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2021-01-01
World Bank Group;
The lockdown, social distancing, and increased costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have reduced output and employment, increased poverty, and depressed trade transactions; in the absence of a strong response by government, output will be lower over the next decade due to COVID-19. The pandemic-driven rise in the fiscal deficit is increasing public debt, thus exacerbating existing challenges to sustainability and increasing the urgency of shifting from large public investments to human capital development as the main driver of growth. The government's rapid response to the pandemic has succeeded in keeping the population share of new infections and of deaths well below that of most other countries. However, critical health services, particularly childhood immunization and nutrition services, have been disrupted, which is increasing stunting and preventable diseases. The combination of poorer nutrition, limited health services, learning losses from school closures, and the likelihood that some children (particularly adolescent girls and children from poor households) may never return to school will reduce incomes and productivity over the medium term. The government responded rapidly and effectively to the challenges posed by the pandemic, putting in place the Economic Recovery Plan (ERP) to support households and firms, quickly imposing constraints on mobility to limit the spread of the disease, ramping up social protection programs, and setting up remote learning. Key priorities going forward include: (i) improving the government's expenditure allocation, financial management and revenue mobilization; (ii) strengthening the resilience of the health system and preparing for administration of a vaccine; (iii) reducing learning losses (targeting the most vulnerable), improving skills and strengthening accountability in education; and (iv) expanding the flagship social safety net program, building adaptive systems to respond quickly to shocks, improving poverty targeting of safety net programs, and scaling up the use of digital payments.
2021-03-01
National Low Income Housing Coalition;
The NYU Furman Center, together with the Housing Initiative at Penn and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, recently co-authored a report describing these "first-generation" COVID rental assistance programs, based on a survey of 220 programs across the country. This brief draws upon the analysis from that survey, along with additional document review and interviews with selected program administrators. Based on these sources, the brief highlights several lessons about strategies states and localities can use to design and implement more equitable emergency rental assistance programs.
2021-10-15
Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice;
The 2020 presidential elections saw the highest voter turnout in U.S. election history, including among poor and low-income voters (LIV) . Of the 168 million voters who cast a ballot in the general election, 58 million—or 35% of the voting electorate—were LIV. This cuts against common misperceptions that poor and low-income people are apathetic about politics or inconsequential to electoral outcomes.To tap into the potential impact of these voters in the 2020 elections, the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival (PPC:NCMR) launched a non-partisan voter outreach drive across 16 states. The drive targeted urban and rural areas and reached over 2.1 million voters, the vast majority of whom were eligible LIV. The drive had a statistically significant impact in drawing eligible LIV into the active voting electorate, showing that intentional efforts to engage these voters—around an agenda that includes living wages, health care, strong anti-poverty programs, voting rights and policies that fully address injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the war economy—can be effective across state borders and racial lines.
2021-12-14
Woods Fund of Chicago;
Woods Fund Chicago seeks to support and promote community organizing and public policy advocacy that advances racial equity and economic justice. We firmly believe that the people most impacted by structural racism and economic injustice should lead the process of defining problems and developing solutions for their communities in the Chicago metropolitan area. Woods Fund has identified racial equity as a priority for the foundation, and works to continually hone an approach to grantmaking that reflects that commitment.
2021-05-13
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP);
This advocacy resource makes the case for why Congress must enact an equity-centered national subsidized employment programas a part of COVID-19 economic recovery legislation, as called for in the White House's proposed American Jobs Plan. This resource was produced in partnership among Heartland Alliance, the Center for Law & Social Policy (CLASP), and the National Youth Employment Coalition. Subsidized employment advocates can use this resource to inform visits with elected officials about why subsidized employment must be a part of building back a better, stronger, and more inclusive and equitable economy in the wake of the COVID-19 recession.
2021-05-27
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP);
This advocacy resource makes the case for why Congress must enact an equity-centered national subsidized employment program as a part of COVID-19 economic recovery legislation, with a special focus on how subsidized employment strategies can benefit jobseekers experiencing or at-risk of homelessness. This resource was produced in partnership among Heartland Alliance, the Center for Law & Social Policy (CLASP), and the National Youth Employment Coalition. Subsidized employment advocates can use this resource to inform visits with elected officials about why subsidized employment must be a part of building back a better, stronger, and more inclusive and equitable economy in the wake of the COVID-19 recession.
