Social Work/Social Action

Late Spring Links

2010-05-18T21:56:00.003-04:00

Inside a Payday Loan Shop

Save $90 Million by Malnourishing Children

How Low-Income Housing Causes Brain Damage

New Yorkers Fear Becoming Homeless

Welfare and Higher Education

Whatever Happened to Welfare Mothers?

The Tea Party Jacobins

Where Did They Go?

2010-03-30T11:23:00.002-04:00

The Times reports on the Last Homeless Man in Times Square:

As long as there have been homeless people sleeping in Times Square, there have been social workers and city officials trying to persuade them to leave.

In the past, the homeless were offered a free ride to one of the city’s warehouselike shelters. These days, workers for nonprofit groups help people move into apartments, keeping track as thenumber of the chronically homeless in Times Square goes down. According to their records, by 2005, there were only 55.

Last summer, it was down to 7.

Now there is one.

All Politics Still Local?

2010-03-22T11:22:00.001-04:00

From Nate Silver:

"In addition to almost 38,000 people living in shelters"

2010-03-20T10:32:00.002-04:00

From the NYT:

The Bloomberg administration said Friday that the number of people living on New York’s streets and subways soared 34 percent in a year, signaling a setback in one of the city’s most intractable problems.

Appearing both startled and dismayed by the sharp increase, a year after a significant drop, administration officials attributed it to the recession, noting that city shelters for families and single adults had been inundated.

Robert V. Hess, the commissioner of homeless services, said in a subdued news conference that the city began feeling the increase in its vast shelter system more than two years ago. “And now we’re seeing the devastating effect of this unprecedented poor economy on our streets as well,” Mr. Hess said.

The city’s annual tally indicated an additional 783 homeless people on the streets and in the subway system, for a total of 3,111, up from 2,328 last year. That is in addition to almost 38,000 people living in shelters, which is near the city’s high
. . . . . . . . . .
Last year, city officials said that the count revealed a 30 percent drop in the street homeless population since 2008, an announcement that was made at an elaborate news conference attended by volunteers, formerly homeless people and Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services, who spoke briefly.

This year’s event was quiet and spare by comparison. Ms. Gibbs’s commissioner, Mr. Hess, made the announcement in a conference room, seated at a long table.

The Milgram Experiments Updated

2010-03-18T10:22:00.001-04:00

We'll inflict pain if you put us on TV.

Prison[er] Count 2010

2010-03-18T10:16:00.001-04:00

From Pew Center on the States:

For the first time in nearly 40 years, the number of state prisoners in the United States has declined, according to Prison Count 2010," a new survey by the Pew Center on the States. As of January 2010, there were 1,403,091 persons under the jurisdiction of state prison authorities, 5,739 fewer than on December 31, 2008.
This marks the first year-to-year drop in the nation’s state prison population since 1972. While the study showed an overall decline, it revealed great variation among jurisdictions. The prison population declined in 27 states, while increasing in 23 states and in the federal system.
In the past few years, several states have enacted reforms designed to get taxpayers a better return on their public safety dollars. These strategies included:
• Diverting low-level offenders and probation and parole violators from prison
• Strengthening community supervision and re-entry programs
• Accelerating the release of low-risk inmates who complete risk reduction programs

Hunger and Obesity in the Bronx

2010-03-14T10:58:00.005-04:00

“If you look at rates of obesity, diabetes, poor access to grocery stores, poverty rates, unemployment and hunger measures, the Bronx lights up on all of those,” said Triada Stampas of the Food Bank for New York City. “They’re all very much interconnected.”

"If you could just walk in our shoes for two days. . . ."

2010-03-08T08:32:00.003-05:00

Low-income mothers and welfare recipients discuss the upcoming reauthorization of welfare reform; audio via the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Ron Haskins, at Brookings, surveys the landscape to gauge the likely areas of debate.

A Brief Primer on the Poor Federal Poverty Measure

2010-03-04T13:21:00.001-05:00

UPDATE: The Census Bureau lays out the plan for the new, alternative-but-only-supplemental poverty measure (SPM).

A Useful Reminder

2010-03-02T10:30:00.001-05:00

From Nate Silver.

"Homeland Insecurity"

2010-02-28T11:31:00.002-05:00

"I've discovered that if I don't die within the next two years, I won't be able to afford to live." HERE

45 Little Hoovers

2010-02-27T23:37:00.003-05:00

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports on state-level budget cuts:

Cuts Affect Wide Range of Services
States began cutting their budgets last spring, as the recession brought sharply weakened revenues. The cuts have intensified as the economy has worsened. Even as the need for state-funded services rose, states cut funding for services by 4 percent for fiscal year 2009 and an additional 4.8 percent for 2010, according to preliminary estimates by the National Association of State Budget Officers. These cuts are affecting important services. At least 45 states plus the District of Columbia have reduced services since the recession began. Service cuts with particular ramifications for vulnerable populations have occurred in the following areas:
Public health programs: At least 29 states have implemented cuts that will restrict low-income children’s or families’ eligibility for health insurance or reduce their access to health care services. For example, Rhode Island eliminated health coverage for 1,000 low-income parents; Minnesota is cancelling a health insurance program for 29,500 low-income adults; Tennessee has frozen enrollment in its state children’s health insurance program (CHIP); and California is increasing the costs borne by families of nearly 1 million children that participate in its CHIP program.Washington is increasing premiums by an average of 70 percent for a health plan serving low-income residents.
Programs for the elderly and disabled: At least 24 states plus the District of Columbia are cutting medical, rehabilitative, home care, or other services needed by low-income people who are elderly or have disabilities, or are significantly increasing the cost of these services. For example,Ohio made deep cuts to community mental health services and Arizona eliminated temporary health insurance for people with serious medical problems.
K-12 education: At least 29 states and the District of Columbia are cutting aid to K-12 schools and various education programs. California, Michigan, and Mississippi have made significant cuts to school aid. Hawaii is furloughing teachers for 17 days this year. A cut in funding means that as many as 10,000 children in Illinois may lose eligibility for early childhood education, and Massachusetts is reducing funding for a number of early care programs.
Higher education: At least 39 states have cut assistance to public colleges and universities, resulting in reductions in faculty and staff in addition to tuition increases. The University of California is increasing tuition by 32 percent. Tuition at all 11 public universities in Florida increased by 15 percent for the 2009-2010 school year. Students in Washington and other states face significant tuition increases as well, costing families hundreds of dollars per year. Michigan and New Mexico have made deep cuts to need-based financial aid programs.
State workforces: At least 42 states and the District of Columbia have made cuts affecting state government employees. At least 26 states have instituted hiring freezes, 14 states and the District of Columbia have announced layoffs, 26 have reduced state worker wages, and several have delayed scheduled pay increases (including cost of living adjustments). In total, state and local governments have eliminated a total of 151,000 jobs since August 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Additional workers have lost pay and benefits.

The full report is HERE.

Foreign Views of the US?

2010-02-27T11:25:00.000-05:00

City Limits on Harlem Children's Zone

2010-02-22T09:40:00.001-05:00

Food or Shoes?

2010-02-19T18:12:00.004-05:00

From Colorlines (h/t Poverty Law)

Since she was 16, Eva Hernández has worked a string of low-wage jobs. She’s prepared chicken at KFC, run the register at Dunkin Donuts, packed and sealed boxes at a produce company, and held other similar jobs in Hartford, Connecticut, where she was born and raised. These jobs haven’t paid enough for Eva, now 28, to support herself and her two young daughters. So for almost three years in the last decade, she’s relied on welfare to supplement her income. Most of the time, though, she’s simply found another low-wage job, a task that in this economy is proving almost impossible.

