Sawhill — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:04:00 -0500

Fertility has fallen in all advanced countries and will almost surely continue to fall in the future. In the United States, the fertility rate is now 1.93 children per women, a little below the replacement level of 2.1. It waxes and wanes with the state of the economy and other factors, but the long-term trend is pretty clear: women have fewer children as their own opportunities, along with their ability to control their reproductive destinies, expand.

Bear in mind that right now roughly a quarter of all childbearing in the U.S. is unintended. As women's employment opportunities continue to grow, as marriage rates continue to decline, and as the promise of newer and more effective long-acting contraceptives is realized, women will almost surely have even fewer children than they do today with some ,opting out of childbearing altogether. As one indicator of where we may be headed consider the data on the number of women who have remained childless by the age of 40-44. It was 18 percent in 2008, up from 10 percent in 1976, an increase of 80 percent.

Should this be a concern?

Most definitely, says Jonathan Last, in his new book, What to Expect When No One's Expecting. In his words, we can "forget the debt ceiling. Forget the fiscal cliff, the sequestration cliff and the entitlement cliff. Those are all just symptoms. What America really faces is a demographic cliff: The root cause of most of our problems is our declining fertility rate." These problems, according to Last, include not just an aging population but less innovation, lower productivity, slower growth, and less ability to project our military power around the world. Just look at Japan, he says, where consumers bought more adult diapers than baby diapers last year!

But is Last right? It's certainly true that the aging of the population is a big fiscal problem in Japan, and to a lesser extent, in the U.S. Spending on pensions and health care are rising sharply as the number of working age adults per elderly person shrinks. But the solution does not need to be more babies. We can solve the problem by allowing more immigrants to enter the country -- legally. What we need is a new immigration system that not only creates a path to citizenship for the 11 million who are here illegally now, but creates a reformed system that increases the numbers allowed to come into the country in the future in a way that is better aligned with our economic interests.

The fact is that immigration, done the right way, is good economic policy. It may also be good social policy as well.

The key point from an economic perspective is that the 7 billion people in the world are a potential pool of talent that any advanced country should want to attract. Ignoring that pool is the equivalent of General Motors recruiting all of its workers from Michigan while ignoring the other 49 states.

Fears that immigrants replace or undermine the wages of American workers are, for the most part, unfounded. They may have hurt the job prospects of some of our least skilled workers, such as high school dropouts, but they have become the backbone of many sectors of the economy from construction to agriculture, thereby producing jobs for Americans in businesses that would otherwise be unable to flourish.

If we move to a more employment-based immigration system in which the needs of the economy are given much greater weight and family reunification a smaller role, immigration can become a dynamic force for growth and a partial solution to our fiscal problems. Countries, such as Canada and Australia, in which skills-based immigration is the norm, have benefitted from such a system.

Immigration is often feared because immigrants are "different," because they place a burden on local social services, and fail to assimilate by learning English and the other hallmarks of our culture. Yet, we have been a nation of immigrants from the beginning with each new wave raising such fears and later becoming almost fully accepted into society.

With a more rational and controlled immigration system, one based more on employer needs, any short-run problems of adjustment would be far easier to deal with and the resulting longer term diversity would be a potential source of strength for the nation as a whole. In the meantime, if fertility does decline, and there are fewer American children to support, whatever resources parents and governments have to invest in the education and health care of the next generation will go much further.

Expecting women to rededicate themselves to producing children is not in the cards, even with the kind of family-friendly policies that Last and some others support. One only has to look at what is going on in Europe where such policies have been tried at great expense to see that they are not likely to be very effective. At 1.6 children per woman, the fertility rate in these countries is well below U.S. levels.

So no, Mr. Last, we don't need more babies; we just need more immigrants.

Authors

Isabel V. Sawhill

Publication: Real Clear Markets

Image Source: © Marvin Gentry / Reuters

Middle Childhood Success and Economic Mobility

J. Lawrence Aber, Kerry Searle Grannis, Stephanie Owen and Isabel V. Sawhill — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:17:00 -0500

Executive Summary

This study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) to analyze competencies that children need to master by the end of elementary school, the extent to which they are doing so, what might be done to improve their performance, and how this might affect their ultimate ability to earn a living and their chances of being middle class by middle age. Both academic skills and socio-emotional skills contribute to core competency. We measure core competence at age eleven using five outcomes: math skills, reading skills, self-regulation, behavior problems, and physical health.

62% of children have core competence by the spring of fifth grade, while 38% do not meet the benchmark on one or more of the five measures.
Though there are substantial gaps in achievement by gender, race, and socioeconomic status, differences by subgroup decrease in magnitude when we control for demographics and school readiness at age 5.
Achievement gaps by race and socioeconomic status widen over the course of elementary school; the gap between black and white children nearly doubles between kindergarten and fifth grade.

The paper concludes with a discussion of how middle childhood interventions such as a social emotional learning program or a whole school reform program like Success For All might improve short- and long-term outcomes for low-income children. Preliminary results from the Social Genome Model indicate that such programs might raise annual family income at age forty by four percent—approximately $2,400 for a family of four.

Download the full paper »

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Middle Childhood Success and Economic Mobility

Authors

J. Lawrence Aber
Kerry Searle Grannis
Stephanie Owen
Isabel V. Sawhill

Assessing Universal Pre-K Programs in Oklahoma

Ted Gayer — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 17:39:00 -0500

As President Obama continues to roll out his proposal for universal preschool as outlined in his State of the Union address, it is worth looking at results of these types of programs in states that already run such programs.

In a paper with Wiliam Gormley (Journal of Human Resources, 2005 (pdf)) and another with Gormley, Phillips, and Dawson (Developmental Psychology, 2005(pdf)), we studied the impact of Oklahoma's universal pre-K program on children's readiness for kindergarten. In the JHR study, which relied on the results of a school-readiness assessment developed by Tulsa Public Schools, We found that attending pre-school boosted school readiness for Hispanic and black students but not for whites. We also found that pre-school had a bigger effect on school readiness among students who qualified for free lunch at school, than those who did not. In the other study, which relied on a standardized and widely-used assessment of school readiness, we found that attending pre-school improved school readiness for students across all racial and income groups.

Authors

Ted Gayer

Establishing a Task Force for Expanding Preschool Programs

Ron Haskins — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:39:00 -0500

In a single paragraph, President Obama’s State of the Union address opened the door to implementing important changes in the nation’s multitude of preschool programs and to increasing the number of children participating in quality programs.

Of all the opportunities to promote the development of poor children and to increase opportunity in America, none is as promising as high-quality preschool programs. Although there are still disagreements about the strength of evidence on these programs, the literature on preschool’s impacts on a host of short-term and long-term child outcomes is strong, and there are several excellent benefit-cost studies as well.

