New America on Family and Children

If children are the future, then looking at a state's educational system is like peering into a crystal ball. California is a state teeming with young children -- 4.7 million under age 8, to be exact. One in every eight young American children lives in California. And many of these children come from minority ethnic and racial backgrounds and speak languages other than English. If Americans want to get a glimpse at our future as a "majority minority" country they don't have to look beyond California.

In recent years, the role that savings and assets play in shaping people's lives has increasingly captured the attention of researchers, policy analysts and elected officials. Their interest in savings and building wealth has grown along with an increased awareness of specific policy tools and interventions, such as matched savings accounts available for lower-income workers. The launch of the SEED Initiative in October 2003 was an important marker in this process because it introduced the

Americans instinctively revere the family as an institution that helps facilitate all other aspects of life. The family fosters attachments across generations, provides a nurturing environment in which to raise children, and is a means of transmitting values from one generation to the next. It is the foundation upon which our social contract has been built.

Poverty reduction strategies increasingly focus on the importance of creating financial assets. Child Savings Accounts (CSAs) are a novel and promising tool that builds on that focus by promoting savings starting at a young age. Child Savings Accounts (CSAs) exist as policies, products, and programs, and are being offered by governments, financial institutions, and non-profits for a variety of purposes.

Child Savings Accounts (CSAs) exist as policies, products, and programs, and are currently being offered by governments, financial institutions, and non-profits. CSAs are more than basic savings accounts. What distinguishes CSAs from standard savings accounts is the degree to which they serve as means to an end-most often to spur the social and/or economic development of children. Another distinguishing feature is they are often intentionally targeted to children of low- and moderate-income families (as opposed to only children of middle-class… more

Children are a declining priority in the federal budget -- a trend that shows no signs of stopping. In 2007, the federal government paid out $2.7 trillion through spending programs and disbursed roughly another $1 trillion through the tax code. Rapidly expanding entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- and the country's defense system consumed the largest shares of the budget, while spending on children remained essentially stagnant and did not keep up with growth in the economy.

Our… more

In an economically mobile market economy, individuals and families are able to raise their private incomes, wealth, and ability (sometimes referred to as human capital) over time and across generations. In the United States, many associate economic mobility with the pursuit of the American Dream. Education, work experience, and saving enhance the opportunity for upward economic mobility. To this end, many federal spending and tax expenditure or tax subsidy programs aim to enhance economic mobility. But exactly how much does the… more

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) seeks to improve student learning and narrow academic achievement gaps that place low-income and minority students at a disadvantage relative to their affluent and white peers. Evidence shows that the roots of children’s academic success or failure are already firmly in place by third grade and as much as half of the black-white achievement gap already exists before children enter first grade. Therefore, to achieve its ambitious goals NCLB must do a much… more

While traditional anti-poverty efforts have focused on maintaining a social safety net to protect the poor, there is a growing recognition that economic well-being hinges on a household’s ability to accumulate a wide range of assets. The value of assets is based not only on the economic security they provide but in how they enable people to make productive investments in their future. This approach has contributed to a wide range of policy proposals designed to help households build assets,… more

The attached document answers the following questions about the America Saving for Personal Investment, Retirement, and Education (ASPIRE) Act:

American families confront major challenges in balancing work and family life. Workers report that they would prefer fewer hours, while new technological capabilities require parents to bring more job responsibilities home with them. Mothers and fathers encounter strain in work and home environments alike. Polling and surveillance data confirm that the balance between work and family care needs attention. Some of the most quantifiable and severe costs of this burden on families are adverse health outcomes. This paper… more

The 2008 presidential primary season is shaping up as one unprecedented in American history. Fund-raising reports from the first two quarters of 2007 demonstrate the breakneck pace with which this latest presidential season has begun. Fund-raisers aren’t alone in setting a new pace, as state after state has moved up the date of its Presidential primary in a bid for increased influence.

What has not changed is the focus of the early primary politicking. In the past few weeks, would-be… more

The report released today by the Hoover Institution confirms that insured families across California pay a "hidden tax" to provide uncompensated health care to the uninsured. The existence of this "hidden tax" is no longer in dispute; what's under debate is its magnitude, which is hard to measure precisely because it is "hidden."

This memo describes the range of estimates that various experts have made, highlights some of the reasons for differing judgments, and then lets the reader… more

Click here for a brief video discussion of this idea.

An American Stakeholder Account (ASA), established for every child at birth, would build a savings and ownership culture in America, promote financial literacy, and fortify the American economy for the long haul. Every child would automatically receive a $6,000 deposit into an ASA at birth -- and also… more

Is children’s development, and children’s cognitive development in particular, affected by the marital status of their parents? On the face of it, this seems to be a simple question to which there is an intuitively simple answer: yes. Yet the answer to this question is anything but simple. The complexity of this question, the policy context that has helped shape a growing body of related research, and the implications of findings for policy and practice are discussed below. The following… more

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1) The PK-3 Workforce is Subject to an Array of Entry Standards. Public school teachers in grades K-3 must meet the quality standards of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Pre-kindergarten (PK) teachers in Title I-funded programs also are regulated by NCLB. But Head Start teachers have their own separate entry standards. In some state PK programs, all teachers must possess a bachelor’s degree and have engaged in additional early childhood or PK-3 training. In others,… more

Today nearly 5.7 million grandparents only have to walk downstairs or down the hall to celebrate Grandparents Day with their grandchildren. They are part of a growing segment of the American population that is living in multigenerational households.

With the increasing demands of a global society, Americans are looking outside the nuclear family and using extended family members to assist with household responsibilities. Grandparents are helping their children manage their hectic lives and alleviate some of the parenting burden.

For the complete document, please… more

As the FCC dramatically increases fines for indecency over broadcast TV -- and as Congress and the President raise the fine limits by a factor of ten and threaten to extend decency standards to cable and satellite networks -- the debate over how best to protect children from inappropriate media has reached a fever pitch. The problem is real: a plethora of studies show that repeated exposure to violence, inappropriate sexual content and even repeated advertising for junk food can… more

States continue to play an important role in helping low- and moderate-resource families save and build wealth. They have been innovators in assets policy, whether on their own or through the forces of "devolution," in which federal funds and decision-making authority are shifting from the federal to the state level. These initiatives and experiments -- these "laboratories of democracy" -- have inspired and informed other states as well as policymakers at the national level.

The following ideas to broaden savings and… more

Because of the demographic changes of the past generation, dads need more flexibility in their work. Businesses are recognizing that more fathers need flexibility in the workplace and many are giving it.

Businesses should be applauded for that and encouraged to do more in providing workplace flexibility -- and dads deserve credit for the work, balancing and the sacrifices that they make.

For the complete Issue Brief, please see the attached PDF below.