In March 2009, in the midst of the worst job crisis in at least a generation, Eva opened the last welfare check she will ever receive. She is one of a growing number of people in the United States who can’t find work in this recession but don’t qualify for government cash assistance, no matter how poor they are or how bad the economy gets.

Without the help of welfare, Eva doesn’t have enough money left at the end of each month to feed her daughters full meals. It is the first time in her life, she said, that she hasn’t had enough money for food.

Now, with no other source of income, Eva breaks the law, selling her food stamps to pay for the rent, phone bill, detergent and tampons.On the first day of each month, when her food stamps arrive, she walks to the convenience store up the street, buys food for her family with her food stamp card and uses it to pay off the debt she accumulated the previous month after she ran out of money. She then trades in the remaining balance for cash. Although the bodega is more expensive than larger chain grocery stores nearby, she’s locked into shopping here because places like Wal-Mart won’t let her keep a tab—or exchange her food stamps for desperately needed cash. . . . .

Read the rest.

UPDATE:

1 in 14

2010-02-19T08:22:00.002-05:00

From the NYT:

Here and in swaths of many cities, evictions from rental properties are so common that they are part of the texture of life. New research is showing that eviction is a particular burden on low-income black women, often single mothers, who have an easier time renting apartments than their male counterparts, but are vulnerable to losing them because their wages or public benefits have not kept up with the cost of housing.

And evictions, in turn, can easily throw families into cascades of turmoil and debt.

“Just as incarceration has become typical in the lives of poor black men, eviction has become typical in the lives of poor black women,” said Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin whose research on trends in Milwaukee since 2002 provides a rare portrait of gender patterns in inner-city rentals.

The study found that one of every 25 renter-occupied households in the city is evicted each year. In black neighborhoods, the rate is one in 14. These figures include only court-ordered evictions; the true toll, experts say, is greater because far more tenants, under threat of eviction, move in with relatives, into more run-down apartments or, sometimes, into homeless shelters.

One in Eight

2010-02-04T11:17:00.002-05:00

From Feeding America: they help supply food banks (warehouses stocked with food) which, in turn, deliver it to local soup kitchens (where you eat on site) or food pantries (where you can get bags of groceries to take home, if you have a home):

A landmark study released today from Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, reports that more than 37 million people, one in eight Americans -- including 14 million children and nearly 3 million seniors -- receive emergency food each year through the nation’s network of food banks and the agencies they serve. The findings represent a staggering 46 percent increase since the organization’s previously released study in 2006.
Hunger in America 2010 is the first research study to capture the significant connection between the recent economic downturn and an increased need for emergency food assistance. The number of children and adults in need of food as a result of experiencing food insecurity has significantly increased.
More than one in three client households are experiencing very low food security—or hunger—a 54 percent increase in the number of households compared to four years ago.
An estimated 5.7 million people receive emergency food assistance each week from a food pantry, soup kitchen, or other agency served by one of Feeding America’s more than 200 food banks. This is a 27 percent increase over numbers reported in Hunger in America 2006, which reported that 4.5 million people were served each week.
"Clearly, the economic recession, resulting in dramatically increasing unemployment nationwide, has driven unprecedented, sharp increases in the need for emergency food assistance and enrollment in federal nutrition programs,” said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America. “Hunger in America 2010 exposes the absolutely tragic reality of just how many people in our nation don’t have enough to eat. Millions our clients are families with children finding themselves in need of food assistance for the very first time.”
Many of the people served by Feeding America food banks report they are struggling with unemployment, difficult choices between food and other basic necessities along with the pressures of skyrocketing healthcare costs. While 36 percent of client households have at least one adult working, Hunger in America 2010 reports a 68 percent increase over four years ago in the number of adults seeking emergency food assistance who have been unemployed for under a year. More than 46 percent of clients served report having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food; 39 percent said they had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food; 34 percent report having to choose between paying for medical bills and food; and 35 percent must choose between transportation and food.
“It is morally reprehensible that we live in the wealthiest nation in the world where one in six people are struggling to make choices between food and other basic necessities,” said Escarra. “These are choices that no one should have to make, but particularly households with children. Insufficient nutrition has adverse effects on the physical, behavioral and mental health, and academic performance of children. It is critical that we ensure that no child goes to bed hungry in America as they truly are our engine of economic growth and future vitality.”
The methodology incorporated into the 2010 study includes data collected from February through June 2009. Feeding America collected quantitative feedback from 61,000 face-to-face in-depth interviews with people seeking emergency food assistance and more than 37,000 agency surveys, making this the largest, most comprehensive study ever conducted on domestic hunger. The results are based on surveys conducted at food pantries, soup kitchens, and other emergency feeding programs.
This report is based on independent research conducted on behalf of Feeding America by Mathematica Policy Research, a widely respected nonpartisan social policy research firm based in Princeton, New Jersey. Mathematica is nationally recognized as a leader in the field of human services research. Feeding America contracted with Mathematica to work with 185 network member participants who voluntarily agreed to collect data in their communities.
USDA reported in November 2009 that an estimated 49 million people, including 17 million children, are at risk of hunger. Hunger in America 2010 reinforces the dramatically increasing need for food assistance in the United States, with 70 percent of food pantries and soup kitchens and 73 percent of emergency shelters reporting that they are facing one or more problems that threaten their ability to continue operating. Problems relating to funds and food supplies were the two most commonly cited threats.
“While we have reached many more people over the past four years, the need of hungry Americans far outpaces our current level of service,” stated Escarra. “We will continue to partner with federal and state governments, corporate and individual donors and other hunger-relief organizations to bring more food and funds into the charitable distribution system and connect people with federal benefits until every man, woman and child has access to adequate food and nutrition.”
Among other key comparative findings in the report:
50 percent increase in the number of children served annually.
66 percent increase in the number of Hispanics served annually.
26 percent increase in the number of African-Americans served annually.
64 percent increase in the number of households with seniors facing very low food security—or hunger.
59 percent increase in the number of client households reporting they have to choose between paying their rent or mortgage and food.
40 percent increase in the number of client households with at least one adult working.
60 percent increase in the number of clients who report that someone in their household does not have access to health insurance.
60 percent increase in the number of client households that have an unpaid medical or hospital bill.
64 percent increase in the number of client households receiving SNAP benefits.

Birth of the Bureau of the Budget Blogging

2010-02-02T11:14:00.003-05:00

Well, actually, it's the development of the B.O.B. (now O.M.B.), but where's the alliteration in that? Still, important stuff, and more fun than you may think.

UPDATE: Our friends at The Monkey Cage also point us toward this very, very cool NYT graphic. Go look, and, at the very least, hit the "Hide Mandatory Spending" button.

And I didn't get you anything. . . . .

2010-01-29T13:31:00.006-05:00

I've just learned that it's National EITC Awareness Day! It is, in fact, among the most effective of American anti-poverty programs, which may be damning with faint praise, but still. . . . . .

More info from our friends at the IRS here.

Views from above, and from below

2010-01-28T14:51:00.001-05:00

The passing of Louis Auchincloss and Howard Zinn.

Getting the Cops Off the Beat

2010-01-27T09:40:00.002-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Elizabeth Warren

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Spending Freeze?

2010-01-26T12:23:00.003-05:00

Sullivan has a nice summary of reactions here. I'd add Robert Farley: "As a policy/PR stunt, the spending freeze seems geared entirely around satisfaction of the Washington Post editorial page."

