Margy Waller's blog

In a new report released this week, The Mobility Agenda finds that the U.S. economy, workplace, workforce, and labor market have changed radically in the last 50 years, yet public and private policies have not kept up with these changes.

In recent years, policymakers have begun considering new options for allowing workers to meet the often-conflicting demands of work and other life obligations. These proposals include a variety of options for time off from work—both paid and unpaid—and more flexibility in the workplace through initiatives like paid family and medical leave, paid sick days, and scheduling predictability.

In Work-Life Policies for the Twenty-First Century Economy, the authors review the evidence regarding work-life conflicts, the economic case for policy initiatives, and effectiveness of the policy options.

“Currently, no federal or state laws exist to guarantee that employers offer paid sick days,” says Margy Waller, Executive Director of The Mobility Agenda and a co-author of this report. “Yet, providing more flexibility in the workplace not only helps employees, but also can yield important benefits for employers.”

The Mobility Agenda is a think tank in Washington, DC that seeks to stimulate and shape a dialogue to build public support for strengthening the labor market, benefiting our economy, workers, and communities.

“No single policy will meet all needs, which is why we recommend a menu of policy solutions to address changes in workforce, living arrangements, and society,” explains Waller. The authors, Heather Boushey, Layla Moughari, Sarah Sattelmeyer, and Margy Waller present a clear explanation of the policy options and make specific recommendations for decision-makers.
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For more information, including the full report and abstract, please see: our web site.

Writing in the New York Times Week in Review, Louis Uchitelle reviews the recent decline in the floor for wages in the U.S. labor market.

The $20 hourly wage, introduced on a huge scale in the middle of the last century, allowed masses of Americans with no more than a high school education to rise to the middle class. It was a marker, of sorts. And it is on its way to extinction.

Americans greeted the loss with anger and protest when it first began to happen in big numbers in the late 1970s, particularly in the steel industry in Western Pennsylvania. But as layoffs persisted, in Pennsylvania and across the country, through the ’80s and ’90s and right up to today, the protests subsided and acquiescence set in.

Hourly workers had come a long way from the days when employers and unions negotiated a way for them to earn the prizes of the middle class — houses, cars, college educations for their children, comfortable retirements. Even now a residual of that golden age remains, notably in the auto industry. But here, too, wages are falling below the $20-an-hour threshold — $41,600 annually — that many experts consider the minimum income necessary to put a family of four into the middle class.

The nation’s political leaders — Democrats and Republicans alike — have argued that education and training are a route back to middle-class wages for those who have fallen out. But the demand isn’t sufficient to absorb all the workers that the leaders would educate.

…. The trend in the hourly work force is striking. Take only the peak years in each business cycle, starting in 1979. The proportion earning at least $20 an hour declined from 23 percent that year, to 20 percent in 1980, to 18 percent in 1989, and to 16 percent in 2000. Manufacturing was hit the hardest.

Uchitelle doesn’t take the data to the next point, which is a focus of our research at The Mobility Agenda: the high proportion of the U.S. labor market made up of low-wage jobs. Our policy leaders haven’t focused nearly enough on the fact that the U.S. isn't just losing better jobs, growth in low-wage jobs is changing our economy in ways that affect all of us. Our economy is heavily dependent on individual spending. When workers don’t earn enough to take care of daily expenses like housing, transportation, and food – spending and consumption decline. And that hurts the economy for all of us. As is apparent today.

Unfortunately, over 40 million jobs in the United States—about one in three—pay low wages of $11.11 or less, often providing no employment benefits and little flexibility. Even though the United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, employers pay these workers less than workers who hold similar jobs elsewhere.

The last decade has seen some progress on advancing a number of well-known policies to improve job quality by boosting the minimum wage and expanding publicly subsidized employment benefits, like child care and wage subsidies such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. Likewise, we support efforts to address education and advancement strategies that prepare workers for skilled jobs.

Still, when one worker advances out of a low-wage job and another worker takes it, the job does not change.

In contrast to the manufacturing jobs, many of these jobs are in growth sectors like retail and hospitality, jobs that will not be off-shored because they are geographically specific.

At The Mobility Agenda, we’ve surveyed key contacts across the nation for new ideas and strategies to strengthen the labor market by improving these jobs. State and local stakeholders are experimenting with a host of new initiatives to improve low-wage jobs. These innovative ideas are less well known and are not commonly incorporated into the agenda of advocates and academics. For much more information about these new strategies, see our web based resources on this research, starting here.

Here's an update from The Mobility Agenda's Senior Research Associate, Sarah Sattelmeyer.

Yesterday, the New Jersey Senate approved a (long time in the works!) paid family leave bill, which the Assembly passed in March. Governor Corzine has committed to signing this bill, which will make New Jersey the third state to adopt paid family leave.