Research leads to the conclusion that if poor children attended high-quality preschool, they would be better prepared to achieve and behave well in public schools. There could also be longer-term outcomes including higher graduation rates, less delinquency, less teen pregnancy, and higher rates of employment and income. But these benefits and their corresponding budget savings will not be achieved unless the preschool education is high-quality, provided by highly effective teachers. Today, most preschool facilities do not meet that standard.

As would be expected in a State of the Union address, the president gave only a hint of what he had in mind for preschool. His goal was to “make high-quality preschool available to every child in America.” If the Obama administration is serious about expanding early childhood programs, here is one way to proceed.

The first order of business should be to figure out how to get the most out of the programs we now have and the money we now spend. The president should appoint a small group within the administration that includes one senior official from the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor, as well as the White House and Office of Management and Budget, and charge them with presenting a bold plan for coordinating these programs. The president’s task force should consult widely, especially with the states, for how these programs can be better coordinated at the state and local level.

Second, the president should abandon his idea of providing high-quality preschool for “every child in America.” Rather, his task force should assume that only children from poor and near-poor families would be eligible for federal subsidies. Especially in this time of budget crisis, it is likely to be decades before the combined financing of the federal and state governments can afford the additional billions of dollars that would be required to provide free, universal preschool programs.

Third, the task force plan should include strategies for providing the poorest children and families, as well as those at risk of abuse and neglect, with home visiting and other support services. For this relatively small group, the services should begin in the prenatal period and extend throughout the preschool years.

Fourth, we will eventually need additional dollars to make sure every poor and near-poor child can receive services. Thus, the group should make an estimate of the costs of their system and propose several alternatives for sharing the burden between the states and the federal government.

The nation should stop setting preschool policy by merely creating more programs and adding money to existing ones in accord with political feasibility. Instead, we need a vision of the comprehensive system we should build and estimates of the long-term costs of the system. As President Obama said several times during his State of the Union address, “we can do this.”

Authors

Ron Haskins

Publication: Spotlight on Poverty

Family Structure: The Growing Importance of Class

Isabel V. Sawhill — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:44:00 -0500

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan released a controversial report written for his then boss, President Lyndon Johnson. Entitled “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” it described the condition of lower-income African American families and catalyzed a highly acrimonious, decades-long debate about black culture and family values in America.

The report cited a series of staggering statistics showing high rates of divorce, unwed childbearing, and single motherhood among black families. “The white family has achieved a high degree of stability and is maintaining that stability,” the report said. “By contrast, the family structure of lower class Negroes is highly unstable, and in many urban centers is approaching complete breakdown.”

Nearly fifty years later, the picture is even more grim—and the statistics can no longer be organized neatly by race. In fact, Moynihan’s bracing profile of the collapsing black family in the 1960s looks remarkably similar to a profile of the average white family today. White households have similar—or worse—statistics of divorce, unwed childbearing, and single motherhood as the black households cited by Moynihan in his report. In 2000, the percentage of white children living with a single parent was identical to the percentage of black children living with a single parent in 1960: 22 percent.

What was happening to black families in the ’60s can be reinterpreted today not as an indictment of the black family but as a harbinger of a larger collapse of traditional living arrangements—of what demographer Samuel Preston, in words that Moynihan later repeated, called “the earthquake that shuddered through the American family.”

That earthquake has not affected all American families the same way. While the Moynihan report focused on disparities between white and black, increasingly it is class, and not just race, that matters for family structure. Although blacks as a group are still less likely to marry than whites, gaps in family formation patterns by class have increased for both races, with the sharpest declines in marriage rates occurring among the least educated of both races. For example, in 1960, 76 percent of adults with a college degree were married, compared to 72 percent of those with a high school diploma—a gap of only 4 percentage points. By 2008, not only was marriage less likely, but that gap had quadrupled, to 16 percentage points, with 64 percent of adults with college degrees getting married compared to only 48 percent of adults with a high school diploma. A report from the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia summed up the data well: “Marriage is an emerging dividing line between America’s moderately educated middle and those with college degrees.” The group for whom marriage has largely disappeared now includes not just unskilled blacks but unskilled whites as well. Indeed, for younger women without a college degree, unwed childbearing is the new normal.

These differences in family formation are a problem not only for those concerned with “family values” per se, but also for those concerned with upward mobility in a society that values equal opportunity for its children. Because the breakdown of the traditional family is overwhelmingly occurring among working-class Americans of all races, these trends threaten to make the U.S. a much more class-based society over time. The well-educated and upper-middle-class parents who are still forming two-parent families are able to invest time and resources in their children—time and resources that lower- and working-class single mothers, however impressive their efforts to be both good parents and good breadwinners, simply do not have.

The striking similarities between what happened to black Americans at an earlier stage in our history and what is happening now to white working-class Americans may shed new light on old debates about cultural versus structural explanations of poverty. What’s clear is that economic opportunity, while not the only factor affecting marriage, clearly matters.

The journalist Hanna Rosin describes the connection between declining economic opportunities for men and declining rates of marriage in her book The End of Men. Like Moynihan, she points to the importance of job opportunities for men in maintaining marriage as an institution. The disappearance of well-paying factory jobs has, in her view, led to the near collapse of marriage in towns where less educated men used to be able to support a family and a middle-class lifestyle, earning $70,000 or more in a single year. As these jobs have been outsourced or up-skilled, such men either are earning less or are jobless altogether, making them less desirable marriage partners. Other researchers, including Kathryn Edin at Harvard, Andrew Cherlin at Johns Hopkins, and Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute, drawing on close observations of other working-class communities, have made similar arguments.

Family life, to some extent, adapts to the necessities thrown up by the evolution of the economy. Just as joblessness among young black men contributed to the breakdown of the black family that Moynihan observed in the ’60s, more recent changes in technology and global competition have hollowed out the job market for less educated whites. Unskilled white men have even less attachment to the labor force today than unskilled black men did fifty years ago, leading to a decline in their marriage rates in a similar way.

In 1960, the employment rate of prime-age (twenty-five to fifty-five) black men with less than a high school education was 80 percent. Fast-forward to 2000, and the employment rate of white men with less than a high school education was much lower, at 65 percent—and even for white high school graduates it was only 84 percent. Without an education in today’s economy, being white is no guarantee of being able to find a job.

