Published Articles

• Oct 16, 2012  |  Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt Bryant Commentary on Children, Families and Poverty: Definitions, Trends, Emerging Science and Implications for Policy The topic of poverty for children is quite timely. The country's recent financial troubles have increased the number of children and families in poverty, and that number could get bigger with the looming possibility of precipitous drops in funding for the social programs needed to aid these families. This issue needs to be raised and put at the forefront of our nation's budgetary planning. We need solutions that meet the needs of these families both immediately and in the longer term. Read Online
• Mar 23, 2012  |  Kisha Bird Against All Odds: Community & Policy Solutions to Address the American Youth Crisis This article was written for the Journal of Law & Social Change for the 31st Annual annual Edward V. Sparer Symposium "Coming of Age Against the Odds: Advocating for At-Risk Youth". The paper lays out the magnitude of employment and education challenges facing youth outside the mainstream; discusses the influence of youth perception on program and policy implementation; highlights effective community practice; and includes recommendations for moving a national workforce agenda with local implications. Download PDF
• Nov 30, 2010  |  Linda Harris Building Pathways to Postsecondary Success for Low Income Young Men of Color: A Community Intervention Strategy Building postsecondary pathways to good jobs for low-income young men of color will require stretching the paradigms of our secondary, postsecondary, workforce, and adult education systems, as well as greater collaboration among these systems. Aligning systems and programming across funding streams, building partnerships, and creating new pathways are complex endeavors. But there are many innovative approaches that have shown promise and can be implemented and taken to scale. Download PDF
• Nov 30, 2010  |  Linda Harris & Amy Ellen Duke-Benfiled Building Pathways to Postsecondary Success for Low-Income Young Men of Color Linda Harris, director of youth policy, and Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield, senior policy analyst, co-authored a chapter in the recently published book Changing Places: How Communities Will Improve the Health of Boys of Color. The book "draws attention to the urgent need--both economic and moral--to better understand the policy and community-based factors that serve as opportunities or barriers for young men and boys of color as they make critical life decisions." Ms. Harris and Ms. Duke-Benfield's chapter examines why it is essential to invest access to postsecondary education opportunities for young men of color. Download PDF
• Nov 15, 2010  |  U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Paid Sick Leave in the United States This issue of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Program Perspectives takes a closer look at paid sick leave benefits, including both the percentage of employees with access to paid sick leave benefits and employer costs for sick leave. Download PDF
• Oct 25, 2010  |  Melissa Boteach and Jodie Levin-Epstein Battling Poverty in the Golden State: Recommendations for the California Statewide Poverty Commission This brief offers best practices and strategies learned from other state poverty commissions in advance of California's statewide symposium on poverty. Despite times of economic distress and deep budget, California is the latest state to undertake a comprehensive plan to reduce poverty. It's exactly during these times that states must convene stakeholders to stop the bleeding and provide a vision to move forward. Download PDF
• Aug 17, 2010  |  Linda Harris Recommendations for WIA Reauthorization: Title I Youth Provisions Download PDF
• Jan 08, 2010  |  Dorothy Smith Poverty and Opportunity - State Poverty Task Force Recommendations Around the nation, a growing number of state governments have established task forces or commissions to develop new strategies and recommendations for tackling poverty and providing opportunity. Download PDF
• Nov 18, 2009  |  Julie Strawn Ideas From the Other Washington Read Online
• Sep 08, 2009  |  Jodie Levin-Epstein Increasing Low-Income Access to Opportunity This article, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, focuses on the New England region's efforts to give visibility to poverty and opportunity through task force initiatives, summits, and state poverty targets. Download PDF
• Sep 03, 2009  |  Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt & Linda Harris Community-wide Systems That Promote High School Completion Youth develop across multiple domains that are relevant to academic success. While schools focus primarily on cognitive development, many of the supports young people receive in other developmental areas come from community-based out-of-school programming. Stimulation of development in these additional key areas builds skills that support connections to school and achievement. This article explores the need for a community-wide approach to support dropout prevention for struggling youth and re-engagement of disconnected youth. Read Online
• Apr 24, 2009  |  Elizabeth Lower-Basch and Mark Greenberg Single Mothers in the Era of Welfare Reform The 1990s welfare reform and expansion of work supports caused an historic increase in the share of single mothers who were working. This chapter examines the policy changes of the 1990s and since along with the subsequent employment and earnings outcomes for single mothers. It considers how the policy changes affected both employment levels and job quality and discusses implications for next steps for federal and state policies. This chapter is from the 2009 LERA Research Volume, The Gloves-off Economy: Workplace Standards at the Bottom of America's Labor Market, A. Bernhardt, H. Boushey, L. Dresser, and C. Tilly, eds., Champaign IL: Labor and Employment Relations Association, pp. 163--190. Copyright 2008 by the Labor and Employment Relations Association; Champaign, IL. Reprinted with permission. The volume is available through Cornell University Press. Download PDF
• Jul 20, 2007  |  Linda Harris The Tragic Loss of the Summer Jobs Program: Why it is Time to Reinstate! For more than three decades, the federal summer jobs program provided early work exposure for youth, including more than half a million low-income youth each year in the late 1990s--until the program came to an end with the implementation of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. In light of the peril and the disparities in education and labor market outcomes facing youth in high-poverty communities, there are compelling reasons for re-instituting the federal investment in summer jobs. This article originally appeared in Focus magazine, a publication of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Download PDF
• Apr 03, 2006  |  Mark Greenberg and Jared Bernstein (EPI) A Plan to End Child Poverty: Britain's Initiative Has Helped 700,000 Kids. Why Don't We Have a Goal, Too? In an April 3, 2006 editorial printed in the Washington Post, CLASP's Mark Greenberg and Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute examine the "heartening bad news" out of Britain: that the number of children in poverty dropped by "only" about 17 percent (some 700,000 children) in the past five years. Read Online
• Dec 28, 2004  |  Ron Haskins, Mark Greenberg, and Shawn Fremstad Federal Policy for Immigrant Children: Room for Common Ground? This policy brief, part of the Future of Children Policy Brief Series by the Brookings Institution, offers differing views from its authors on how to improve the well-being of children in immigrant families in the United States. Haskins emphasizes the need to tie public benefits for immigrant families to work through such policies as education and training and the earned income tax credit for families with children. While Greenberg and Fremstad argue that noncitizen families should have the same eligibility for public assistance as citizen families and support greater financial aid for early childhood education and other forms of schooling. Read Online
• Oct 07, 2004  |  Mark Greenberg and Hedieh Rahmanou Looking to the Future: A Commentary on Children of Immigrant Families This article, printed in Fall 2004 issue of The Future of Children, a publication of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, responds to the question: "How should policymakers, advocates, stakeholders, and practitioners respond strategically and proactively to demographic change and increasing diversity in order to promote the healthy development, productivity, and well-being of our nation's children into the future?" The entire journal issue is devoted to children of immigrant families and is available at www.futureofchildren.org. Download PDF
• Sep 14, 2004  |  Steve Savner and Jared Bernstein Can Better Skills Meet Better Jobs? This article, from the September 2004 issue of American Prospect, exhorts supply-side and demand-side advocates to form a complementary agenda to meet both sides' needs. The authors suggest not only providing more access to quality job training but then also creating the jobs when they don't already exist. Read Online
• Sep 14, 2004  |  Mark Greenberg Welfare Reform, Phase Two This article, from the September 2004 issue of American Prospect, discusses the welfare reform law from 1996, how it has played out as a policy, and what still needs to be done in reauthorization of the law. The author suggests that the reathorization support and reward work--and end poverty as we still know it. Read Online