Poverty

In Care of Nigeria's Poor

Communications — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:00:00 -0500

A New America Event
02/01/2008 - 10:00am

Last year, Nigeria's newly-elected president set forth a seven-step agenda to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals and turn Nigeria into a top-20 industrialized nation by 2020. But this will be no easy task. Nigeria's wealth inequality is among the worst in Africa - a situation illustrated by the contrast between the nation's substantial oil wealth and a poverty rate of around 50%. Nigeria's National Poverty Eradication Program (NAPEP) responded to this challenge in December 2007 by launching an ambitious conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, In Care of the Poor (COPE).

In February, the New America Foundation/Global Assets Project and Displaced Children and Orphan's Fund's STRIVE program led by the Academy for Educational Development hosted development economist, Dr. Magnus Kpakol, for his first public U.S. presentation and discussion of the COPE program.

Kpakol first introduced COPE, a program takes an innovative twist on conventional and increasingly popular CCT programs in place around the world. The program not only provides cash transfers, but also skills training and micro-enterprise start-up funds to households in exchange for enrolling and keeping their children in school and providing for their basic health care needs. Dr. Kpakol outlined how the central government set up the program. This included the government picking 12 states to participate in the "pilot" phase of the program, and the government expecting these states to contribute matching funding for the program.

Following Kpakol's presentation, international development experts commented on the use and effectiveness of Conditional Cash Transfers for poverty eradication, wealth accumulation, and social protection around the world. Allyn Moushey, an advisor for the Poverty Analysis and Social Safety Nets program at USAID said she believed Nigeria's COPE is the first CCT program of such a scale in Africa. Alan de Brauw, Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Reserach Institute (IFPRI) stressed that transparency, such as in regards to which children are chosen to participate in COPE, is important. Kpakol agreed with this point.

Questions for future consideration about Nigeria's COPE, and CCTs more generally, include: Even with its community-driven and microfinance elements, what potential does the program have to enhance livelihoods and empower Nigeria's future generations? What hurdles must it overcome in order to succeed? What U.S. partnerships and resources could be mobilized to support the development of the program? Coupled with other poverty eradication initiatives, does COPE hold the promise to meet the President's goals of increasingly access to education, health and food security and providing jobs and micro-credit to the poorest of the poor? And what lessons does Nigeria's approach offer other countries in their fight against poverty?

-Jeff Meyer is a program associate for the Global Assets Project in the Asset Building Program.

Muhammad Yunus: The Unlikely Disciple

Ron Tang — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

There is no shortage of people who exemplify Peter Drucker's principles and practices -- a multitude of middle managers and top executives responsible for many millions, if not billions, of dollars in economic activity. Yet the most Drucker-like of all may well be a man who launched his enterprise with a series of transactions totaling 27 bucks.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who pioneered the concept of microcredit -- providing the poorest of the poor with tiny loans to start their own moneymaking ventures -- is promoting a new idea these days. He calls it "social business," and in… more

It's More About Class and Less About Color

adminn — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 07:41:00 -0500

It couldn't have been more than a few months after the 1992 riots. I was seated in the office in the back of the Son Shine Missionary Baptist Church on Nadeau Street in South L.A. talking with the Rev. Leroy Shephard about how Mexicans and blacks in his neighborhood did and did not get along.

"We all know about the tensions," he said in his preacher's cadence. "But there are also plenty of budding friendships. You see, when blacks moved into South L.A., white folks didn't even stay around long enough for us to become friends. Most of them won't even… more

The Missing Class

Communications — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:30:00 -0400

A New America Event
10/01/2007 - 12:30pm

There is an increase in national attention being paid to inequality in America. While U.S. government programs help the poor and politicians on both sides raise funds from the fortunate, the “Missing Class,” those making between $20,000 to $40,000 dollars a year for a family of four, is largely ignored.

Through their experiences with nine families, Princeton professor Katherine Newman and Inthefray magazine editor Victor Tan Chen trace the unique challenges faced by this growing demographic in their new book, The Missing Class. Newman and Chen explain where these families come from, how they’ve struggled and why they are stuck in the fraying safety net.