That’s not to say that race isn’t an issue. It’s clear that black men have been much harder hit by the disappearance of jobs for the less skilled than white men. Black employment rates for those with less than a college education have sunk to near-catastrophic levels. In 2000, only 63 percent of black men with only a high school diploma (compared with 84 percent of white male graduates) were employed. Since the recession, those numbers have fallen even farther. And even black college graduates are not doing quite as well as their white counterparts. Based on these and other data, I believe it would be a mistake to conclude that race is unimportant; blacks continue to face unique disadvantages because of the color of their skin. It ought to be possible to say that class is becoming more important, but that race still matters a lot.

Most obviously, the black experience has been shaped by the impact of slavery and its ongoing aftermath. Even after emancipation and the civil rights revolution in the 1960s, African Americans faced exceptional challenges like segregated and inferior schools and discrimination in the labor market. It would take at least a generation for employers to begin to change their hiring practices and for educational disparities to diminish; even today these remain significant barriers. A recent audit study found that white applicants for low-wage jobs were twice as likely to be called in for interviews as equally qualified black applicants.

Black jobless rates not only exceed those of whites; in addition, a single-minded focus on declining job prospects for men and its consequences for family life ignores a number of other factors that have led to the decline of marriage. Male employment prospects can lead to more marriages, but scholars such as Harvard’s David Ellwood and Christopher Jencks have argued that economic factors alonecannot explain the wholesale changes in the frequency of single parenting, unwed births, divorce, and marriage, especially among the least educated, that are leading to growing gaps between social classes. So what else explains the decline of marriage?

First, and critically important in my view, is the changing role of women. In my first book, Time of Transition: The Growth of Families Headed by Women, published in 1975, my coauthor and I argued that it was not just male earnings that mattered, but what men could earn relative to women. When women don’t gain much, if anything, from getting married, they often choose to raise children on their own. Fifty years ago, women were far more economically dependent on marriage than they are now. Today, women are not just working more, they are better suited by education and tradition to work in such rapidly growing sectors of the economy as health care, education, administrative jobs, and services. While some observers may see women taking these jobs as a matter of necessity—and that’s surely a factor—we shouldn’t forget the revolution in women’s roles that has made it possible for them to support a family on their own.

In a fascinating piece of academic research published in the Journal of Human Resources in 2011, Scott Hankins and Mark Hoekstra discovered that single women who won between $25,000 and $50,000 in the Florida lottery were 41 percent to 48 percent less likely to marry over the following three years than women who won less than $1,000. We economists call this a “natural experiment,” because it shows the strong influence of women’s ability to support themselves without marriage—uncontaminated by differences in personal attributes that may also affect one’s ability or willingness to marry. My own earlier research also suggested that the relative incomes of wives and husbands predicted who would divorce and who would not.

Women’s growing economic independence has interacted with stubborn attitudes about changing gender roles. When husbands fail to adjust to women’s new breadwinning responsibilities (who cooks dinner or stays home with a sick child when both parents work?) the couple is more likely to divorce. It may be that well-educated younger men and women continue to marry not only because they can afford to but because many of the men in these families have adopted more egalitarian attitudes. While a working-class male might find such attitudes threatening to his manliness, an upper-middle-class man often does not, given his other sources of status. But when women find themselves having to do it all—that is, earn money in the workplace and shoulder the majority of child care and other domestic responsibilities—they raise the bar on whom they’re willing to marry or stay married to.

These gender-related issues may play an even greater role for black women, since while white men hold slightly more high school diplomas and baccalaureate degrees than white women, black women are much better educated than black men. That means it’s more difficult for well-educated black women to find black partners with comparable earning ability and social status. In 2010, black women made 87 percent of what black men did, whereas white women made only 70 percent of what white men earned. For less educated black women, there is, in addition, a shortage of black men because of high rates of incarceration. One estimate puts the proportion of black men who will spend some time in prison at almost one third.

In a forthcoming book, Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City, Timothy Nelson and Edin, the Harvard sociologist, describe in great detail the kind of role reversal that has occurred among low-income families, both black and white. What they saw were mothers who were financially responsible for children, and fathers who were trying to maintain ties to their children in other ways, limited by the fact that these fathers have very little money, are often involved in drugs, crime, or other relationships, and rarely live with the mother and child. In other words, low-income fathers are not only withdrawing from the traditional breadwinner role, they’re staging a wholesale retreat—even as they make attempts to remain involved in their children’s lives.

Normative changes figure as well. As the retreat from marriage has become more common, it’s also become more acceptable. That acceptance came earlier among blacks than among whites because of their own distinct experiences. Now that unwed childbearing is becoming the norm among the white working class as well, there is no longer much of a stigma associated with single parenting, and there is a greater willingness on the part of the broader community to accept the legitimacy of single-parent households.

Despite this change in norms, however, most Americans, whatever their race or social class, still aspire to marriage. It’s just that their aspirations are typically unrealistically high and their ability to achieve that ideal is out of step with their opportunities and lifestyle. As scholars such as Cherlin and Edin have emphasized, marriage is no longer a precursor to adult success. Instead, when it still takes place, marriage is more a badge of success already achieved. In particular, large numbers of young adults are having unplanned pregnancies long before they can cope with the responsibilities of parenthood. Paradoxically, although they view marriage as something they cannot afford, they rarely worry about the cost of raising a child.

Along with many others, I remain concerned about the effects on society of this wholesale retreat from stable two-parent families. The consequences for children, especially, are not good. Their educational achievements, and later chances of becoming involved in crime or a teen pregnancy are, on average, all adversely affected by growing up in a single-parent family. But I am also struck by the lessons that emerge from looking at how trends in family formation have differed by class as well as by race. If we were once two countries, one black and one white, we are now increasingly becoming two countries, one advantaged and one disadvantaged. Race still affects an individual’s chances in life, but class is growing in importance. This argument was the theme of William Julius Wilson’s 1980 book, The Declining Significance of Race. More recent evidence suggests that, despite all the controversy his book engendered, he was right.

To say that class is becoming more important than race isn’t to dismiss race as a very important factor. Blacks have faced, and will continue to face, unique challenges. But when we look for the reasons why less skilled blacks are failing to marry and join the middle class, it is largely for the same reasons that marriage and a middle-class lifestyle is eluding a growing number of whites as well. The jobs that unskilled men once did are gone, women are increasingly financially independent, and a broad cultural shift across America has created a new normal.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the January/February 2013 issue of The Washington Monthly under a different title.

Authors

Isabel V. Sawhill

Publication: Washington Monthly

Image Source: © Aaron Bernstein / Reuters

In Response to Sanctions, Russia Aims to Bar U.S. Adoptions of Russian Children

Fiona Hill — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: In the wake of the U.S. Senate’s passage of the Magnitsky Act, the Russian government has banned Americans from adopting Russian orphans. In an interview with Ray Suarez of PBS’s NewsHour along with Lauren Koch, Fiona Hill explains the internal politics that have led Russia to take this step. Read an excerpt below.