ADDING:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Rise of Consumer Debt

2010-01-23T08:15:00.002-05:00

Source

The Execrable Charles Murray

2010-01-22T09:49:00.003-05:00

Charming, as always:

Although the government distributed billions of these food coupons, or food stamps, over the last half-century, only a small number have survived since they were replaced by a debit-card-like system. Now this coupon — and the master dye used to make the plate that created it — will be enshrined in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which on Thursday announced that it has acquired a large trove of materials related to the food-stamp program.

The materials, long housed at the Agriculture Department, which runs the program, were headed for disposal until last summer, when two museum volunteers alerted curators and helped arrange for the most significant items — nearly 200 in all — to be transferred and preserved. The items include food coupons, booklets, proof sheets, early artists’ designs and printer’s plates.
“What we did, effectively, was go over and cherry-pick the collection,” Richard Doty, senior curator of the National Numismatic Collection at the museum, said on Thursday. “We wanted to tell a story with it.”
The museum’s director, Brent D. Glass, said the acquisition was “especially significant considering the current economic hardships facing Americans today.”
A record number of people — 38 million, or nearly one in eight Americans — are now using food stamps, and nearly half of food stamp users are children. Some six million people report that food stamps are their only form of income.
Michael B. Katz, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority on welfare and social policy, applauded the acquisition. “It shows an attention to the history of social policy, which is an important part of the history of this country that is relatively neglected by that museum,” he said.
Others took a dimmer view. “A roomful of material relating to food stamps is another example of why museums aren’t much fun anymore,” said Charles Murray, a conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who believes that welfare programs promote dependency. “I get chills when I go to a great museum and see Jefferson’s writing desk or the coat Nelson was wearing at Trafalgar,” he added, whereas an acquisition like this amounts to little more than political correctness. (“It’s spinach, and it’s good for us,” Mr. Murray said. “I say to hell with it.”)

On Haiti

2010-01-21T09:24:00.001-05:00

via Nicholas Kristof.

The Other King

2010-01-18T15:35:00.000-05:00

From the Center for American Progress:

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. shifted his focus in the dwindling years of his life to an audacious, but achievable goal: ending poverty in the United States.
In his book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, King argued that the United States must change its attitude and approach toward the treatment of its poor citizens. He reasoned that since poverty knew no racial boundaries, he couldn’t limit his call for congressional action to assist only black Americans.
“In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out,” King wrote in 1967. “There are twice as many white poor as [black] poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and [black] alike.”
This was a radical—and unpopular—change for the preacher who is best known for pushing voting, employment, housing, and other civil rights for black Americans. At this point in his career, during what would become the final months of his life, he was widening his field of vision to seek an end to poverty among all Americans.
It’s appropriate as we pause to celebrate this year’s national holiday in memory of King’s 81st birthday to recall the relevance of his final struggle to the contemporary fight against poverty.

Read the Rest here.

Awful

2010-01-13T00:08:00.002-05:00

Via Reuters:

The latest budget plan from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would force 200,000 children off low-cost medical insurance, end in-home care for 350,000 infirm and elderly citizens and slash income assistance to hundreds of thousands more.
And that's the best-case scenario under Schwarzenegger's prescription for filling the state's $19.9 billion deficit.
Refusing to consider broad tax hikes, he is relying mostly on $8.5 billion in reduced expenditures including drastic cuts to health and social spending that has long made California one of the leading U.S. states in providing help to the needy.
Schwarzenegger also is counting on the U.S. government contributing nearly $7 billion that he says is due California because of various federal mandates.
If federal money fails to materialize, the governor's plan would trigger deeper cuts that would dismantle entire programs, including the state's welfare-to-work system, CalWorks.
. . . .
"You're blowing entire holes in the safety net," said Kelly Brooks, an analyst for the California State Association of Counties, which lobbies on behalf of county governments that stand to bear much of the added burden from such cuts.
No one understands better than Anthony Arias, 25, who sought assistance from CalWorks in 2008 after he was laid off from his warehouse job in the midst of the recession.
Unable to find steady work, and sharing custody of his 3-year-old son, Arias had to drop out of community college east of Los Angeles as he slipped into a financial tailspin.
"It was getting bad to the point where there were days when I didn't have food," he recalled.
But with a monthly CalWorks check that helps pay his rent, and state-subsidized child support, Arias has since managed to complete training to become a barber -- a more gainful vocation with flexible hours that will enable him to return to school to earn a degree as a paralegal assistant.
"There's no way I would have been able to survive without the help of CalWorks," he said.
Arias is just one of 1.3 million CalWorks beneficiaries -- most of them children -- who will see their monthly assistance checks cut by 16 percent under Schwarzenegger's proposal, even if federal dollars sought by the governor arrive.
. . . .
Others programs on the chopping block include transitional housing for foster youth; low-cost Healthy Families medical insurance for needy children, the Medi-Cal healthcare plan for the poor, and a network of subsidized in-home care for the elderly and disabled.
At least 200,000 children are slated to lose eligibility for Healthy Families, with that number growing to 900,000 if the program is gutted entirely.
Nearly 90 percent of the 400,000 recipients of In-Home Support Services stand to lose care under Schwarzenegger's best-case scenario, and state reimbursements to providers of those who remain would be slashed to minimum-wage levels. Otherwise, the program would be abolished, throwing 350,000 caregivers out of work.
. . . . . .

The Political Power of Data Visualization

2010-01-08T13:43:00.001-05:00

The Tattered Safety Net

2010-01-02T21:21:00.004-05:00

The state of anti-poverty policy, such as it is. A panel discussion from the Woodrow Wilson Center, with Peter Edelman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Maria Foscarinis, Alice O'Connor, and Margaret Simms. Go -- watch.

UPDATE: Follow along at home:

Battered by the Storm

The Second Bill of Rights

National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty

Urban Institute: Poverty and the Safety Net

Poverty Threshhold 2009

Edelman on Clinton and TANF

Not More Extremism. . .

2009-12-29T11:00:00.003-05:00

It's just easier to see:

We live in a complex world and I don't mean to oversimplify this too much. But it seems to me that, rather than a change in underlying sentiments -- that is, more prevalence of quote-unquote extreme, alienated, nonmainstream, populist, pox-on-both-their-houses viewpoints -- what has instead changed is that these viewpoints have become much more visible. And the reason has to do with technology -- to some extent cable news but to a much greater extent the Internet.

Take the Tea Parties, for example. . . .

. . . .The change we are seeing is perhaps principally a technological one.

Nate has the rest.

Strawberries

2009-12-23T12:13:00.001-05:00

From Pandagon:

. . . Certainly, the discussion of welfare has always been bogged down by moralistic hand-wringing over the idea that the poor might scratch out some pleasure they don’t “deserve”, because it’s supposed to be reserved for what Sarah Palin likes to call Real Americans---white, middle class, politically conservative. A long time ago, I read an essay by a woman on food stamps that really opened my eyes to how much this is true. She was describing how she got glares from people in the supermarket for having items as innocuous as strawberries in her cart. I’m sure if those people were confronted, they would say that they don’t want to pay for someone who is wasteful and that strawberries are just too expensive and don’t go far enough. But this argument is bullshit, because strawberries are nutrient dense compared even to most fruits. You get a lot of bang for your strawberry buck in terms of fiber and vitamin C. I think they even have more calories than most fruit. Clearly, the objection to strawberries is that they’re so pleasurable, and someone on food stamps is viewed as someone who doesn’t deserve even the smallest pleasures.

Healh Care Take-Away

2009-12-21T12:17:00.001-05:00

Via Ezra Klein

Cash, Not Cans

2009-12-12T07:22:00.002-05:00

From the NYT:

Ann Kansfield, who runs a weekly food pantry at the Greenpoint Reformed Church in Brooklyn, cannot bring herself to tell you this, so I will: She doesn’t want your cans. As uncharitable as it sounds, she doesn’t want your holiday food drives. Don’t be offended. She knows you are well meaning; just misguided, perhaps misinformed. . .