The New America Foundation’s Next Social Contract Initiative and Workforce and Family Program hosted this discussion with Katherine Newman, Victor Tan Chen and David Gray on the lives, stories and policies that impact the 54 million Americans -- including 21 percent of the nation’s children -- who might be considered the "missing class," and what this says about inequality and the American dream. Video of the event is available at right, while an MP3 audio recording is available below.

The Next Social Contract Initiative aims to reinvent American social policy for the twenty-first century. Through a program of research and public education, the initiative will explore the origins of our modern social contract, articulate the guiding principles for constructing a new contract, and advance a set of promising policy reforms.

Bloomberg Tackles Poverty

Articles — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:40:00 -0400

Even for public servants with the best of intentions, the seeming intractability of poverty in America can be awfully discouraging. Its causes are complex and past efforts have met with limited success. Until Hurricane Katrina hit land, poverty had been absent from the public agenda for so long that there was little consensus among policymakers in how to respond. Not only was the toolbox of effective antipoverty proposals empty but partisan gamesmanship often seems to block innovative, good faith efforts to address it.

Yet persistent, concentrated, and intergenerational poverty remains a scourge upon our prosperous society, an enduring challenge… more

Child Well-Being in America and Abroad

Communications — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 14:59:00 -0400

A New America Event
07/17/2007 - 10:30am

The Foundation for Child Development Child Well-Being Index (CWI) provides a research-based look at the status of children in the United States over the last 30 years. Now, for the first time, the CWI examines the status of American children in relation to that of children in other countries. The CWI uses English-speaking democracies with strong market-based systems to provide a more meaningful “apples to apples” portrait of the relative well-being of American children. The study contrasts the well-being of children in the United States with that of children in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

At the New America event, hosted by the Workforce and Family Program, Duke University researcher Dr. Kenneth Land presented the results of this new international comparison. Among the key findings:

The percent of households without an employed adult is lower in the United States than in all comparison countries. However, poverty rates are higher in the United States than in all comparison countries.
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have better outcomes than the United States in the Health domain. Relatively high rates of infant mortality and children who are overweight and obese disadvantage the United States in this domain.
Teen birth rates in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are lower than in the United States. This indicator is a key figure in the Safety/Behavioral Concerns domain.
The United States has a relatively high proportion of young adults who complete high school and obtain baccalaureate degrees. However, the proportion of children who attend preschool is lower in the United States than in all countries except the United Kingdom.
15-year old American students scored lower in mathematics and reading than their counterparts in all comparison countries on internationally administered standardized tests, leading to a last place finish in the Educational Attainment domain.

Following Land's presentation, Rev. David Gray, director of the Workforce and Family Program, moderated a distinguished panel of experts in a discussion that explored the survey results and their implications.

Dr. Ruby Takanishi, President of the Foundation for Child Development, gave introductory remarks for the event. Dr. Takanishi remarked that the Child Well-Being Index provides a starting point for deeper debates among policymakers and the public about how best to serve the children of this country. The treatment and care for our children are an essential part of the negotiation of the social contract between individual and social responsibility. According to Dr. Takanishi, we are in a period of transition within our social contract, and our efforts to shape the life prospects of all children are a critical part of that conversation.

Dr. Janet Gornick, Director of the Luxembourg Income Study, presented an in-depth look at cross-national employment policies and explored the links between those policies, parental and child well-being. Dr. Gornick’s research shows that the United States, and the Anglophone countries involved in the international comparison, generally takes a different approach to employment policy than do their continental European counterparts.

Doug Steiger gave an in-depth policy and political analysis of the program to eliminate child poverty in the United Kingdom. Mr. Steiger contrasted the differing approaches of the United States and the United Kingdom to measuring and combating poverty, as well as highlighting instances in which the two countries have learned from and emulated one another. Mr. Steiger concluded that much the United Kingdom’s recent success in reducing childhood poverty comes from tactics used in the United States in the 1990’s but that the United States has allowed its effort in those areas to lag.