2021-05-05
Azim Premji University;
This report documents the impact of one year of Covid-19 in India, on jobs, incomes, inequality, and poverty. It also examines the effectiveness of policy measures that have thus far been undertaken to offer relief and support. Finally, it offers some policy suggestions for the near and medium-term future.When the pandemic hit, the Indian economy was already in the most prolonged slowdown in recent decades. On top of this, there were legacy problems such as a slow rate of job creation and lack of political commitment to improving working conditions which trapped a large section of the workforce without access to any employment security or social protection.Our analysis shows that the pandemic has further increased informality and led to a severe decline in earnings for the majority of workers resulting in a sudden increase in poverty. Women and younger workers have been disproportionately affected. Households have coped by reducing food intake, borrowing, and selling assets. Government relief has helped avoid the most severe forms of distress, but the reach of support measures is incomplete, leaving out some of the most vulnerable workers and households. We find that additional government support is urgently needed now for two reasons - compensating for the losses sustained during the first year and anticipating the impact of the second wave.
2021-06-22
California HealthCare Foundation;
In 2019 CHCF commissioned NORC at the University of Chicago to embark on an extensive research project to better understand the health care needs, wants, and values of California adults (18–64) with low incomes. In April and May of 2019 NORC began by holding multiple focus groups and in-depth interviews with Californians with low incomes who represented various racial/ethnic and language groups as well as regions. All participants were screened for having at least one health care encounter in the previous six months.
2021-07-29
Center on Poverty & Social Policy (CPSP);
This report leverages data from the Early Childhood Poverty Tracker (see text box for a more detailed description), a Columbia University and Robin Hood study of more than 1,500 parents of young children in New York City, to provide a window into how families – especially low-income parents – managed their child care needs before the onset of the pandemic and what happens when families experience disruptions in their child care.PART I of this report focuses on accessibility and affordability of child care in New York City before the pandemic, specifically discussing what types of child care families used, including center-based, home-based, and informal care, and how they afforded that care.PART II explores both the extent and the economic cost of child care disruptions for New Yorkers, including an analysis of disruptions during the pandemic. To analyze the costs and impacts of disruptions, both to families and to the economy overall, the report replicates similar studies conducted in Maryland and Louisiana, which found that both states lost over $1 billion in a given year from parental absence and turnover due to child care disruptions. While the data we use for this analysis were collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we can only expect that the impacts documented here were exacerbated due to the disruptions of daily life brought about by COVID-19.Together, these findings highlight the difficult trade-offs between access, quality, and affordability for families of young children, as well as the economic implications of disruptions to child care. This report can inform policymakers and practitioners as they lay the groundwork for reopening the city's centers and reimagine a better, more inclusive, and more accessible system.
2021-08-09
Environmental Policy Innovation Center;
In this report, we evaluate how states allocate support from the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) using national and state-level data from 2011 to 2020. This program already helps address disparities and has even more potential to do so. We find that states address disparities by targeting assistance towards:Health: Communities with more health-based Safe Drinking Water Act violations are more likely to receive assistance.Income: Communities with lower median household incomes are slightly more likely to receive assistance.We also find that states could do more to address disparities by expanding:Reach: 7.1 percent of eligible drinking water systems have received assistance.Additional subsidies: 26.6 percent of total assistance was distributed as principal forgiveness, grants, or negative interest loans, despite a federal ceiling of 35 percent for disadvantaged communities.Diversity: Small communities and more racially diverse ones are less likely to receive assistance.
2021-09-01
Princeton University;
Today, the majority of poor renting families in America spend over half of their income on housing costs, and eviction is transforming their lives. Yet little is known about the prevalence, causes, and consequences of housing insecurity.The Eviction Lab is a team of researchers, students, and website architects who believe that a stable, affordable home is central to human flourishing and economic mobility. Accordingly, understanding the sudden, traumatic loss of home through eviction is foundational to understanding poverty in America.Drawing on tens of millions of records, the Eviction Lab at Princeton University has published the first ever dataset of evictions in America, going back to 2000. Eviction Lab interactive tools enable discovery of new facts about how eviction is shaping communities and are meant to raise awareness and facilitate new solutions.
2021-09-20
Heartland Alliance National Initiatives on Poverty & Economic Opportunity;
The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) works to reduce recidivism and increase employment among people impacted by the criminal legal system. CEO has branches in 31 cities across 12 states. CEO New Orleans launched in Louisiana in October2019. This program spotlight discusses CEO's subsidized jobs model and its impact and calls for federal investments in subsidized jobs to support jobseekers facing structural barriers to employment.
