As part of our ongoing commitment–in partnership with The Urban Institute–to providing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones, please find below summary of recent research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families.
This research is summarized and compiled for The Women’s Foundation by Kerstin Gentsch of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.
Financial Education and Wealth Creation
Some Thoughts About New and Old Asset-Promotion Policies
By Robert I. Lerman
Urban Institute
June 2007
Provides methodological guidance about how to best view and evaluate policies on helping people build assets.
Despite a plethora of proposals for helping people build assets, policy researchers have provided little methodological guidance about how best to view and evaluate these policies. This paper is an initial attempt to move in this direction, drawing on methods for assessing income-tested and social insurance programs and on analyses of public policies dealing with savings, investments, and risks. It examines whether and in what ways the traditional criteria of incentives, progressivity, and equity apply to an assessment of asset-building policies. Further, it discusses how to design an asset policy to deal with the potential social dislocations arising from gentrification.
For abstract and introduction.
For full report.
Eligibility for Child Tax Credit by Age of Child
By Leonard E. Burman and Laura Wheaton
Urban Institute
May 22, 2007
Examines child tax credit eligibility by age of child.
The child tax credit (CTC) is a $1,000 partially refundable federal income tax credit for each qualifying child under age 17. In 2007, tax filers may claim a refundable credit (over and above any tax liability) equal to 15 percent of the excess of earnings over $11,750, up to the $1,000 maximum per child. The earnings threshold means that families with very low incomes get no benefit from the credit, and others will receive only a partial credit. This brief analysis shows that many families with young children tend have lower incomes and are thus left out. In 2007, 30 percent of qualifying children under age 2 in working families had family incomes too low to benefit from the full credit, compared with 27 percent of children overall and 24 percent of children 10 and older.
For abstract and excerpt.
For full report.
Jobs and Business Ownership News
Reducing Poverty in Washington, D.C. and Rebuilding the Middle Class from Within
By Martha Ross and Brooke DeRenzis
The Brookings Institution
March 2007
Makes a set of recommendations for a workforce development strategy that will increase the skills, earnings, and employment of at least 10,500 low-income, low-skilled residents over the next seven years.
Washington D.C. has experienced job growth, increases in city revenues, and a development boom over the past several years, but too many residents are excluded from local and regional prosperity. Ensuring the District’s future as a vibrant, inclusive city depends on a commitment to increase the middle class from within. This paper from Brookings Greater Washington makes a set of focused recommendations for a workforce development strategy that will increase the skills, earnings, and employment of at least 10,500 low-income, low-skilled residents over the next seven years.
Workforce development, however, should be seen as part of a broader strategy to move the working poor into the middle class. Even with enhanced education and job placement services, many residents will continue to work in low-wage jobs. Polices and programs that support employment and create financial incentives to work can help residents in low-wage jobs make ends meet.
Additionally, an unstable housing situation can make it difficult to find and keep a job or participate in workforce programs. This paper proposes increasing assistance to alleviate the severe housing shortage experienced by the lowest-wage workers. To help working households stay in the city as their incomes increase, this paper also recommends developing workforce rental housing for middle-income families.
By helping more residents enter and advance in the workforce, the city can begin to steady its fiscal base while blurring economic, racial, and geographic divides.
For summary.
For full report.
An Economy that puts families first: Expanding the social contract to include family care
By Heidi Hartmann, Aariane Hegewisch, and Vicky Llovell
Economic Policy Institute
May 24, 2007
Focuses on the policy gaps that must be filled to make U.S. workplaces more family friendly.
A comprehensive family policy program is needed to make the U.S. economy more family friendly and to enable workers to combine work and family responsibilities more easily. Such a program is part of a new social contract that should spread the costs of family care beyond the immediate family and help redistribute the burden of care more equitably between men and women within the family. The comprehensive program laid out throughout this briefing paper is ambitious and complex. Here we offer our priorities for policy making in the United States during the next five to 10 years. We present these priorities using our framework of three types of policies: those that subsidize the cost of care; those that provide income replacement while workers are providing care; and those that lead employers to change their behavior and make the jobs they offer more family friendly. We select these priorities based on need and practicality. In virtually all cases workable models exist. Most are not especially expensive, costing less, for example, than the deductibility of mortgage interest costs on owner-occupied housing in the federal personal income tax system.
For full report.
Framework for a New Safety Net for Low-Income Working Families
By Olivia Golden, Pamela Winston, Gregory Acs, Ajay Chaudry
Urban Institute
June 2007
Conceptualizes a framework for a new safety net for low-income working families that is rooted in their most essential needs.
The report is organized around five key goals:
1. Enabling parents to meet their family’s needs while working in lower-wage jobs.
2. Helping families weather gaps in parental employment.
3. Supporting parents’ job advancement.
4. Helping parents combine work and child-rearing.
5. Improving children’s well-being and development.
The paper describes these families’ circumstances, discusses gaps in current safety-net programs, and explores possible alternative approaches to meeting families’ most pressing needs.
