RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Edgar O. Olsen, September 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
VIDEO
Ron Haskins and Rebecca M. Blank, August 26, 2008
The Brookings Center on Children and Families held its sixth annual briefing on the new Census poverty figures and their implications for families and policy-makers. The nation’s poverty rate held steady for in 2007 as median household income edged upward and the number of Americans without health insurance decreased by more than 1 million.
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
This paper by Garry 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 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
PAST EVENT
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Washington, DC
During the nation’s infancy, Alexis de Tocqueville meticulously studied America’s democratic experiment and defined the contours of American exceptionalism. Nearly 200 years later, scholars James Q. Wilson and Peter Schuck reconsider what defines the United States and its role in our rapidly changing world in Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation (Public Affairs, 2008). William Galston moderated a discussion with Wilson, Schuck and Brookings scholars Don Kettl and Ron Haskins. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Elizabeth Kneebone, April 14, 2008, The Brookings Institution
In this report, Elizbeth Kneebone examines the changing distribution of Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) recipients across large cites and suburbs, smaller metro areas, and rural communities throughout the country. While taxpayers in large cities and rural areas were the most likely to claim the EITC in 2005, more than one-third of EITC filers lived in the suburbs of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. Read More
BOOK
Jason Furman and Jason E. Bordoff, April 01, 2008
This book focuses on three key criteria for fostering broadly shared economic growth: enhancing economic security, building a highly skilled work force, and reforming the tax system. Read More
VIDEO
Isabel V. Sawhill, February 20, 2008
Economic inequality across American households has been growing for a number of years. Isabel Sawhill, co-director of the Center on Children and Families and co-author of Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America examines how upwardly mobile we really are.
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Ron Haskins, Julia B. Isaacs and Isabel V. Sawhill, February 2008, Economic Mobility Project
Is America still the land of opportunity and mobility? How much opportunity to get ahead actually exists in America? Brookings scholars Julia Isaacs, Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins provide new evidence and summarize research on both the extent of intergenerational mobility in the United States and the factors that influence it. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Karen E. Dynan, Douglas W. Elmendorf and Daniel E. Sichel, February 2008, The Brookings Institution
Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) reveals that household income has become noticeably more volatile during the past thirty years. Senior Fellow Doug Elmendorf with Karen Dynan and Daniel Sichel from the Federal Reserve Board estimate that the standard deviation of percent changes in household income rose one-fourth between the early 1970s and early 2000s. Read More