Ray Suarez: Fiona Hill, is this even about adopted children at all, or is this about a more confrontational stance towards the United States?

Fiona Hill: Well, sadly, it is now about adopted children, which, of course, the story makes very clear.

But it's come out of really campaign politics on both sides of the United States and in Russia. Mr. Putin faced, actually, a rather surprisingly bruising campaign to become president again, in spite of the fact that everybody saw him as a shoo-in.

And as part of that campaign, he really did ratchet up anti-American sentiment. He blamed protests that took place around the elections for the Russian parliament and around the presidential elections that brought many thousands of people out in the streets in Moscow and elsewhere, he blamed all those on U.S. support.

He's taken a lot of punitive action against U.S. NGOs. He's declared many non-governmental organizations in Russia that receive foreign funding, especially funding from the United States, to be foreign agents. People now under a new legislation have to register themselves as foreign agents. And, unfortunately, this is also part of that.

Suarez: So, by ratcheting up anti-American sentiment, does this kind of thing play well where with the Russian public, keeping the orphans inside the country, rather than letting them go to the United States to live?

Hill: Well, certain amounts of punitive action against the United States does play particularly well.

Part of the story is also the Magnitsky bill, the legislation that's just gone through the Congress that the president signed last week. And this is seen in many respects as sort of a tit for tat.

The U.S. always, in the Russian view, applies a double standard. It is always taking punitive action and applying sanctions against Russia. So this does play well.

However, as I think as we saw from the clips at the very beginning, there's been some soul-searching on the part of many Russians about this particular bill, because this is a disproportionate action. This is something that actually hurts Russian children, as well as ordinary families. So this is really sort of taking things in a very different angle.

Authors

Fiona Hill

Publication: PBS NewsHour

Image Source: © POOL New / Reuters

Make 2013 the Year to Improve Middle Class Economic Prospects

Isabel V. Sawhill — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:00:00 -0500

President Obama campaigned on a promise to improve the economic prospects of the middle class and those aspiring to join the middle class. Delivering on that promise is a tall order. After decades of slow or no progress in middle class incomes, and with the recovery limping along at a glacial pace, and with even that progress threatened by fiscal and European troubles, the challenge is daunting.

In the short-run, the President's priority has to be to resolve the debt crisis without sending the economy back into recession, raising taxes on the middle class, or decimating spending on such growth-enhancing areas as education, infrastructure, and research. While raising taxes on the wealthy somewhat relieves pressure on these other parts of his agenda, it will not produce the kind of broadly shared prosperity that he presumably wants. Most critically, the fragile recovery must not be allowed to collapse. Without jobs, progress will be impossible.

For the longer-term, the President needs to focus on upward mobility for those trying to remain in or join the middle class. There is an emerging bipartisan and expert consensus that America has less mobility than it believes and less than some other advanced countries.

But what can a President do when faced with a divided Congress and an opposition party intent on keeping his legislative agenda tied up in knots?

First, he can rely more heavily on institutional reform, executive orders, and regulation to achieve his goals. As one example, he could establish a Commission or task force to better publicize, track, and recommend measures to improve economic mobility in the U.S. As Richard Reeves has argued, the U.K. has already established the architecture for such an effort with useful lessons for the U.S. As another example, he could convene a group of wise men and women to debate the future of affirmative action in a society where race and gender inequalities, while still important, are now arguably less serious than class or income-based inequalities. Perhaps an African American president is uniquely positioned to call for such a discussion.

Second, he can use the bully pulpit and appeals to civil society to address barriers to mobility that have their roots in cultural attitudes and behaviors. For example, he has already addressed the need for parents to turn off the TV, to read to their children, and instill in them a lifelong love of learning. He has also encouraged absent fathers to connect with their children and employers to provide more work-family balance for their employees, but he could do more in these critical opportunity-enhancing domains involving stronger families and better parenting.

Finally, he can look for areas where there is likely to be common ground with Republicans. One example that I have written about elsewhere is my proposal to provide a temporary super deduction for charitable giving. The proposal would create jobs, help nonprofits, and provide some tax relief for the very wealthy who are especially civic-minded while asking those intent on keeping their wealth to pay higher taxes, both on their incomes and on their estates.

To be sure, these are small-bore ideas, and will not solve all of the problems facing the middle class, but we should not minimize the power of the President to set an agenda and influence behavior in ways both large and small.

Authors

Isabel V. Sawhill

Image Source: © Larry Downing / Reuters

Restoring Marriage Will Be Difficult

Isabel V. Sawhill — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: The below is a reaction to “The President’s Marriage Agenda for the Forgotten Sixty Percent,” a report featured in this year’s issue of State of Our Unions, an annual journal published by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and the Center for Marriage and Families at the Institute for American Values.

This report sounds an alarm about marriage trends in middle class America. It is full of important facts and citations to the literature. Indeed, I know of no better source for such information than the Institute for American Values and the National Marriage Project. As the authors note, marriage is alive and well among the best educated but rapidly disappearing among those with less than a college degree. What we are seeing is alternative living arrangements that have spread from the poor, and especially poor blacks, to the rest of society. The consequences for children and for society have been far from benign.

Against this backdrop, the authors argue for a more muscular response including: ending marriage penalties in tax and benefit programs, providing help to less skilled men so that they can become better marriage partners, more investment in marriage and relationship education, and a more robust effort by civil society to restore a marriage culture.

While I am deeply sympathetic to most of this report’s conclusions and to the wake-up call it embodies, I have three reactions that I believe need to be part of this discussion.

First, I am conflicted. My right brain says that marriage is a good thing for all the reasons enumerated in the report. My left brain says that we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. It may be possible to slow the decline in marriage but I am increasingly doubtful that it can be resurrected in its 20th century form. The interesting question is what form will the much greater diversity of living arrangements take in the future. I suspect marriage as we have known it is not coming back. A combination of greater affluence, more gender equality, and changes in attitudes are conspiring against a restoration.

Second, I am somewhat less optimistic than the authors about the ability of their policy agenda to make much of a difference. In part, this reflects my belief that the trends we are witnessing are deep seated and that the authors’ preferred policies, while perfectly sensible and probably helpful on the margins, are swimming against a tide that is too strong to be reversed. Moreover, the research on what such policies have accomplished to date is not very reassuring.

