News Clips

• Apr 02, 2013  |  The Washington Post Lack of Paid Sick Leave is Unhealthy for America More than 40 million Americans - disproportionately low-income, black and Latino workers - cook, clean, fold, and ring us up without any paid time off when they or their children are ill. On any given day, these workers must choose between caring for a sick child and their job. They handle our food and our purchases, coughing and sniffling through Kleenex, to avoid being handed a pink slip.
• Apr 01, 2013  |  The Big Story Correction: SmallBiz-Small Talk In a story March 27 about paid sick leave laws, The Associated Press, relying on information from Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., reported erroneously the number of employees a company has to have to be exempt from paying for sick leave under the Healthy Families Act. The Healthy Families Act exempts companies with fewer than 15 employees from providing paid sick time.
• Mar 29, 2013  |  The Huffington Post Sick Days Go Viral This month, Portland, Oregon and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania both passed legislation (Philly awaits the Mayor's signature) and New York City is expected to follow suit. These actions build on laws enacted in Connecticut, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C.
• Mar 21, 2013  |  The Boston Globe Single-mother Families Struggling in Mass. In Massachusetts, the gap between rich and poor is among the largest in the country. The state's poverty rate is below the national average, but when regional living expenses are factored in, Massachusetts has the 10th-highest rate, according to the Center for Law and Social Policy.
• Mar 14, 2013  |  Inside Higher Ed Reimagining Financial Aid The most comprehensive ideas for changing tax credits came from the Center for Law and Social Policy, which devoted most of its white paper to tax benefits. The group looked at several options, including making the American Opportunity Tax Credit more refundable; front-loading part of the credit, meaning taxpayers could get their refunds earlier; and ending the separate tax deduction for tuition and fees.
• Mar 13, 2013  |  CNN Money Future of Medicaid and Food Stamps at Stake "When you talk about slashing the safety net to save it, it's hard to call that anything but Orwellian," said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, senior policy analyst at CLASP, which focuses on policy for the poor.
• Mar 01, 2013  |  The Christian Science Monitor Financial Aid: Finding Better Ways to Help College Students Earlier this week, my Tax Policy Center colleague Elaine Maag blogged about proposals by CLASP to improve federal assistance for low-income college students, including better targeting of higher education tax credits. But there may be even more effective ways to help these students. One idea: Cut back on tax credits and use the savings to improve Pell grants and loan programs.
• Mar 01, 2013  |  The Nation This Week in Poverty: Gangnam-Style Counting With Senator Jeff Sessions CLASP's Elizabeth Lower-Basch's Congressional testimony offers further detail on TANF in Greg Kauffman's article.
• Feb 28, 2013  |  The Hill House Welfare Hearing Gets Personal for Lawmakers "Employers are increasingly unwilling to just hire folks like your dad," Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior policy analyst with CLASP, said to Reichert. "They want people with skills, they want people ready to show up and do the job on the first day. So we need to give people access to those training programs."
• Feb 27, 2013  |  Youth Today EBT Money Withdrawn at Liquor Stores, Casino Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a policy coordinator at the Washington D.C.-based CLASP, said that depending on how states implement the federal restrictions, they may end up spending more on enforcement than the cash assistance recipients spend at questionable retailers.
• Feb 27, 2013  |  Philanthropy News Digest Investing in Young Men and Boys of Color: The Promise and Opportunity Improving the health of and educational and employment opportunities for young men and boys of color - the demographic cohort most likely to grow up in poverty, live in unsafe neighborhoods, and attend underresourced schools - requires alternative approaches to school discipline, job training, and postsecondary degree completion, as well as cultural shifts among health professionals, educators, and youth-serving agencies, a report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Law and Social Policy finds.
• Feb 26, 2013  |  SF Gate Government Credits Make Working Pay Off Other changes around the same time had an even bigger impact, such as increasing the earned income tax credit and expanding Medicaid and child care subsidies, says Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior policy analyst with CLASP. Today, "you are almost always better going from no work to work," she says.
• Feb 25, 2013  |  Tax Policy Center Education Tax Credits Rival Pell Grant Program in Size: Reforms Proposed As part of a series of reports on federal financial aid, CLASP is urging a full review of who receives tax benefits for education, how those benefits compare with the better-known Pell grants, and whether Congress should reform higher education benefits.
• Feb 21, 2013  |  Youth Today New Report Proposes Financial Aid Reform to Benefit Low-Income Students A new report released by CLASP's Center on Postsecondary and Economic Success argues that billions of dollars in federal funds could be saved by altering tax-based student aid in the United States.
• Feb 21, 2013  |  FOX 5 News What Sequestration Could Mean for Your Child's Education CLASP's Stephanie Schmit talks with Allison Seymour about the potential effects of sequestration on early childhood programs, particularly those affecting low-income children and families on FOX 5 News.
• Feb 20, 2013  |  The Chronicle of Higher Education Tax-Based Aid Should Be Redirected to Low-Income Students, Report Says We want policy makers to understand," Ms. Strawn said, "that it's possible to make tax-based student aid simpler, and more effective, and that it's possible to do all that in a fiscally responsible way.
• Feb 14, 2013  |  CNN Money $9 Minimum Wage Alone Doesn't Get Workers Out of Poverty "For too many people, low-wage jobs are a way of life," said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, senior policy analyst at CLASP, which advocates for low-income workers.
• Feb 13, 2013  |  The Dish Does A Head Start Help? A randomized trial run by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which runs Head Start, found some effects in the first few years for program participants, but those benefits faded away by grade school. Some Head Start supporters, like Danielle Ewen of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), argue that this says more about K-12, and that what's likely happening is that poor quality public schools are actually reversing Head Start's gains.
• Feb 13, 2013  |  The Washington Post Hey Congress: Pre-K is a Better Investment than the Stock Market A randomized trial run by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which runs Head Start, found some effects in the first few years for program participants, but those benefits faded away by grade school. Some Head Start supporters, like Danielle Ewen, formerly of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), argue that this says more about K-12, and that what's likely happening is that poor quality public schools are actually reversing Head Start's gains.
• Feb 12, 2013  |  The Chronicle of Higher Education Money Matters, but So Does Avoiding Red Tape As advocates like those at the Center for Law and Social Policy have pointed out, transportation is a common barrier to community-college success, as is a lack of housing and food. But usually, community colleges do not have the power or resources to provide vouchers or free rides, nor are they in the business of coordinating social services. And post-welfare reform, they were explicitly disarmed from doing so.