Adam Carasso of the New America Foundation drew highlights from his work on the Urban Institute’s “2007 Kid’s Share” report. Mr. Carasso presented research on the historic and projected future share of the federal budget dedicated to children’s programs. Mr. Carasso highlighted the decline of tax code contributions and the rise of in-kind programs. Mr. Carasso also highlighted the rising proportion of the federal budget that is dedicated to programs that primarily serve the elderly and predicted that rising cost would push aside the possibility of new investments in children’s programs.

Also released at this latest event was a new Workforce and Family Issue Brief, entitled "Why Not More Focus on Children?" Video of the complete presentation and discussion is available at right; an MP3 audio recording will be available in the near future.

About the Child Well-Being Index

The CWI is commissioned by the Foundation for Child Development and provides policymakers and the public with a tool to monitor the well-being of children. The new international comparison tracks quantifiable indicators including childhood obesity, the poverty rate, suicide rates, and violent crime rates. Its release is intended to spark public discussion about the lives of American children and youth and the factors that contribute to their quality of life; including where American children are advantaged and disadvantaged on comparisons of international outcomes in physical health, educational attainment, social relationships and spiritual and emotional well-being. For more on the CWI's findings in the United States, please see the April 17, 2007, event the Workforce and Family Program hosted on that topic.

Going for Broke

Articles — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 04:55:00 -0500

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast with such ferocity in late August 2005, Americans were shocked by the broadcast images of desperately poor people left to fend for themselves. The depth and consequences of poverty in America, normally hidden from public view, had once again become the subject of debate and national soul-searching. And yet, a year and a half later, the subject of poverty has fallen so far off the public’s radar screen that President Bush did not give it a mention in his recent State of the Union Address. How can our prosperous… more

Joel Kotkin on the Working Poor in Long Beach Press-Telegram

Communications — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 21:22:00 -0500

New America in the News:

LONG BEACH - Take a walk in Long Beach and what do you see?

Stray from the palm-lined streets by the ocean shore, the bustling hubs at Pine Avenue, the Pike or Belmont Shore; leave the manicured lawns of the Virginia Country Club area or the Bixby neighborhoods, and there's another Long Beach.

It is the Long Beach that struggles daily to make the rent, rather than the one that plops down a fortune for an ocean-view condo.

It is the Long Beach that relies on food stamps, free school breakfast and lunch programs and charity groups' grocery giveaways, not the one that dines on lower Pine Avenue...

This is the Long Beach where residents work - often more than one job - but still struggle to pay for the basics...

Researcher Joel Kotkin says the good news is Long Beach has "people who are working and looking to go up rather than seeing themselves as poor."

"The key thing is, will (the city) be able to generate an upwardly mobile blue collar economy?" says Kotkin, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation...

For the complete article, please visit The Long Beach Press-Telegram website.

Mixed Messages Inhibit Escape From Welfare

Articles — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:50:00 -0400

The recent 10-year anniversary of welfare reform provided an opportunity for both Democrats and Republicans to claim victory. President Clinton recently described how political compromise by both parties led to one of the crowning achievements of his Administration.

There’s one problem with this assessment -- the work’s not done. Despite the lauded overhaul of 1996, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) policies are failing to promote the primary goals of welfare reform in two important ways: economic independence and personal responsibility. This is because TANF rules across the country send a series of mixed messages that make it harder for many… more

New Urgency for Early-20s Single Moms

adminn — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:41:21 -0400

America made teen pregnancy prevention a national priority, and progress on this front is remarkable. However, increasingly, women are avoiding pregnancy as teens, only to become single mothers in their early 20s. Often their entry into parenthood is just as ill-prepared and perilous to child well-being, yet the policy response is far less adequate.

In 1995, President Clinton pronounced teen pregnancy an epidemic, and, following his call for action, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy was formed. Congress made teen pregnancy prevention a focus of welfare reform in 1996, and President Bush furthered this commitment with policies emphasizing sexual… more