Read the rest.

"Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport"

2009-12-10T14:46:00.001-05:00

From the History Channel, The People Speak.

Perry v. Schwarzenegger

2009-12-07T10:56:00.000-05:00

"Like Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade, it has the potential to change American life."

Nicely Done

2009-12-03T00:47:00.000-05:00

Josh K. publishes his Op-Ed. Anyone else having any luck?

Costs and Benefits

2009-12-01T09:40:00.001-05:00

Tony Judt, in the New York Review of Books (emphasis mine):

I suggested above that the provision of train service to remote districts makes social sense even if it is economically "inefficient." But this, of course, begs an important question. Social democrats will not get very far by proposing laudable social objectives that they themselves concede to cost more than the alternatives. We would end up acknowledging the virtues of social services, decrying their expense...and doing nothing. We need to rethink the devices we employ to assess all costs: social and economic alike.

Let me offer an example. It is cheaper to provide benevolent handouts to the poor than to guarantee them a full range of social services as of right. By "benevolent" I mean faith-based charity, private or independent initiative, income-dependent assistance in the form of food stamps, housing grants, clothing subsidies, and so on. But it is notoriously humiliating to be on the receiving end of that kind of assistance. The "means test" applied by the British authorities to victims of the 1930s depression is still recalled with distaste and even anger by an older generation.

Conversely, it is not humiliating to be on the receiving end of a right. If you are entitled to unemployment payments, pension, disability, municipal housing, or any other publicly furnished assistance as of right—without anyone investigating to determine whether you have sunk low enough to "deserve" help—then you will not be embarrassed to accept it. However, such universal rights and entitlements are expensive.

But what if we treated humiliation itself as a cost, a charge to society? What if we decided to "quantify" the harm done when people are shamed by their fellow citizens before receiving the mere necessities of life? In other words, what if we factored into our estimates of productivity, efficiency, or well-being the difference between a humiliating handout and a benefit as of right? We might conclude that the provision of universal social services, public health insurance, or subsidized public transportation was actually a cost-effective way to achieve our common objectives. Such an exercise is inherently contentious: How do we quantify "humiliation"? What is the measurable cost of depriving isolated citizens of access to metropolitan resources? How much are we willing to pay for a good society? Unclear. But unless we ask such questions, how can we hope to devise answers?

28, 15, and 8 percent

2009-11-29T10:39:00.002-05:00

From the NYT:

From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times.

The counties are as big as the Bronx and Philadelphia and as small as Owsley County in Kentucky, a patch of Appalachian distress where half of the 4,600 residents receive food stamps.

In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children. In the Mississippi River cities of St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, half of the children or more receive food stamps. Even in Peoria, Ill. — Everytown, U.S.A. — nearly 40 percent of children receive aid.

. . . . Now nearly 12 percent of Americans receive aid — 28 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Latinos and 8 percent of whites. Benefits average about $130 a month for each person in the household, but vary with shelter and child care costs.

Read the rest.

Regarding Our Profiling Discussion

2009-11-23T22:46:00.001-05:00

Shalom points us here:

UPDATE: Also, see this: "Right and Left Join Forces on Criminal Justice"

"It's Shaking us to the Core"

2009-11-19T10:53:00.000-05:00

Two Smart Talks

2009-11-18T10:57:00.002-05:00

And Rick Perlstein, if the wonky video continues to refuse to be embedded below.

"Welfare and the Poorest of the Poor"

2009-11-17T11:21:00.002-05:00

Peter Edelman on TANF -- must reading, I think, for those of you in SWK 6201. An excerpt:

. . . Nonetheless, the main message was to downsize the rolls, and downsize they did. The palpable result thirteen years later is the virtual disappearance in many states of cash assistance for low-income mothers with children, with caseloads going down by well over 90 percent. Overall, the rolls shrank from 14.3 million mothers (and a few fathers) and children in 1994 to under four million in 2007. In 1995, nine million of the 14.5 million children then poor were in families that received welfare. By 2006, only four million of the 12.8 million poor children were in families getting TANF. That the gap bespeaks a failure to respond to legitimate need seems obvious.

These are the techniques of radical reduction: shut the front door almost completely; staff the back door with the equivalent of a tough nightclub bouncer; and, in between, hassle applicants to the point where they just give up and go away.

At the front door many states just say no, evoking memories of the pre-1960s period, when unbridled discretion ruled. Some cloak the turndown with the euphemism of “diversion,” which means, “You look able-bodied. Go out and look for a job.”

At the back door there is sanctioning—kicking people off the rolls because they were late to a work assignment (no excuses for sick children, late buses, or car breakdowns) or didn’t show up for an appointment at the welfare office (no excuses for failure to receive notice of an appointment or inability to understand English). In some states multiple infractions of this sort can result, legally, in lifetime disqualification.

In between there are requirements to bring an entire dossier of documents in order to navigate the application maze, intrusive questions about the applicant’s private life, assignments to demeaning work programs that sometimes ask people to work without necessary protective equipment, regular and irregular summonses to come in for redetermination of eligibility, and much more. Many needy people refuse to undergo the indignities associated with asking for help.

Since the current recession began, it has become even more obvious that TANF is not responsive to the real level of need. The number of people receiving food stamps, to which there is a statutory right, now exceeds thirty-three million, while the number receiving TANF has remained stuck at around four million. The numbers have increased somewhat in some states in recent months, but even a 25 percent average increase nationwide would bring the total caseload up to something like five million. And there are states where an eligibility administrator will routinely approve an application for food stamps and just as routinely turn away the same person’s application for TANF. A sideshow barker might say, “Step right up, step right up. Only a nickel to see the incredible shrinking TANF program.

”

17 Million Households, 49 Million People

2009-11-17T08:06:00.002-05:00

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2009 - USDA's Economic Research S ervice's (ERS) today released its annual report on Household Food Security in the U.S., which revealed that in 2008, 17 million households, or 14.6 percent, were food insecure and families had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times during the year. This is an increase from 13 million households, or 11.1 percent, in 2007. The 2008 figures represent the highest level observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995. The full study is available at www.ers.usda .gov/features/householdfoodsecurity/

An Inconvenient Truth

2009-11-13T23:16:00.001-05:00

An Inconvenient Truth - Al Gore @ Yahoo! Video

Energy and the Environment

2009-11-13T15:37:00.008-05:00

A good collection of data and analyses on environmental policy is at Public Agenda. And note this also, posted handily right below, and follow the links. Grim, indeed. Oh, and you might as well look at Pew's Center on Global Climate Change and these two CRS reports on energy policy. (Add in Rushefsky, Chapter 6, and that's what the week look like for you POL 1105 folks. As I said, Grim.) [UPDATE: For a good primer on the state of the science of global climate change, see this Brief. And here's the IPCC Report. And this meta-analysis of the published research.]