For abstract and introduction.
For full report.
Child Care and Early Education News
Making Pre-kindergarten Work for Low-income Working Families
By Rachel Schumacher, Katie Hamm, and Danielle Ewen
Center for Law and Social Policy
June 2007
Based on a review of the first in-depth national research on the 29 states that, as of 2004, allowed mixed delivery in their pre- kindergarten programs. The review focused on promising practices and ideas for improvement.
- Provides evidence that policymakers need to review their pre-kindergarten initiatives to ensure maximum access for children in working families, especially low income children.
- Describes some models states and localities are using to be responsive to low-income working families’ needs by delivering pre-kindergarten in community-based settings.
- Highlights key strategies to address the needs of low income working families and examines the extent to which state pre-kindergarten policies currently do so.
For full report.
Reforming the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit
By Jeff Rohaly
Urban Institute
June 11, 2007
Examines the revenue and distributional implications of making the CDCTC fully refundable.
The child and dependent care tax credit (CDCTC) is a nonrefundable tax credit designed to help offset the expenses of providing care for children under the age of 13 or disabled dependents as long as a parent or caretaker is working or searching for work. In theory, a low-income family can qualify for a maximum $2,100 credit. The credit is not refundable, however, and families with low incomes generally owe little or no income tax. Thus, the theoretical maximum rarely applies in practice. This paper examines the revenue and distributional implications of making the CDCTC fully refundable.
For abstract and introduction.
For full report.
Early Head Start and Teen Parent Families: Partnerships for Success
Center for Law and Social Policy
June 2007
Examines the special needs of eligible low-income pregnant women and mothers with infants and toddlers, many of whom are teen parent families, and highlights promising Early Head Start programs.
Teen parent families may face increased risks for child abuse and neglect and for disabilities and developmental delays in children. Studies have shown that teen parent participation in EHS programs helps improve child development and parenting behavior and increases economic self-sufficiency and the family’s ability to access support services.
The report highlights the importance of increased collaboration between EHS programs and other systems serving teen parent families, especially child protective services and early intervention programs. EHS can collaborate with the child welfare system to prevent child abuse and neglect by teaching teenage parents appropriate parenting techniques, improving their knowledge of child development, and connecting them to support services. EHS programs can also identify children who may have disabilities and facilitate access to appropriate services.
The full report is based on discussion and findings from a 2-day meeting of EHS providers
For Department of Health & Human Services summary.
For full report.
Men’s Pregnancy Intentions and Prenatal Behaviors: What They Mean for Fathers’ Involvement With Their Children
By Jacinta Bronte-Tinkew, Allison Horowitz, Elena Kennedy, and Kate Perper
Child Trends
June 2007
Presents information on what men report about their pregnancy intentions and their prenatal involvement, and examines the effects of these intentions and behaviors on men’s involvement with very young children following birth.
We found that although most resident fathers report that they wanted the pregnancy at the time or sooner, one in four reported that he did not want the pregnancy at all.
We also found that both fathers’ pregnancy intentions and their prenatal involvement differ by age and race/ethnicity. For example, teen fathers were the least likely to report that the pregnancy occurred at the right time and were the most likely to report that they had not wanted the pregnancy. Non-Hispanic black fathers and fathers of other ethnicities were more likely to report not wanting the pregnancy than were Hispanic or non-Hispanic white fathers. In addition, teen fathers and Hispanic fathers were less likely to demonstrate specific prenatal behaviors, compared with other fathers.
We also found that an unwanted pregnancy was associated with less warmth towards the infant but that a pregnancy that occurred later than the father wanted it to occur was associated with more nurturing behaviors.
Another important finding was that fathers who were more involved during pregnancy were also more likely to be involved in helping to rear the child in the first year of life. These fathers engaged in a higher level of cognitively stimulating activities with their very young children, showed more warmth and nurturing in their interactions with them, and provided more hands-on physical care.
For full report.
Other News and Research
What is Evidence-Based Practice?
By Allison J. R. Metz, Rachele Espiritu, and Kristin A. Moore
Child Trends
June 2007
Part 1 in a Series on Fostering the Adoption of Evidence-Based Practices in
Out-Of-School Time Programs.
The lag between discovering effective practices and using them “on the ground” can be unnecessarily long, sometimes taking 15 to 20 years! The purpose of this brief is to provide practitioners with a better understanding of evidence-based practice, and to share resources that can help bridge the research-to practice gap and reduce the lag time between the identification and application of evidence-based practice. Forthcoming briefs in this series will provide additional information on key aspects of adopting evidence-based practices including replication, program fidelity, and specific implementation strategies.
For full brief.