Third, like the authors, I am concerned about the consequences. However, I put greater faith in policies and messaging that encourage young adults to defer childbearing until they are ready to be parents — or to not become parents at all. If childless adults do not marry, whatever the consequences for them, it does not significantly harm others. The problem for single parents is not that they are single; it is that they are parents as well. Parenting is hard enough for married parents; it is even more difficult for those who must do it alone. I say this realizing that many single parents did not choose this role. But then I am reminded of the fact that 70 percent of pregnancies to single women under 30 are unintended. Something is wrong in an era when many effective forms of contraception are available and often subsidized, yet the vast majority of young adults are still not taking responsibility for the consequences of their sexual encounters. In addition, while the policy hurdles to successfully providing young adults with the motivation and the means to prevent unwanted pregnancies and births are high, the task seems to me to be less daunting than an effort to bring back marriage.

In sum, by all means let’s work to restore marriage as the best environment in which to raise children but at the same time let’s stop the epidemic of unplanned childbearing that creates unwed (or temporarily cohabiting) mothers in the first place.

Authors

Isabel V. Sawhill

Publication: Family Scholars

Gun Control and the Political Climate: A Live Web Chat with John Hudak

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:30:00 -0500

Event Information

December 20, 2012
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM EST

Online Only
The Brookings Institution

Washington, DC

On Friday, December 11, the United States experienced unimaginable horror following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. In the wake of this tragedy, as the nation mourns for the victims and their loved ones, policy makers and the public are raising vital questions about how to stop this cycle of violence. What role should the government play in limiting access to dangerous weapons? What can be done to ensure Americans are receiving the mental healthcare they need? Will politicians to take meaningful action in the near future?

On December 20, John Hudak took your questions in a live web chat moderated by Andrea Drusch at POLITICO. Read a full transcript of the chat below.

1:30 Andrea Drusch: Welcome everyone, let's get started.

1:30 John Hudak: Good afternoon: I'm glad you could all join me today for a policy discussion I wish I did not have to have. The shootings in Newtown, CT have affected all of us in an emotional way. As an American, I am appalled at what a fellow American wanted to do to a group of innocents. As a Connecticut native, I mourn with my state through one of the worst tragedies in our history.

I have written on this issue in the past week, a thought piece about the best way to go about policy making in the near term (it is available on the www.brookings.edu website), and I hope to engage this discussion in a more detailed way today. I welcome your questions.

1:30 Comment from Don: In my opinion, this is a gun control issue. If we highlight the other moving parts (mental health, etc.), do we risk weakening pressure on officials to reform gun control? That is - shouldn't we be one united voice for one issue in the wake of this tragedy?

1:32 John Hudak: No, Don, this is precisely the problem with policy making in the US and often abroad. We address policy problems with partial solutions and then call those solutions a failure. The events of the past week, month, and past year involving these incidents must be solved through a series of steps, not a single path. We must engage all of these areas if we want policy that means improvement.

1:33 John Hudak: In fact, in terms of a pure legislative bargaining perspective, engaging other areas of policy may help gather support among other members less ready to commit on the gun issue if they see the gun issue is not taking center stage and viewed as the singular problem.

1:33 Comment from Brian: What do you think it says about our political system that it takes something this bad to provide motivation for reform?

1:35 John Hudak: I think you're right, Brian, that it is unfortunate that we need tragedies to address problems. However, this is not something unique to our political system. As we have been reminded of stories over the past week from the UK, Australia and other countries, with dramatically different (and perhaps more efficient) political systems, they, too, often need tragedies to address policy concerns. We often see this outside of gun violence. It has been true across the world in responses to terrorism, in the improvement of disease prevention, in the testing of pharmaceuticals, and even in the growth and development of democracy.

1:35 Comment from Christine: Can you speak to the actual politics at play— what are the chances we'll push meaningful legislation through Congress. The assault weapon ban?

1:37 John Hudak: The politics here are tough, as they’re always tough on the gun control issue. Groups are entrenched, well-funded and have access. And even if you don't believe the NRA or other groups are as powerful as many think, they remain a power among certain segment of Congress and the broader population and are likely to influence this process. For Republicans who want to have looser gun regulations, they have a benefit on their side--the status quo. The legislative process in the US is biased toward the status quo as leg. action is difficult and faces many stages where failure is easy. 1:38 John Hudak: However, the Newtown tragedy brings a window in which action may happen. The media narrative and public opinion will render (regardless of its true power) gun rights groups to be the least powerful they have been in a long time. Similarly, it is hard to stand up against reasonable, reasoned and useful gun control regulations.

1:39 John Hudak: However, for Democrats, there are challenges, too. They need to approach this from a realistic perspective. If they try to do too much, they will do nothing. They need to understand where public opinion is, and where the preferences are within Congress and address policy options that are possible, rather than perfect.

1:40 John Hudak: Failure, in this context, is very easy. Success requires strategy and hard work. We're in an environment where gun regulation is going to be more possible than it may ever have been, but it remains far from a sure thing.

1:40 Comment from Benjamin: What did you think of the "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother" piece that was circulating in the days after Sandy Hook? Sure mental health plays a part in this, but ultimately we have a bigger cultural problem with guns, in my opinion. Other countries have mentally ill citizens. They don't have as many mass shootings.

1:42 John Hudak: I think the "I Am.." piece is very powerful, and addresses a serious issue in the US that is partly related to this tragedy and one that is much larger than this tragedy. Mental Health Care in the US must be address in a more systematic and powerful way. As I wrote in my piece from Monday. Mental illness is likely to touch everyone--directly or indirectly--in their lifetime in one way or another. To blame Newtown entirely on a gun culture is extremely naive. Yes, other cultures have mentally ill citizens. However, that does not mean we cannot do a better job.

1:44 John Hudak: Across the world, access the mental health care varies. I am not saying that there is a relationship between access and decreased violence. Though that is certainly a question that I'm sure has been and/or should be explored. However, we cannot look at this as simply a guns issue. Guns play a role, surely, and policies can and should be amended to keep guns out of the hands of those most dangerous or ill. However, the mentally ill can hurt society in a variety of ways, guns, knives, bombs, etc. Newtown has shown us that guns can perpetuate horrific tragedy on us. But so does mental illness that goes untreated.

1:45 Comment from Anonymous: What policy failures have we made that allowed this to happen?

1:48 John Hudak: This is a very interesting question. By all accounts, CT's gun laws are among the most strict in the country. The security at this school was fairly advanced. Yet, this tragedy still happened. The access to guns that can cause enormous harm in a very rapid timeframe, surely, had an effect here and access to those guns can turn problematic.

Yet, we must reconsider the access to guns--direct or indirect--that the mentally ill have as a policy concern. As we learn more about this tragedy and the situation that played out in the Lanza house, we must consider how much we allow children and those with serious illness to have access to recreational weapon usage. It is certain warning signs were there, and that people may have observed this individual using firearms, knowing he should not have. How we engage these issues will matter substantially.