You know you're in for a bout of grim reading when the international agency charged with worrying about how we power the planet starts off its fact sheet with a question like this: "Why is our current energy pathway unsustainable?"
That's the message from the International Energy Agency, which issued its World Energy Outlook report, the organization's annual examination of the big picture. That picture itself hasn't changed all that much. The fundamental challenge is still to meet surging worldwide demand for energy while at the same time coming up with ways to avoid global warming and keep energy relatively affordable.
Basically, the IEA says everything depends on whether or not world leaders get serious about climate change, very soon.
If we do nothing, then worldwide energy demand is projected to soar by 40 percent by 2030. The vast majority of that increase is going to come in the developing world, as people in China, India and throughout Asia see their standard of living rise. Even keeping up with that demand would require investing another $26 trillion. And unless things change, most of that energy is going to come from fossil fuels, which means "dire consequences for climate change" and air pollution, the IEA said.
On the other hand, if world leaders committed to fighting climate change with cap-and-trade policies, increased energy efficiency, and greater use of renewable energy, that would cost another $10.5 trillion (on top of the $26 trillion). But energy demand growth could be cut in half, and greenhouse gases would decline.
Not that the prospects for this look particularly good right now. Most observers say hopes for a real deal out of next month's Copenhagen climate conference are fading, one major reason being that the United States still hasn't figured out what it wants to do. There's a chance the Obama administration will put something in place on its own even if Congress doesn't act, but in any case, it's unlikely a deal with be struck without American leadership.
Chances are you've never heard of the IEA. While the agency has enormous influence among policymakers, and while there are bitter disputes over its estimates, it barely registers with the public. But despite the IEA's wonky tone and elite audience, the report has one great strength when it comes to getting the public involved: it focuses on choices and alternatives.
The world has decisions to make about energy. Everything we've learned about how people get engaged in making policy decisions shows that choices are essential. Nothing's perfect, and there are always tradeoffs to everything. Setting those options out fairly to the public is critical to building public support for change.
The IEA actually lays out the cost of those alternatives for policymakers. We can only hope that policymakers will turn around and do the same for the public.

Some Context

2009-11-11T10:59:00.003-05:00

As we think about the potential costs if various reform plans; from the Washington Post's not terrible 8 Questions about Health care Reform.

Legalized Bribery?

2009-11-11T10:39:00.003-05:00

Or something else? From FAIR:

As powerful lawmakers debate healthcare legislation of enormous potential impact, corporate media have largely failed to explore the problem of health and insurance industries attempting to influence many of these legislators with a flood of campaign contributions.

Despite Deep Throat’s urging journalists to “follow the money,” there’s a longstanding media taboo against discussing the role of campaign contributions in healthcare initiatives (Extra!, 1–2/04). This reluctance is particularly striking this year, when health industry spending on lobbying efforts and political contributions is unprecedented.

In what the Washington Post (7/6/09) referred to as “a record-breaking influence campaign by the healthcare industry,” $1.4 million is spent on lobbying every day. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, lobbying expenditures for all health and insurance sectors total $263 million so far this year, while those sectors have directly donated more than $23 million to federal lawmakers.

Some of the greatest beneficiaries of these donations also happen to be pivotal arbiters in the shaping of healthcare legislation. Yet corporate media have rarely raised the issue of these lawmakers’ potential conflicts of interest.

. . . . . .

Baucus has received nearly $3.4 million in campaign contributions from health and insurance industries since 2003—more than any other member of Congress. These donations represent about 23 percent of Baucus’ total fundraising (including from his PAC) during that time. This includes “$853,000 from pharmaceutical and health products, $851,000 from health professionals, $467,000 from hospitals and nursing homes, $466,000 from health service and HMO interests, and $784,000 from insurance” (Montana Standard, 6/14/09). Baucus also ranks fourth all-time in financial contributions from pharmaceutical companies (Capital Eye, 6/25/09). A Nexis search for “Max Baucus” among the seven outlets in the survey found mentions in over 100 healthcare-related stories from June 1–September 1, 2009, but Baucus’ financial ties to the healthcare industry came up only six times (Washington Post, 7/6/09, 7/21/09, 7/25/09; New York Times, 6/24/09, 8/19/09; ABC World News, 8/14/09).

Only two of these reports noted that Baucus continued to collect campaign donations from health and insurance industries even as he chaired the Finance Committee’s work on a healthcare reform bill. The July 21 Washington Post noted: “Top health executives and lobbyists continued to flock to the senator’s often extravagant fundraising events in recent months.” Aides to Baucus told the Post that he had refused donations from healthcare PACs after June 1. “But the policy does not apply to lobbyists or corporate executives, who continued to make donations.” The New York Times (6/24/09) reported that Baucus’ fundraising after June 1 also included “industry interests” like “drug companies and insurers.”

More often, though, news accounts portrayed Baucus’ industry-friendly approach to the healthcare issue—including his dismissal of a single-payer approach and his opposition to a public option—as a reflection of his “more cautious approach” (New York Times, 6/16/09), his “long history of collaborating with Republicans” (New York Times, 7/23/09) or his “pursuit of a centrist compromise” (New York Times, 6/8/09). Or he was portrayed as simply bowing to political reality (Washington Post, 8/7/09). . . . .

Read the rest here.

UPDATE: And yet. . . . .

For the Lazy

2009-11-09T21:03:00.008-05:00

Comparing Health Reform bills: here, here, here, and here. UPDATE: See also this. And, again, there's always the CBPP and Ezra. UPDATE II: CBO estimates, HR 3962, Baucus bill, Kennedy/HELP bill. See also, more generally, the CBO here. UPDATE III: To clarify, reports are that there will be a CBO estimate of the unified/merged Senate bill soon, but likely too late for it to be of any use for our discussion.

ADDING: Ezra Klein makes the case that a poor bill is better than no bill -- camel's nose/thin end of the wedge and all that, mostly.

OH, AND: Some handy charts.

Aaron Burr's Lost Hamilton Rap is Found, Finally

2009-11-03T12:42:00.001-05:00

New Study

2009-11-02T21:51:00.001-05:00

Familiar findings.

Estimating the Risk of Food Stamp Use and Impoverishment During Childhood
Mark R. Rank, PhD; Thomas A. Hirschl, PhD
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2009;163(11):994-999.
ABSTRACT

Objective To estimate the lifetime risk that an Americanchild will reside in a household receiving food stamps and,as a result, will encounter poverty and a heightened exposureto food insecurity.
Design Thirty years of longitudinal data from the PanelStudy of Income Dynamics survey data set.
Setting Nationally representative sample of the US population.
Participants Approximately 90 000 childhood yearsof information are pooled together to create a series of lifetables that span the ages of 1 to 20 years.
Main Outcome Measure Self-reporting measure of whethersurvey households received the Food Stamp Program during theprior year.
Results Between the ages of 1 to 20 years, nearly half(49.2%) of all American children will, at some point, residein a household that receives food stamps. Households in needof the program use it for relatively short periods but are alsolikely to return to the program at several points during thechildhood years. Race, parental education, and head of household'smarital status exert a strong influence on the proportion ofchildren residing in a food stamp household.
Conclusions American children are at a high risk of encounteringa spell during which their families are in poverty and foodinsecure as indicated through their use of food stamps. Suchevents have the potential to seriously jeopardize a child'soverall health.

UPDATE: Nice new succinct precis on the Food Stamp (now SNAP) program from CBPP.

The Opt-Out

2009-11-02T10:37:00.001-05:00

A Panoply of Policy Papers

2009-11-01T11:44:00.008-05:00

Well, actually, they're books reviews (but I seemed to need the alliteration today -- dreary out). All are from the most recent NYRB, and all are worth your attention (the first two, especially). The subjects:

And then, as a reward, read this lovely essay on Dorothea Lange.

Some Health Care Links

2009-10-31T10:48:00.002-04:00

For useful background as we approach the finish line??

FRONTLINE: Sick Around the World (a TV documentary highlighting the comparison between the US and other nations' approached to health care)

NRP: Interview with T.R. Reid, "Looking Overseas for the Healing of America"

Washington Post, T.R. Reid, "5 Myths About Health Care Around the World"

For ongoing analysis as bills move through Congress, see Ezra Klein, Kaiser Health News and CBPP.