For those of you who are not work-life policy junkies like myself, family and medical leave (which differs from paid sick days) can guarantee workers time away from work to recover from a personal health condition, for the birth or adoption of a child, to care for an elderly family member, and/or to incorporate additional longer-term family care needs.

The 1993 federal Family and Medical Leave Act, administered by the US Department of Labor, provides unpaid family and medical leave for some U.S. workers. On the other hand, State Temporary Disability Insurance programs are administered on a state level and offer paid family and medical leave for workers. Employer and employee generally jointly fund these programs.

Many states are working (California has been successful!) to extend their Temporary Disability Insurance programs or develop new programs to cover a wide array of family and medical needs, including adoption. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, New Jersey's new law falls into this category in that it will expand the state's temporary disability insurance program to give workers up to six weeks of family leave benefits to care for a sick family member or a newborn or newly adopted child. It provides temporary disability insurance benefits at two-thirds of wage replacement up to a maximum of $524 per week in 2008, and is financed by a small employee payroll deduction.

It’s about time, right? But despite the passage of this bill through both houses of the New Jersey legislature, significant conflict about the idea of work-life policies still exists. According to an Associated Press reporter and Newsday.com, Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) and other opponents of the bill fear that "[t]his [bill will] impose a tax on every employer in our state and continue…to lay the groundwork for the exodus of citizens and employers."

This comment by Senator Beck should have provided the perfect opportunity for Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney, a leading proponent of the bill, to use language that bridged the business-worker gap. But instead, he followed in the divisive footsteps of Senator Beck by commenting that "[t]his bill…signif[ies] a new day for the state's work force, in that, the needs of families will be put before the needs of business owners."

Senator Sweeney, while meaning well and clearly a strong champion of workers who is on the right side of this issue, lost his chance to promote the pro-business benefits of work-life policies when he verbally created a divide between “families” and “business owners”—between us and them.

In many situations, employers have used public and private policy to balance competing work-life priorities. In a recent study conducted by WFD Consulting and Corporate Voices for Working Families, offering work-life policies in the workplace improves employee retention, creates more positive human capital outcomes, and establishes a more productive workforce, all of which can lead to stronger financial performance, especially for retail companies whose employees often have a direct relationship with customers. In fact, researchers reporting on a 2002 Watson Wyatt study found that “companies that provide more flexible work arrangements” could see as much as a 3.5 percent rise in shareholder value.

Work-life policies also lead to better mental health and less stress, which contribute to a reduction in employee health care costs. According to the CDC, stress at work can increase employees’ unscheduled absences, and health care expenditures (something about which we are all concerned!) are nearly 50 percent greater for U.S. workers who report high levels of stress.

We still need research to explore the narrative lens that works best when discussing work-life policy with a pro-business contingent. But even without the research, stakeholders should use common sense in their public remarks about work-life policy. New Jersey legislators just passed a bill that will help thousands of workers, but Senator Sweeney’s comments did not even open the door for a productive dialogue with the business community about legislation that affects all of us.

The facts are on his side. The battle is won, but not the war. The Senator Sweeneys of the world need to see their legislation through in a manner that will help other leaders win similar battles.

The Mobility Agenda will soon release Work-Life Policies for the Twenty-First-Century Economy, a report that explains the need for better work-life policy and provides recommendations for stakeholders.

In his column today, E.J. Dionne (a favorite of The Mobility Agenda) reports that the message of “inclusion” on the campaign trail has overcome old-style, slice-and-dice-progressive-constituencies “micropolitics”.

It’s great to have the press call attention to this concept. And no surprise that E.J. Dionne is one of the first to do so.

The Nation magazine recently praised efforts by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D- CA), to introduce a plan to cut poverty. The detailed package of policy proposals, “The Anti-Poverty and Opportunity Initiative,” calls for:

…. $73 billion in FY 2009, increasing to $129 billion in FY 2018, to fund a comprehensive strategy to cut poverty in half in a decade, including: expanding child care and increasing Head Start funding; making the Child Tax Credit fully refundable and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit for larger families; increasing funding for Food Stamps programs; increasing housing vouchers by 200,000 annually; lifting restrictions on TANF, Food Stamps, SSI and Medicaid for documented immigrant families; fully funding block grants to states with broad anti-poverty strategies and distributing targeted grants to states for families where a parent or child has a disability; increasing funding for Indian Health Services, education, housing and infrastructure, natural resources management, and other areas impacting Native American poverty; and reversing the 20 percent cut in child support enforcement.

The initiative incorporates many policy ideas advocates, academics, community organizations, and other stakeholders have been wishing that Congress and the administration would adopt – for many years now. Individual lists might differ a bit from Congresswoman Lee’s, but any Congressional staffer from a progressive office already has a list like this memorized.

So why aren’t these proposals the law of the land?