1:50 John Hudak: However, we should not think only about policy failure. What in the system worked. What in the system helped stop or slow this tragedy. Surely, the system of access to the school slowed the shooter. Maybe that saved 5 or 10 lives, compared to a school that was more easily accessible. Reports suggest the individual tried to purchase a gun at an earlier date but could not. We must not only look at what failed, but what helped or was geared in the right direction.

1:50 Comment from Taylor S.: Is this a federal issue? Won't there be concerns at the state level on mandating an overhaul on gun control?

1:52 John Hudak: Absolutely. We cannot think of this as simply a federal issue. States should and must do what they can to learn from this tragedy and others like it to strengthen gun laws, improve school safety, engage preparedness policies, and improve access to and quality of mental health care. That said, there will be states that move on these issues quickly and ones that refuse to do anything. It is in the latter that federal action is so critical. Gun violence affects every state, and every state should do more to stop it. Yet, every state will not, unless federal measures use good, sound policy and empirical evidence to change the manner in which laws protect our citizens.

1:52 Comment from Jim: Was the NRA right to stay quiet all weekend?

1:53 John Hudak: Yes. Anything the NRA says in this scenario will get examined under a microscope. Whether you think that is right or not, it was likely better for investigators to do their work and families to mourn their losses without 100 questions being asked about the "NRA reaction"

1:54 Comment From Hugh: There appear to be some obvious actions that could attract sufficiently large voting coalitions - restrictions on sales and ownership of automatic/assault weapons, large capacity magazines, and certain types of ammunition.

1:57John Hudak: This is exactly on the right track, Hugh. What gun control advocates and their supporters in Congress must think about policy changes in a discrete way with proposals that can get passed. High capacity magazines, certain specific types of guns, access limitations for those with violent histories, etc may be very "passable." What would be absolutely wrong on this would be to try sweeping, broad, vague legislation that fails to use useful demonstrable evidence of effectiveness. It will not get passed and then the window in which real policy change is possible will close. Gun control advocates must respect the views of the other side and account for them or risk effecting no policy change.

1:57 Comment from Anonymous: Because Lanza obtained the gun from his mother, who was, arguably not mentally ill, doesn't that simply (again) reflect a need for more overall gun control?

2:00 John Hudak: What it tells us is that we need to think of gun control as more than a purchaser-seller relationship. Gun safety starts at the point of sale, and continues into the home, into the automobile, onto the person carrying or concealing a firearm, and onto a gun range. Many of these areas and scenarios are regulated, some are not. We need to think more broadly about what can be done within homes and other areas to stop this. Perhaps regulation is not the answer. Perhaps it is an information campaign or subsidies for safe storage units or assistance and training on how best to keep weapons in a house will children or those with illness. Or perhaps regulation is best. But something must be engaged on this point to think more broadly about safety and control.

2:02 John Hudak: Thanks everyone for some great questions. This is a serious issue and I hope all of you will help assist your communities in addressing policy concerns like these and others. I also encourage you to donate to many of the causes helping to assist the victims' families in Newtown include Newtown United Way and others. This work must continue and the people in these communities need any assistance possible.

I expect in the future, I will write more on this issue. Feel free to find these works, and ones by my colleagues at www.brookings.edu and if you would like, follow me on Twitter @JohnJHudak.

Thank you.

2:02 Andrea Drusch: Thanks everyone for your questions, see you next time.

On Establishing a Commission to Develop Recommendations for Reducing Child Deaths Due to Maltreatment

Bill Frenzel — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:06:00 -0500

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

My name is Bill Frenzel. I am a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, but my testimony today is mine only and has nothing to do with Brookings.

I have been advised by your fine staff to concentrate my remarks on the commission, its structure, its outlook, and possible results. I have served on several commissions: (1) the National Economic Commission in 1988, appointed by the President and Congressional leaders; (2) The President’s Advisory Commission on Social Security in 2001 and 2002; (3) The President’s Advisory Commission on Tax Reform 2005; (4) the President’s Advisory Commission on Trade Policy and Negotiations from 2001 to date; and (5) several private commissions, most notably the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, from 2003 to 2007.

The first three of the above were colossal failures. The Pew Commission was judged successful, even though some of its most important recommendations were enacted long after it had disbanded. I have some opinions on how best to structure and manage a government (or private) commission. Mostly they depend on what the commission is intended to do. Some of them follow.

Appointing Authority
Presidentially appointed commissions, and those appointed jointly by the President and Congressional leaders carry substantial prestige, and few potential appointees have nerve enough to decline them. They, however, are more appropriate for frontline issues, and they labor in the national spotlight. None have been successful in my memory except the Social Security Commission in 1982 and 1983, and a couple of base closing commissions.

If you want it to be on the six o’clock news, have the President appoint the commission. If you want results, you may want to choose another appointing authority.

Presidential problems abound. Presidents like to stack commissions with people to whom they owe something. You will get good people, but they may not exactly be the qualified people you want. You may not get geographical distribution you want. You may not get other balances you seek.

Worst of all, Presidents are too busy. If recommendations are not a slam dunk, or important enough, they lie there and die. I believe that is what happened to President George Bush’s Tax Reform Commission in 2005, or more recently to President Obama’s Fiscal (Bowles-Simpson) Commission.

If the commission’s sponsors can advise the legislative leaders on appointments (I presume they can), it will be much easier to get the skills and experience, the regional balance, and such other balances as are thought necessary, through Congressional appointment. Here I assume that child mistreatment is not a subject that will engender partisan problems, and that House and Senate sponsors themselves can agree on commission member selection. Net, I believe that Congressional appointment is more likely to produce a better distribution, and better talent, and a better outcome, than if the President is involved.

Size
Less than a dozen members won’t give you the geographical nor the experience spread you will need. More than 20 is likely to cause difficulties of less than orderly process. The draft bill of Congressmen Doggett and Camp has it about right, although I believe 15 to 18 is optimal, particularly if you choose leaders as described below.

You will also have to have a method for replacing members who are obliged, for reasons of health, family, etc., to leave the commission.

Qualifications
This subject is not my strong suit, but, in general, the draft bill covers the waterfront well. It also describes millions of people, and you want the very best. Your staff will have to call in the best advisors it can locate to identify the best of the best, both in talent and temperament. And don’t eliminate all lobbyists. They can’t taint this kind of commission.

I hate to mention the phrase, but bi-partisan cooperation will produce the best commission. One of my Pew Commission’s greatest strengths was that if anyone knew anybody else’s party leanings, they were never mentioned. Members could have been all Democrats , or all Republicans. What mattered was their experience and their unrelenting desire to help children.