Finally, The Commonwealth Fund compares the two current bills (click on "Interactive Features" for a nifty comparison tool. Yes, I said nifty. Sue me.)

Energy Information Resources

2009-10-30T11:33:00.000-04:00

Public Agenda provides a list.

Ezra Sums Up

2009-10-27T11:22:00.002-04:00

On Healthcare:

Among the many implicit precepts directing health-care reform are the following:
(1) The employer-based system doesn't work, either to assure coverage or control cost.
(2) The employer-based system must be preserved.
(3) A strong public option would offer consumers lower premiums and attract a lot of customers.
(4) A strong public option cannot be included because private insurers cannot effectively compete with it.
(5) Among the worst economic distortions of the system is the fact that employers choose insurance for their employees, and thus employees don't really understand the cost of coverage.
(6) The exchange cannot initially be open to employees, and may never be opened to employees, because they might leave employer-based insurance in order to shop for their own policies more aggressively.
You can go on in this vein, of course. It's a bit of a problem.

Do You Miss the Society for Inoculating the Poor Gratis?

2009-10-27T10:19:00.005-04:00

Andrew Wehrman in the Boston Globe:

Watching the current debate in Washington, it’s tempting to think of health care reform as something radical and new - an issue that could force a profound shift in national identity. But America has been through this already. More than 200 years prior to this year’s push for a new national health policy, Americans were already becoming incensed about how they paid for health care, and who got access to it.

Health care in Colonial America looked nothing like what we’d consider medicine today, but the debates it triggered were similar. The danger of smallpox and the high cost of its prevention led to divisive questions about who should pay, whether everyone deserved equal access, and if responsibility lay at the feet of the individual, the state, or the nation. Epidemics forced the early republic to wrestle with the question of the federal government’s proper role in regulating the nation’s health.
Colonial leaders and ordinary people alike possessed a similar sense that a proper solution to these issues would determine the brightness and shape of America’s future. At times conflicts over public health threatened the social and political fabric of communities. Did these rowdy Colonials, with the aid of the Founding Fathers, solve these dilemmas? Hardly. But their observations, questions, and compromises offer a useful lesson for what we can expect as we find ourselves again with health care in the forefront of the national conversation.

The rest here.

Broadway to Washington Square

2009-10-27T08:49:00.001-04:00

From the NYT:

Ms. White never mentioned to the others who slept in the park that she had been nominated for a Tony award when she performed, alongside Glenn Close, in “Barnum,” in 1980; nor did she ask about their pasts. Severely depressed, she was too proud to reach out to social services, and kept the extent of her problems from friends. “Most of them are barely getting by in their tiny apartments as it is,” she said. “People in New York, they need their patterns. You can’t interrupt them.”
To avoid the police, Ms. White usually alternated sleeping for an hour with walking for an hour, which is what she was doing when she ran into Officer David Taylor on Grove Street at 4 a.m. one day last fall. Officer Taylor had come to know Ms. White when he was patrolling the West Village. He admired her energy, and, off-duty, came to see her perform. He had never seen her looking like she did on Grove Street. “She is usually someone who lifts your energy if you’re feeling down,” he said. “That night she looked soulless. I was concerned for her — scared.”

Read the rest.

For Our Discussion Today

2009-10-26T11:40:00.002-04:00

"Some Will Have to Die"

2009-10-23T15:07:00.000-04:00

Changing the Subject

2009-10-21T13:51:00.001-04:00

"From Welfare to Poverty to a Living Income," by Peter Edelman. h/t Poverty Law Blog

Shrewd Politics Meets Sound Policy?

2009-10-21T11:37:00.001-04:00

". . . .Pelosi wants to back the so-called fiscally responsible Blue Dogs into a corner by giving them a bill that the CBO scores well and includes a robust public option as well as bills with a trigger or a weak public option that score worse, so that to reject it, they would have to actually accept a larger price tag. . . ."

"NO! Why Would You Leave it There?! There is a Terrible Place to Leave It!"

2009-10-14T07:38:00.002-04:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

CNN Leaves It There

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

Faces of Poverty

2009-09-29T15:15:00.001-04:00

Poor in NYC

2009-09-29T07:51:00.001-04:00

A summary of new data:

The Bronx remained the country’s poorest urban county; the income gap in Manhattan was still higher than in any other county; and the poverty rate in Connecticut rose faster than in any other state.
And the relatively positive part of the local economic picture was tempered by the fact that the latest census figures from the rolling American Community Survey captured only the start of the recession.
In New York City, the poverty rate in 2008 was 18.2 percent — the lowest this decade — compared with 18.5 percent in 2007. Median household income was unchanged, at $51,116, but median family income rose to $56,552 from $54,846.
Those figures masked vast disparities, though, based on race, ethnicity and geography.
In the Bronx, the median household income was $35,033, and nearly 28 percent of the borough’s residents — and 47 percent of its households headed by women with children — were living in poverty.
Citywide, the poverty rate for racial and ethnic groups stayed relatively unchanged in 2008 compared with the previous year: 11 percent for non-Hispanic whites, 17 percent for Asians, 21 percent for blacks and 26 percent for Hispanics.
The proportion of people receiving food stamps increased in New York State by about a percentage point, to 10.6 percent.

Not Left or Right

2009-09-23T10:48:00.003-04:00

But inside vs. outside?

UPDATE: Nate Silver sort of weighs in. UPDATE II: James Poulos responds to Nate.

Remember Who the Real Victims Are

2009-09-22T14:34:00.001-04:00

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

"So much food. . .

2009-09-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

. . . so much hunger."

What Does the Congressional Budget Office Do?

2009-09-17T21:41:00.000-04:00

An Interview.

Some Commentary on Today's Bartels Readings

2009-09-16T18:57:00.004-04:00

With thanks to David T. for the first two:

Jim Manzi at the American Scene
Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution
Andrew Gelman at the Monkey Cage
Economics of Contempt, some more Gelman
And, Bartels responds to some critiques at Dani Rodrik's

If you find others worth looking at, post a link in comments. The takeaway? Identifying patterns can be hard. Demonstrating causation can be monstrously hard. [Updated]

. . . . And how does this fit in with the post-1973 data below?

2009-09-16T10:09:00.003-04:00

What happened in 1973? . . . . .

2009-09-16T10:01:00.002-04:00

"Entirely Arbitrary"

2009-09-11T11:43:00.002-04:00

A good example of the kind of policy analysis (ahem) that shapes policy making in the actual world of politics.

New Census Data

2009-09-10T13:02:00.004-04:00

Income down, official poverty at highest level since 1997, child poverty up to 19 percent, and women still earn 3/4 of what men do for the same work. Monea and Sawhill, at Brookings, have more:

Using data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and others about the likely trajectory of the recession, we find that, absent other changes, the poverty rate will increase rapidly through 2011 or 2012, at which point about 14.4 percent of the country will be in poverty, up from 12.5 percent in 2007. As the recession ends and employment levels increase, the poverty rate will begin to steadily decrease though it will not, at least over the next decade or so, reach its 2007 level. In short, our results show that recessions can have long-term scarring effects for all workers but especially for the most disadvantaged, whose skills and attachment to the work force are already somewhat marginal. A prolonged lack of jobs reduces the amount of on-the-job training or experience that people receive, discourages them from making the effort needed to climb out of poverty, and can even lead to a deterioration in their health or family life that adversely affects opportunity.

UPDATE:

"Eight Questions About Health Care Reform"

2009-09-08T10:23:00.001-04:00

Actual discussion of the substance of the policy issue, rather than the politics of it, from the Washington Post, no less.