It's probably because supporters have reached everyone persuadable by talking about the proposals as “anti-poverty” initiatives for forty years. And all that support still isn’t enough to overcome the opponents of legislation like this. While many people want to do something about poverty—it’s not a high priority for voters. In February, the Gallup Poll asked voters about "the most important problem facing the country" and just 2 percent named poverty/hunger/homelessness.

That means friendly policymakers don’t have the political space they need to take on opponents.

And continuing to use the poverty banner means it is unlikely that this plan will generate adequate support in the future. There are a few reasons for this:

* The U.S. definition of poverty is out of date and flawed, allowing opponents to use it to limit policy solutions to a narrow very low-income group.
* Public understanding of the causes of (irresponsible and immoral behavior) and remedies (responsible personal behavior) for poverty hinders adoption of the policy solutions we seek to address it.
* Defining the problem as “poverty” opens the door to a losing scenario in the legislative debate.

In fact, when Senator Clinton announced her support for a plan to adopt a goal to cut child poverty in late February, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation took the opening to criticize and offer their alternative:

Robert Rector, senior research fellow on welfare and family issues at the Heritage Foundation, says Clinton refuses to even acknowledge the two primary causes of child poverty -- out-of-wedlock births, and parents living on welfare instead of working. "What she wants to do is combat poverty by putting the responsibility on the U.S. taxpayer, who already spends about $450 billion a year fighting poverty," says Rector, "while [at the same time] specifically avoiding the issue of changing the behaviors that are the cause of poverty.”

See the problem?

The poverty debate provides a classic example of the imperative not to sacrifice our larger policy goals for the sake of an incremental or different advance, particularly when that advance actually undermines the shared agenda for the long term. By advancing a plan to set a target for cutting poverty, elected officials and candidates set up a problematic future, and one that threatens to undermine the policy goals.

Let’s imagine the likely scenario to come. Whether or not a candidate who has promised to set a goal to cut poverty wins the White House, we can expect continued efforts by some advocacy groups and members of Congress to push for the goal and the policy to match.

The mainstream media will portray the likely legislative options as two competing proposals: one we like (a comprehensive approach to addressing inequality and economic mobility) and one we don’t (solve poverty with marriage and harder work).

Our opponents are able to push these concepts with success because they are consistent with a broad public understanding of the causes of poverty, and a widely held belief that government programs cannot really address the issue of poverty or inequality. We already lost this same fight in battles over welfare. Why would we want to engage in it again?

We don’t need to re-fight that battle. We know that some people (democrats and low-income voters) are persuaded by a sympathy lens on the issue (the one that the word “poverty” calls up for many people in this country) to support a limited set of policies. Unfortunately, this language actually decreases support for progressive policies like a living wage.

Moreover, we also know that using an economic narrative moves these same voters and others (working-class, non college-educated men, older men, Republican voters, union households, and older voters without a college education) to support more of our policy goals.

So, if there is no true demand for a goal to cut poverty and it won’t help add new support, it would be much smarter strategically to use an economic case to promote the same larger policy agenda without the damaging poverty headline.

In fact, the Progressive Caucus members have proposals that would address poverty, social and economic mobility, and inequality that they’ve put under an economy title, the “Rebuild and Reinvest in America Initiative.” They should focus on this legislation and incorporate the “anti-poverty” agenda into that legislation.

Everyone who wants anti-poverty policy to be high on the agenda after the upcoming election should stop talking about goals to cut poverty and instead talk about an economy that will work for everyone.

Changing the way we start the conversation with others about this issue doesn’t mean we don’t care about the poor anymore or that our policy goals have to change at all. It’s just an acknowledgment that if we want to win, we have to change the narrative to one that works for us, and for more of the public too.

The cost of car insurance can be a major barrier to driving. And we know that people with access to a reliable, affordable car are more likely to be employed, earn more, and work more hours. We also know that low-wage workers drive fewer miles than higher income people, which makes transportation to work a regressive tax on employment. (For much information more on transportation and work, see our resource page on transportation and the labor market.)

Recently, we've been monitoring efforts in a couple states to reduce the cost of car insurance and we found this new article about pay-as-you-drive car insurance in the popular journal Democracy intriguing.

Pay-As-You-Drive Car Insurance
by Jason Bordoff

If you're like most Americans, you eat too much at all-you-can-eat buffets. With auto insurance, it's no different. Drivers who are similar in all respects—age, gender, driving record—pay roughly the same premiums whether they drive 5,000 or 50,000 miles per year, even though the likelihood of a collision increases with each mile. This "all-you-can-drive" pricing scheme imposes significant costs on society: more traffic accidents, congestion, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and dependence on oil. It's also inequitable, as low-mileage drivers, particularly low-income people and women, subsidize high-mileage drivers.

Read More.