Because that also matters in this case, the House and Senate sponsors of this commission should be able to agree on a slate and to convince the leadership appointers to ratify it.

Regionality
The kind of people you choose for the commission will mostly be nationally known, and will know others of national renown in their fields. But America is pretty big, and communities, states and regions are different, even when pursuing the same goals. You need wide geographical and cultural distribution on your commission.

The locals will know all the other good locals, and they will be helped by the local peers who seek the same outcomes the commission seeks. You can never cover all the bases, nor get perfect representation, but you need to make a good try.

However, I believe it would be unwise to write distribution requirements into the bill. They would be long and confining. I believe that the sponsors, aided by the Subcommittee staffs will understand their responsibility to take geography into careful account.

Congressional membership
This is for you to determine. My own feeling is that members of Congress ought to be committed to other duties, and are too busy to be dependable members of such a commission. If you put one member of Congress on the commission, with two houses and two parties you will have to have at least four members of Congress, and that may make it impossible to include the other experiences and talents you want on the commission. I would not preclude members of Congress, but neither would I appoint any to this kind of commission.

Commission Leadership
When you assemble an all-star line-up of commissioners, with experience and ability, you may find among them a natural leader who can manage the work plan, handle the schedules, instill a sense of practicality, keep the commissioners happy and engaged, and maintain regular communication with this Subcommittee and its staff. That is possible, but it’s also highly unlikely.

If my Pew experience is any guide, it is a good idea to go outside the fields of endeavor for leadership. I believe I was chosen as Chair precisely because I had no experience in foster care. The same may a little less true of the Co-Chair, former Congressman Bill Gray. Having multiple leaders, a Democrat and a Republican, was for optics. In practice, either of us could have done, and did, the same job.

My highly subjective recommendation is that you pick a former member of Congress, or two, for the Chair.

She/he might, or might not, have experience in the field (from this subcommittee, for instance). More than keeping the program on the move in businesslike manner, the chair has to remind, constantly, the real enthusiasts on the commission that perfection in recommendations is not always possible in a contentious and budget-restricted Congress, and that a consensus report multiplies its impact.

Consensus
Unanimity is contrary to human nature, but commission reports have far greater impact if they represent a consensus of the full commission. Minority or dissenting remarks may often be appropriate, and they may make the objectors fell better, but they really weaken the thrust of the report. In a child maltreatment commission, every effort must be made to have a unanimous set of recommendations.

Consensus seeking is a duty of leadership. It’s one more reason in favor of appointing some kind of professional chair, or chairs, who can encourage commission members to hang together.

Congressional Approval
When the commission reports, its recommendations may include requests for Congressional actions of some sort. It is highly desirable that this subcommittee react to those recommendations as swiftly as possible. The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care referred to earlier, reported in 2005, had part of its recommendations enacted that year, but some not until 2008.

The Report will also include recommendations for state and local government units in all branches, and for private organizations, too. Those units can move without federal approval, but the federal blessing will nurture far more enthusiasm.

Honoraria
First-class people will fight to get on this commission. You should pay their necessary expenses of travel, etc., but it is not necessary to award them honoraria. After you hire a first staff and pay commissioners’ expenses, there won’t be much money left anyway.

Staff
$2 million won’t buy a large staff, but you won’t need many people, because plenty of resources, private and governmental, national and local will be available to the commission. The staff should be competent, but lean, less than 10. It does not have to do the research. It just has to sort it out. Spare no expense on a first-rate staff director. She/he will save you a bundle in the long run.

Your staff, and the Senate’s, ought to help the commission and its staff director identify and recruit the staff, but the commission needs to maintain its independence.

Operations, Hearings, etc.
Other things being equal, the commission should do its business here in Washington. Its staff should be here, in close contact with your own staff and with other federal agencies.. Hearings in other locations sound like wonderful ideas, and sometimes are, but field hearings usually turn out to be mostly for show. It is usually cheaper to bring commissioners to Washington than to New York, LA, or

Chicago. It will be hard to find child mistreatment in the boondocks. I believe that you will find witnesses happy to come to Washington to testify about their local conditions.

However, the commission may find it necessary and helpful to travel to national meetings of court personnel, and governmental or private organizations. There is a cost, but to learn and to inspire, such meetings may be needed.

Term
I believe the draft bill has the term limits thing right. Two years is plenty. More time means the idea will get stale. However, depending on the date of creation, please be sure the final Report due date does not occur in an election year.

Budget
I lack experience and information to analyze the budget. It appears adequate if you don’t pay commission members. A lean staff alone, as I have described it, depending on quality and experience, might cost as much as half your budget annually. I don’t suggest raising the budget (you will have trouble enough with $2 million), but I do suggest consulting a HR specialist in some of the fields described so that you will have an idea of the costs. If you can arrange to use federal facilities (one advantage of Presidential appointment), you could save a bundle on rental costs.

Purpose
The commission is intended, I believe, to shine a light on an important problem, to inspire citizens, organizations, and various governmental units to combat it, and to develop recommendations for them to make substantial reductions in child mistreatment and fatalities. It will have recommendations for every person and agency involved, and it is likely to recommend changes in national policies.

The draft bill’s instructions to federal agencies to report to Congress in 6 months is a great idea. In addition the commission ought to report recommended changes in law directly to this Subcommittee and its Senate counterpart. As noted above, if Congress does not take the commission seriously, nobody else will either.

I request unanimous consent that this written testimony be made a part of the record. I will answer questions as best as I am able.

Authors

Bill Frenzel

Publication: House Committee on Ways and Means

Keep the Recovery Going with a Temporary Super Deduction for Charitable Giving

Isabel V. Sawhill — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

With the fiscal cliff looming, there is a risk that even a partial slide off the cliff will slow or reverse the recovery. One way to cope with such a risk is to provide a temporary or accelerated deduction for charitable giving. The basic idea is to provide a large incentive for people to spend money now rather than later, thereby creating jobs, but in a way that would be acceptable to both political parties.

The President has proposed that current tax rates be extended for the middle class but allowed to expire for the wealthy. Republicans are arguing that any tax increase at this time is unacceptable. Even though estimates suggest that no more than 2 percent of all households and 3 percent of all small businesses would be affected by allowing tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, the Republican concern is that this would retard economic recovery.

There are any number of possible compromises that might split the difference between these two partisan views. One would be to change the definition of “wealthy” to include just those with incomes over $500,000 or even $1,000,000. Another would be to raise revenues not by changing rates but instead by limiting deductions for those in the higher brackets as the President himself has proposed in recent budgets.