One Stimulus Analysis

2009-09-02T19:13:00.001-04:00

From the WSJ.

Budget Docs

2009-09-02T09:28:00.009-04:00

For POL 1105, some potentially useful links and docs for the next few sessions:

Budget of the U.S. Gov't, Updated Summary Tables (May 2009)
U.S. Federal Budget, the Wiki
Budget Explorer, with some simulations and budget-balancing exercises
Introduction to the Federal Budget Process, from CBPP
Treasure Trove of Tools to Understand the Federal Budget Process, from Congress Matters
OMB, CBO, Recovery.gov (track A.R.R.A., the "stimulus bill")

And, for another visual take, from the NYT (8/25/2009):

Income and Ideology

2009-09-01T11:46:00.004-04:00

From The Monkey Cage, where Andrew Gelman writes of these charts: "There are some differences between the different measures of ideology, but the take-home point for me is that the patterns are basically consistent: liberal Democrats by any measure are pretty well distributed across the income scale, and conservative Republicans are more concentrated among the upper incomes."

Some Budget Basics

2009-08-30T12:35:00.007-04:00

REVENUES: Federal, NYS, NYC

EXPENDITURES: Federal, NYS [for NYC, go HERE to p. 37]

"Money's important, but it depends what you gotta do for it"

2009-08-28T19:13:00.001-04:00

Man In Van from Sean Dunne on Vimeo. h/t Kottke

All Policy is Local?

2009-08-27T15:58:00.001-04:00

H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, District by District Impact

Outlays and Revenues Since 1968

2009-08-27T12:05:00.000-04:00

The Future of the Fed

2009-08-27T10:28:00.000-04:00

Five weigh in.

POTUS-tracker

2009-08-24T11:31:00.000-04:00

THIS is kind of fascinating. . . .

The Status of Women: One Measure

2009-08-23T09:31:00.002-04:00

h/t/ Daily Dish

Understanding Upcoming Deficit Estimates

2009-08-22T13:26:00.001-04:00

from CBPP:

Next week, the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will update their economic and budget projections for fiscal year 2009, which ends on September 30, and the next ten fiscal years.[1] Some analysts and pundits will try to use the new projections to support their arguments that the February stimulus package is (or is not) working, that Congress must (or must not) proceed with health care reform, and that any number of other policies should (or should not) be pursued. In fact, however, it will be extremely hard to draw any reasonable conclusions about such questions. Instead, the new estimates are likely to provide more evidence that we are in a highly uncertain economic and budgetary environment, in which the estimates can fluctuate significantly for a variety of reasons that have little to do with the desirability of undertaking new policy actions such as health care reform.
1. Both reports will undoubtedly show that this year’s deficit will be the largest since the end of World War II, relative to the size of the economy. This is no surprise, since CBO and OMB projected a post-war record deficit for this year as long ago as January and February. The new projections almost certainly also will continue to show deficits improving over the next few years as the economy recovers, although the projected improvement will likely be slower than in previous recoveries and deficits will remain troublingly high.
2. There will be no simple answer to the question of whether the new projections are bigger or smaller than was expected earlier this year. This is because OMB and CBO have each produced at least four different sets of projections over the last eight months, ranging from $1.19 trillion (CBO’s estimate in January if current policies were continued) to $1.84 trillion (estimated by CBO in March and OMB in May). Those estimates vary according to which organization produced them, what policies it assumed in making them, and when it made them. (See Appendix for a description of the various deficit estimates made by OMB and CBO since January.)
The new estimates for 2009 will certainly be higher than $1.19 trillion. The Department of the Treasury reported earlier this month that in the first ten months of fiscal year 2009 (through July), the deficit already totaled $1.27 trillion. Although the federal government normally runs a surplus in September because of quarterly income tax payments, it is unlikely to do so this year, and it is inconceivable that any September surplus would be enough to offset more than a fraction of the likely large addition to the deficit in August.
It is not clear whether the new estimates will exceed $1.84 trillion (although as noted in footnote 1, it has been reported that OMB’s estimate will be $1.58 trillion). Some observers have suggested that recent data revisions showing the economy was weaker in 2008 and in the first quarter of this year than previously reported indicate that the fiscal year 2009 deficit will be higher than earlier projections. But the actual performance of the economy through March has already been reflected in the revenues collected and expenditures made to date, which will be the primary basis for OMB’s and CBO’s new deficit estimates. Thus, the revisions themselves are likely to have little effect on any changes made in this round of estimates of the 2009 deficit.
3. Whether the new estimates exceed $1.84 trillion will likely depend on the amounts recorded for a particularly volatile category of spending: assistance to troubled financial institutions. CBO’s March estimate of a $1.84 trillion deficit included more than $330 billion in spending for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) enacted last fall,[2] plus $125 billion from legislation the President was seeking to provide additional authority for TARP activities.[3] However, Congress has not considered the legislation providing new authority for TARP, and through July the Treasury Department had recorded only $169 billion in TARP costs under existing authorities for 2009.
Similarly, the costs recorded for the federal government’s support of two ailing government- sponsored enterprises — the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) — will substantially affect the deficit for 2009. Government-sponsored enterprises are privately owned organizations that generally are not considered part of the federal government; their transactions with the public are not included in the budget. CBO believes, however, that the decision last year to put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship under the control of the Federal Housing Finance Agency essentially represents a federal takeover of the two organizations. CBO argues that the activities of the two organizations should now appear in the budget and that the long-term costs related to Fannie’s and Freddie’s commitments as of the takeover, as well as the full costs of their ongoing activities, should be recorded in the budget as a cost in 2009. CBO estimates these costs exceed $290 billion.
OMB, in contrast, continues to treat Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as private entities that are not fully reflected in the budget. It includes only direct payments from the Treasury to Fannie and Freddie as a budget expense. So far this year, the Department of the Treasury has recorded just over $80 billion in such costs.
4. The new projections won’t provide any evidence about whether the stimulus legislation is working or whether Congress and the President should continue to pursue health care reform. Not only will it be hard to say whether the projections clearly show an improvement or worsening in the fiscal outlook (better or worse than what?), but the factors that are likely to determine the final size of the deficit in 2009 — the costs recorded for TARP and for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — have nothing to do with questions that some are hoping the new projections will answer.
Lower-than-anticipated costs for TARP may indicate that the problems in the financial system have stabilized, but they will not provide any evidence one way or the other about the impact of the stimulus legislation. In fact, it is hard to know in general what a bigger or smaller deficit would mean about the stimulus. On the one hand, a bigger deficit might mean that the stimulus package’s tax cuts and spending increases are taking effect faster than expected — repudiating claims that the stimulus bill is not working because it is taking too long to implement. On the other hand, some could regard a bigger deficit as an indication that the stimulus is not producing the intended improvement in the economy.
5. The only clear conclusion that should be drawn from the new deficit estimates is the continued need for action on long-term deficits. The new estimates should not spur efforts to reduce deficits in the next few years beyond what Congress has already endorsed in its budget resolution for fiscal year 2010. The extremely high deficits projected for 2009 and the next few years largely result from the most serious economic downturn since the Great Depression and the steps taken to keep it from becoming even worse. Trying to reduce deficits in the short run would be counterproductive to those efforts and could stall or reverse the economic recovery.
The estimates should, however, reinforce the message that the current fiscal path is unsustainable over coming decades. (The policy path was unsustainable before the economic downturn; in fact, the downturn will add relatively little to the size of the long-term problem.[4]) Changes in current policies — such as to ensure adequate revenues and help slow the rapid growth of public and private health care costs — must be made to keep deficits from growing rapidly in coming decades to levels substantially higher than this year’s, even if the economy is operating at full capacity. The President and Congress should begin immediately to demonstrate they are serious about bringing deficits in the medium term (five to ten years from now) down to reasonable levels and avoiding an explosion of deficits in the longer term.

