VIDEO
Ron Haskins and Isabel V. Sawhill, October 19, 2009
Despite its status as one of the world’s leading economies, the United States is faced with high poverty rates and less economic opportunity than many other affluent countries. Senior Fellows Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins, argue that it will take a combination of personal responsibility along with smarter and better-targeted government policies to make the American Dream a reality for children and families now stuck at the bottom.
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Isabel V. Sawhill, September 30, 2009, The Brookings Insitution
Isabel Sawhill examines the effect of the proposed health care reform legislation on the middle class. She concludes that the reform will be a false victory if all it does is expand coverage and increase choice, without substantially affecting what our health care dollars buy. Read More
BOOK
Ron Haskins and Isabel V. Sawhill, September 15, 2009
Creating an Opportunity Society examines economic opportunity in the United States and explores how to create more of it, particularly for those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. Read More
PAST EVENT
Thursday, September 10, 2009
2:30 PM to 4:00 PM
Washington, DC
On September 10, the day the U.S. Census Bureau releases its new report on poverty and family income for 2008, the Brookings Center on Children and Families held its seventh annual briefing to discuss the new figures and their implications for families and policymakers. Read More
PAST EVENT
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
9:00 AM to 10:30 AM
Washington, DC
On June 23, the Center on Children and Families at Brookings hosted an event that examines a new report by McKinsey Global Institute on changing employment and income that informs the debate on what has driven the dispersion in incomes across industries and occupations. Read More
PAST EVENT
Friday, May 15, 2009
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Washington, DC
The economic well-being of the middle class can be crucial to the success of economic policies in both developed and developing countries. Yet many public policies are not aimed at the middle class. On May 15, Brookings hosted a discussion on the need to assess how fiscal policy affects the middle class around the world. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
William H. Frey, Alan Berube, Audrey Singer and Jill H. Wilson, March 23, 2009, The Brookings Institution
Changing demographics—where people live, educational attainment, aging of boomers, diversity in population growth, poverty rates—raises key policy and program issues for the new government in Washington. In view of that, the Metropolitan Policy Program has compiled and detailed important trends that are shaping the nation’s engines of economic growth and opportunity. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Edgar O. Olsen, September 23, 2008, Hamilton Project Discussion Paper
In this paper, Edgar Olsen argues that the two most serious structural shortcomings of the current system of low-income housing assistance are (1) its excessive reliance on unit-based assistance and (2) its failure to provide housing assistance to all of the poorest eligible families who ask for help. Read More
PAST EVENT
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Washington, DC
On August 26, the day the Census poverty report was released, the Brookings Center on Children and Families held its sixth annual briefing to discuss the new figures and their implications for families and policy-makers. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Gary Burtless, August 19, 2008, The Brookings Institution
Gary Burtlesshas examines the distribution of health consumption and financing in a single recent year. It compares the implications of two sets of estimates of effects of the current health care system on the distribution of income across persons and across age groups. Read More
VIDEO
Alan Berube, August 12, 2008
In a new report, Alan Berube and Elizabeth Kneebone explain that following a dramatic decline in concentrated poverty in the 1990s, the number of low-income workers and families living in high-working-poverty neighborhoods rose by a striking 41% in the first half of this decade. Alan Berube says that help for high working-poverty communities will come from stronger national and regional economic growth—plus targeted efforts to protect neighborhoods of choice and connection.
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube, August 08, 2008, The Brookings Institution
After dramatic declines in concentrated poverty in the 1990s, the number of low-income workers and families living in high-working-poverty neighborhoods rose by a striking 41% in the first half of this decade, according to a new report from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. The report's authors draw on data from the IRS to measure the change in rates of “concentrated working poverty” nationally and in many of the largest metropolitan areas across the country. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
William G. Gale, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Jason Furman and Benjamin H. Harris , June 30, 2008, The Brookings Institution
William Gale, Doug Elmendorf, Jason Furman and Benjamin Harris reexamine the distributional effects of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, incorporating the financing of the tax changes, and the implications of behavioral responses for economic growth, incomes, and well-being factors. Compared with the standard analysis, this “dynamic distributional analysis” shows that the benefits of these tax cuts were much smaller, on average, and much more skewed toward people with higher incomes. Read More
PAST EVENT
Monday, April 28, 2008
12:00 PM to 12:00
Washington, DC
On April 28, the Global Economy and Development Program hosted a conference to explore four of Brazil’s key economic-policy challenges. Whatever the role Brazil chooses to play in the global economy will matter for the United States and other countries in the region. Read More
PAST EVENT
Monday, April 28, 2008
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Washington, DC
In Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Princeton University Press and Russell Sage, 2008), political scientist Larry Bartels argues that economic inequality in America is partly a product of our democracy, dominated by partisan ideologies and the interests of the wealthy. William Galston moderated a discussion with Bartels, Thomas Mann and Elisabeth Jacobs. Read More