Weathering Job Loss: Unemployment Insurance

Suggests extending unemployment insurance widely to low-wage workers by changing eligibility rules favoring full-time, higher-wage earners who are let go. Outlines proposed reforms, remaining issues, and costs and benefits to the families and to society

Supporting Our Region's Veterans: Assessing the Network of Services Available for Post 9/11 Veterans and Their Families in Northern Virginia

Just across the river from our nation's capital, NOVA is home to countless icons representing the history of warfare in the United States and the sacrifices that have been made for our freedoms. From Arlington National Cemetery, to the Marine Corps War Memorial, to the United States Air Force Memorial, to the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial, to the Pentagon itself, these landmarks draw millions of visitors each year and provide places for Americans to publicly mourn, celebrate, and remember our service men and women. Less public, however, are the thousands of veterans and their families living in NOVA and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area who are restarting their civilian lives after serving multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), NOVA is home more 35,000 that have served since 2001. Indeed, Virginia has the highest Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) veteran ratio of all 50 states.Dozens of local organizations have risen to the challenge of supporting NOVA's post-9/11 veterans. These organizations deliver a range of interventions from financial counseling, to job training, to mental health services. It is clear that a wide array of support is available. What is less clear is exactly what those needs are and how local organizations are working collectively to address them. In an effort to better understand this landscape, the Community Foundation -- in partnership with the United Way of the National Capital Area and with the support of Deloitte -- developed this report to gain a more in-depth understanding of NOVA's veteran support landscape. This report is intended to provide the Community Foundation and other local community-based organizations with the insights needed to strategically target and coordinate grant dollars toward the greatest need

Action Request: Write Companies Sourcing At Collapsed Factory

The Clean Clothes Campaign’s seventh update regarding the Spectrum factory collapse on April 11, 2005, calls for a letter campaign demanding greater action on the part of the European companies sourcing from Spectrum

Updating the Social Contract

Ohioans are struggling through economic slumps and recoveries with less help than in the past, according to this report. The safety net that used to ensure basic needs were met is in tatters, and needs to be updated for today's challenges. This study is based on surveys of 150 non-profit groups that serve more than 100,000 Ohio families, and of 2,000 northeast Ohioans who have needed help affording food, clothing, day care and other essentials during the recent recession. It also analyzes public policy decisions that have affected modest-income families

Health Reform: The Cost of Failure

Estimates the intermediate and long-term implications of not enacting healthcare reform. Simulates the effects on employer-sponsored insurance, private non-group coverage, and Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Programs under three scenarios

Re-thinking the incrementalist thesis in China: a reflection on the development of the minimum standard of living scheme in urban and rural areas

Many commentators contend that the Chinese government adopted an incremental approach to welfare policy reform because its leaders lacked an overall blueprint for it, allowing initiatives to be implemented only after lengthy experimentation. While this perspective has provided an essential account of the implementation and changes of some welfare programmes, it has inadequately addressed the slow progress in rural areas' welfare programmes and the different welfare entitlements for rural and urban residents. Further investigation is therefore required to resolve these anomalies. Using the minimum standard of living scheme (MSLS) as a case example, this article illustrates how the Chinese government's legitimacy needs, during different stages of its economic reforms, have been the principal motivation for the implementation of such schemes. The introduction of an urban MSLS in 1997 aimed to reduce laid-off workers' dissatisfaction following the government's reforms of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The implementation of a rural MSLS in 2007 was intended principally to minimise conflicts between land-losing farmers and local officials after widespread rural riots. These MSLSs are also minimal and stigmatising public-assistance schemes that fulfil the dual objective of securing a stable political environment for economic reform and maintaining poor people's work ethic for China's mixed economy

How Much Does the Federal Government Spend to Promote Economic Mobility and for Whom?

Tracks and projects federal expenditures and tax subsidies aimed at enhancing economic mobility, such as employer-related work subsidies, homeownership, savings and investment incentives, and education and training, and who benefits from them

A Shrinking Slice of the Pie: The Labour Income Share in Australia

The ‘wages breakout’ has been a recurring theme in the Australian public policy debate in recent years. Political conservatives, media commentators and some business groups have warned that Australian wages growth is unsustainable, or threatens to become unsustainable. This paper critically examines such claims and finds that they are not supported by the evidence. This paper shows that Australia has experienced the opposite of a ‘wages breakout’ since 2000. Over this period Australian real wages have not kept pace with productivity growth. This means that labour’s share of total income has fallen and capital’s share has risen. This paper also shows that many other OECD countries have experienced a falling labour share in recent years, but the fall in Australia’s labour share has been relatively large. The fall in the Australian labour share has been broadly-based – the labour share has fallen within a broad range of industries. Only a small portion of the fall can be ascribed to structural change in the economy towards low-labour share industries such as mining

Family Security Insurance: A New Foundation for Economic Security

A report released by Georgetown Law\u27s Workplace Flexibility 2010 and the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security (Berkeley CHEFS) outlining a blueprint for establishing and financing a new national insurance program to provide wage replacement for time off for health and caregiving needs. The report describes the need among working Americans for time off from work to address personal illness, to care for a new child, or to care for a loved one with a serious illness. It argues that the need for time off is no longer an issue for individual families or select industries, but a national priority that has major social and economic implications. Family Security Insurance, the national insurance program proposed in the report, would fundamentally reform social policy to address workers\u27 critical needs, and, at the same time, spread the cost fairly, protect the deficit, and keep people working