U.S. vs. Them

2009-08-21T08:16:00.002-04:00

"How Does the Quality of U.S. Healthcare Compare Internationally," from the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

An analysis from the Urban Institute looks at the evidence on how quality of care in the United States compares to that in other countries and provides implications for health reform. Authors Elizabeth Docteur and Robert Berenson find that international studies of health care quality do not in and of themselves provide a definitive answer to this question.
What they do show is that the evidence for American superiority in quality of care (or lack thereof) is a mixed bag, with the nation doing relatively well in some areas—such as cancer care—and less well in others—such as mortality from treatable and preventable conditions.
And while evidence base is incomplete and suffers from other limitations, it does not provide support for the oft-repeated claim that the “U.S. health care is the best in the world.” In fact, there is no hard evidence that identifies particular areas in which U.S. health care quality is truly exceptional.
Addressing the American public’s widespread concern about the potential negative impact of health reform on the quality of care they currently receive, the authors conclude that reform should in fact be seen as an opportunity to systematically improve quality of care, rather than a threat to the existing system. It provides an opportunity to build on strengths and correct weaknesses in U.S. health care, working towards aims for improvement that the care provided is safe, effective, patient centered, timely, efficient and equitable.

Families USA

2009-08-19T12:43:00.000-04:00

makes the case for health care reform. Succinctly.

Actual Flowchart

2009-08-18T08:51:00.001-04:00

to go with the verbal one below:

"Making welfare work. . . .

2009-08-18T08:25:00.000-04:00

. . . and making work pay."

Health Reform Flow Chart

2009-08-15T08:29:00.001-04:00

I want to be Kathleen Hall Jamieson. . .

2009-08-14T22:12:00.004-04:00

. . . when I grow up. And so should you. One of the best discussions about the health policy debate (such as it is) you are likely to encounter while sitting in your home: Jamieson and Kaiser Family Foundation President Drew Altman. Watch here. And then go here, as David Frum offers the thoughtful conservative's analysis of both health care policy and health care politics. Together, they may comprise the smartest hour of television you'll see this month (yeah, I know, it's a low bar, but still. . . . . ).

How'd this Happen?

2009-08-12T23:15:00.005-04:00

From the NYT. Yglesias made a pie chart:

Health Care Reform

2009-08-12T15:00:00.000-04:00

An Online Guide. Good collection of resources.

Lessons from Abroad

2009-08-12T08:49:00.001-04:00

National Health Insurance in Canada, Germany, France, UK, Japan and Australia, from the Century Foundation. Good, succinct overview. Here.

"Los Angeles banked on the idea that no one would care"

2009-07-23T14:02:00.003-04:00

"It can be difficult to grasp that areas that are not pretty, like Skid Row, are home to people."

Ten Things You Need to Know. . .

2009-07-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

. . . to live on the streets.

Summer Hunger

2009-07-13T22:46:00.002-04:00

From the Food Research and Action Center:

The number of low-income children who are

receiving free and reduced-price lunch during the

regular school year is an excellent indicator of the

need for the Summer Nutrition Programs, so FRAC

uses it as a benchmark to measure summer

participation nationally and in the states. While the

total number of children participating in Summer

Nutrition grew by more than 49,000, or 1.7

percent, from July 2007 to July 2008, the number

of children enrolled in the regular year school lunch

program grew faster so that the reach of Summer

Nutrition decreased slightly. In July 2008, 17.3

children received Summer Nutrition for every 100
low-income students who received lunch in the

2007-2008 school year, compared to a ratio of

17.5:100 children in July 2007.

The disparities in participation among the 50 states

plus the District of Columbia are dramatic. Only 10

states managed to reach at least one quarter of

their low-income children in July 2008. The District

of Columbia, followed by New Mexico, South

Carolina, Nevada and New York had the highest

rates for Summer Nutrition participation by lowincome

children.

Eleven states failed to even serve one-tenth of

their low-income children through their Summer

Nutrition Programs in 2008. Mississippi, Oklahoma,

Kansas, Louisiana, and Colorado had the lowest

rates for Summer Nutrition participation by lowincome

children in July 2008.

The full Report is here.

Poverty and the Safety Net

2009-07-10T10:52:00.001-04:00

From CBPP:

The good news is that the safety net reduces poverty substantially and is more effective at reducing poverty than has generally been recognized. When both broad social insurance benefits such as Social Security and programs targeted on low-income people such as food stamps are considered, the safety net lifts tens of millions of people out of poverty. More specifically, in 2005 (the latest year for which comprehensive data are available), the safety net as a whole:
Cut the number of Americans living in poverty by nearly half (44 percent), lifting 31 million people above the poverty line.[1]
Reduced the severity of poverty for those who remain poor, increasing their average disposable income from 29 percent of the poverty line to 64 percent.
Helped protect Americans from the deepest extremes of poverty, cutting by 7.3 million — or more than three-quarters — the number of children living below half the poverty line. It also lifted 8.0 million children above three-quarters of the poverty line. (This analysis uses a poverty line equal to about $21,400 in 2005 for a couple with two children in a community with average housing costs, consistent with NAS recommendations.)
Was more effective at lifting children in less-deeply-poor families from just below the poverty line to above the poverty line than it had been a decade earlier. Among children whose non-benefit income was between 75 percent and 99 percent of the poverty line, public programs lifted 65 percent above the poverty line in 2005, up from 51 percent in 1995.
The bad news is that the safety net has weakened over the last decade for families with children that have the lowest incomes and are in greatest need of help due to joblessness or other crises. In 2005, the safety net as a whole:
Protected a smaller share of children from deep poverty than it used to. In 1995, the safety net lifted above half the poverty line 88 percent of children whose family incomes were lower than that before counting safety net benefits. By 2005, this percentage had declined to 76 percent. If the safety net had been as effective at keeping children out of deep poverty in 2005 as it was in 1995, there would have been 1.1 million very poor children in 2005; instead, there were 2.4 million.
Protected fewer jobless workers from deep poverty than it used to. Among very poor unemployed workers looking for work in any given week, the safety net lifted 60 percent above half of the poverty line in 2005, down from 70 percent of very poor unemployed workers in 1995. [2]
Since these data were collected, the economy has entered a major recession, and Congress enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, designed to boost economic growth and ameliorate the harshest impacts of the recession on struggling families. The recovery package included many provisions that strengthen the safety net, though in most cases the improvements are designed to be temporary. These include a temporary boost in food stamp benefits, temporary expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, new incentives for states to make their unemployment insurance systems more accessible to jobless workers, and new funding for states that see an increase in the number of families receiving basic cash assistance through TANF programs and states that expand short-term help and subsidized employment programs for poor families.
These provisions will soften the impact of the recession on the extent and depth of poverty. (A previous Center analysis projects that the expansions in the EITC, Child Tax Credit, and the new Making Work Pay tax credit will stop 1 million children from falling below the poverty line. [3]) When the recession abates, it will be important to measure precisely the impact of these temporary measures and consider what longer-lasting improvements should be made in the safety net.

Race, Age, Education, and Voting

2009-07-10T10:37:00.002-04:00

Via Andrew Gellman at Nate Silver.

Wonk Resource Reminder

2009-06-20T09:05:00.001-04:00

If you're interested in the unfolding debate about healthcare, you should add Ezra Klein to your bookmarks. Visit early, visit often.