I want to propose still another idea that has the potential to help break the political gridlock. It would allow rates on the wealthy to rise as they are scheduled to do in January but include a new but temporarily higher deductions for charitable giving.

The new deduction for charitable giving would only be in effect for one or two years but it would be substantial. For example, a gift of $1,000 that would reduce a high-income household’s taxes by almost $400 under the new top marginal rate, might be increased by 50 percent, bringing it to $600. The incentive to give now rather than later would be correspondingly heightened. Based on evidence on the responsiveness of donations to the price of giving, charitable giving might rise by as much as 50 percent as a result (although much less than this over the longer-run).

The rationale for this proposal is threefold. First, it would create jobs. The recovery is still very fragile and by increasing the value of the charitable deduction but making it temporary we would move a lot of charitable giving into a period when increased spending is needed. The nonprofit sector is much larger than most people realize, accounting for 1 out of every 10 jobs in the economy. Under my proposal, the affluent would have less after-tax income as their taxes rose but they would also have a much bigger incentive to spend rather than save out of all of their income as well as their wealth over the next year or two. Under some reasonable assumptions the net effect on jobs and the economy would be positive.

Second, the option of keeping their taxes low by increasing their charitable giving would take some of the sting out of higher tax rates on the wealthy. If they hate seeing more of their money going to Uncle Sam, they have a new way to avoid paying taxes. Although the super-deduction for charitable giving would not last forever, it might encourage some affluent households to get off the sidelines and help to establish the philanthropic habit that has always distinguished the United States from other countries.

Third, the nonprofit sector would benefit. Given the need for major spending cuts over the next decade, the voluntary sector is going to need to fill some big holes in everything from the social safety net to community services. Charitable organizations vary enormously from those that support the arts, education, and health to those that provide assistance to the poor and to local community organizations of all kinds. Healthy competition among all of these organizations insures that the money is spent in line with public preferences and not according to bureaucratic dictates from Washington.

Some careful thought would need to be devoted to the details of such a plan. Would faith-based organizations that claim about a third of total charitable giving be eligible? Would there be limits on the amount going to endowments versus operating expenses in the affected nonprofits? Should the types of charitable entities as opposed to all 501(c)3 organizations be specified in the law? These decisions could be negotiated along with the size and timing of the super-deduction.

To be clear, this proposal is no substitute for a broader effort to reform the tax system which will likely move in the direction of limiting most, if not all, deductions. It is a short-term measure that deals with some of the fiscal drag associated with the cliff, makes raising taxes on the wealthy more palatable, and temporarily boosts the health of the voluntary sector. Over the longer term, it might be combined with a hard cap of $35,000 on deductions starting in 2014, but a cap that excludes charitable giving as proposed by the think tank, Third Way.

Authors

Isabel V. Sawhill

Publication: Yahoo! Finance

A New Look at How the Tax Code Works for Working Families

Elizabeth Kneebone — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:00:00 -0500

As the clock ticks down to January 1, and lawmakers try to hash out a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff and address the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, new data on taxpayers in the United States--collected from federal tax returns and available down to the ZIP code level through Brookings’ EITC Interactive--provide an important perspective on the impact of the tax code on families and communities across the country.

For instance, the latest EITC Interactive data--which represent tax returns filed in January through June of 2011--show that key provisions in the tax code proved responsive to the Great Recession, helping working families to weather the downturn.

Roughly one in five tax filers claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in TY2010--a tax break for workers with low incomes--compared to 16 percent of filers in TY2007. In part the increase in EITC receipt reflects rising unemployment and falling incomes that may have led more workers to become eligible for the credit, but it also reflects targeted expansions to the credit made through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to help strengthen the safety net and stimulate local economies.

In TY2010, nine states saw anywhere from one quarter to one third of their taxpayers claim the EITC, led by Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and Arkansas. And 10 states experienced an uptick in the rate of EITC receipt of 5 percentage points or more over the course of the recession, led by Mississippi, Georgia, Arizona, Idaho, and Tennessee. No state experienced a decrease in EITC receipt during the downturn.
More than half (60 percent) of EITC filers also benefitted from the refundable portion of the Child Tax Credit (ACTC) in TY2010--a tax benefit for low- and moderate-income working families with children that was also expanded temporarily through ARRA—compared to 45 percent in TY2007.
All together, EITC filers claimed an average credit of $2,247 in TY2010, and for those EITC filers who who received it, the ACTC boosted the average refund by $1,234.

See the map: Share of Filers Claiming EITC by State, Tax Year 2010

The release of the Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) last week underscores the importance of these tax credits for low-income working families. If it weren’t for the EITC and ACTC, the Census Bureau estimates that the U.S. poverty rate in 2011 would have been 2.8 percentage points higher, at 18.9 percent. The impact on child poverty would have been even greater: without these credits the child poverty rate would have reached 24.4 percent rather than 18.1 percent under the SPM definition.

Though the SPM is not available for smaller, sub-state geographies, through Brookings’ EITC Interactive policymakers and other stakeholders can find estimates of the number of filers benefitting from these credits--and the dollar amounts claimed--for every congressional and state legislative district in the country, and for every ZIP code, municipality, county, metro area, and state.

Contrary to Mitt Romney’s narrative about the 47 percent “takers” and giveaways to the Democratic base, these data show that the impact of these credits is far-reaching and broadly shared (as the list of “red” states above suggests)--crossing party and geographic lines to reach struggling working families at tax time. And that phrase bears repeating: These are taxpayers who are working.

Part of welfare reform in the late 1990s was an explicit decision to do less via traditional cash assistance and do more through the tax code to encourage work. Years’ worth of research illustrates the success of the EITC as a policy to promote work and better economic outcomes for low-income families. Updated profiles of the EITC-eligible population in TY2010 give greater insight into who these taxpayers are. More than three-quarters of these taxpayers live in family units; more than 54 percent are white; and almost half (46 percent) have some higher education. The typical EITC-eligible taxpayer has an adjusted gross income of just $13,905, and is most likely to have earned that income working in the retail, health care, accommodation and food service, construction, and manufacturing industries. These are workers filling the increasing number of low-wage service sector jobs the economy has been churning out in recent years, and in industries that bore the brunt of the latest downturn.

Discussions over the fiscal cliff and longer-term tax reform will inevitably include calls for more taxpayers to have “skin in the game.” But that’s not only a distraction from the real issues, it’s a distortion of reality. We made a choice in the 1980s and the 1990s to support work and alleviate poverty through the federal income tax. And all the evidence--federal, state, and local--shows that it’s working, for a broad base of Americans. Taxing hard-working families deeper into poverty is no fix for our short- or long-run budget problems.

Authors

Elizabeth Kneebone

Publication: The Avenue, The New Republic

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