We’ve been studying sub-prime car financing for a couple of years. This issue has been largely off the radar in the mainstream media, but we’ve noticed more attention lately, as defaults increase.

From a blog cross-posted at the Reuter’s website:

Fitch Ratings, a credit rating company, reported today that the number of auto loans at least 60 days delinquent has hit a 10-month high in January, jumping 12% from December 2007 and 44% from January 2007. Overall, 0.77% of prime and subprime auto loans in the US were delinquent in January 2008.

Subprime delinquencies (for less-credit-worthy consumers) were 4.03% in January, up 10% from December 2007 and 43% from January 2007. They are at the highest rate since late 1997.

Auto loan delinquencies are on the upswing for many reasons, but among them are the more lenient credit standards in previous years, coupled with the housing slowdown and the possibility of a recession. Hylton Heard of Fitch said other than consumers receiving their tax refunds in the coming months, there appears to be little likelihood of this trend changing in the coming months.

(My emphasis.)

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently produced a documentary outlining the issue of car financing for low-wage workers. The video is now available online and is accompanied by a discussion guide.

You can find more information about the video, and other resources, on our new car financing page. You’ll also find selected news reports about this issue too.

The movement to guarantee that all workers have paid time off for work life balance is gaining momentum.

Washington DC just passed the second local law in the nation (despite the limitations of the provision, this is progress) and New Jersey seems poised to pass a law offering paid family and medical leave.

And finally, check out this innovative use of the web to create on “online rally” for paid sick days.

Spend your lunch break today speaking out for paid sick days for all working people.

Join us virtually at the U.S. Capitol for the first-ever Online Rally for Healthy Families — a special online event hosted by the National Partnership and the Healthy Families Act coalition.

Bring your friends and co-workers along....

You can join the rally by visiting EveryoneGetsSick.org and then share your story, upload a photo, take action, and more.

Color me green – I love this creative use of the available technology.

DC is the second city in the nation to have a new labor standard ensuring paid sick days for workers. When we started our research on New Ideas for Better Jobs, this kind of progress was hard to imagine.

But, the news from the DC Employment Justice Center suggests we have some work to do now that City Council voted against residents yesterday by seriously limiting the reach of the new labor standard and leaving out many workers, rather than ensuring all workers can take time off when they are sick.

We would surely benefit from a little more research on the best way to have this conversation in order to sustain the political space and public will necessary for a standard that works for the entire community.

We have good evidence in hand of the economic reasons for better work-life policy.Yet too many people seem to believe that a guarantee of a limited number of paid sick days would hurt the local economy.

From the Employment and Justice Center:

D.C. Council Includes One-Year Waiting Period, Other Harsh Amendments before Passing the Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act

Washington, DC- Today, the D.C. Council voted unanimously to pass the Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act of 2007, an historic piece of legislation that is poised to make D.C. the second city in the nation to provide all of its workers with a limited amount of paid sick time, and the first to protect workers who need time off to address a domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking situation. Unfortunately, after more than two hours of arguments and a slew of amendments, the bill that ultimately passed the Council today was a shadow of the original legislation. After including an amendment requiring that employees complete a full 12 months of employment before accessing paid sick and safe time, and after adding exemptions for health care workers and for restaurant wait staff, the bill that the Council supported today was, while laudable, dramatically weaker than what they voted 11-2 to pass just one month ago.

There are estimated to be over 200,000 workers in DC who do not get paid sick time, with high concentrations in low-wage food service, retail, and construction. These include part-time workers and workers in seasonal positions that, under the current bill, may never meet the one-year full-time minimum to access paid sick and safe time.

Members of the Council claimed that the amendment, which redefined "employees" according to the definition in the Family Medical Leave Act, was necessary in order to bring clarity to the bill. "In reality, the amendment was an effort to deeply weaken the bill, because using the FMLA definition in this legislation means that workers and their family members will have to go a full year without anyone being sick or needing protection from domestic violence situations," stated Karen Minatelli, Deputy Director of the DC Employment Justice Center. "It's completely unrealistic." Despite the ultimate 7-6 vote to pass this amendment, advocates thank Councilmembers Barry, Bowser, Graham, Mendelson, Schwartz, and Wells for standing up for workers and the heart of the bill, by voting against the one-year delay.

Councilmembers Graham, Mendelson, and Schwartz also opposed exemptions for wait staff and health care workers. "Exemptions for health care workers and wait staff are contrary to one of the bill's purposes," added Minatelli. "If we are trying to address public health concerns about the spread of illness, then it makes no sense to exempt workers in the health field or in jobs with such public contact."

Unions, workers and advocates celebrate the passage of this important legislation and the support from Councilmembers who opposed the harsh amendments, but look forward to a time when the District will truly provide sick and safe leave for all D.C. workers.

On the eve of “(Possibly) Decisive Tuesday”, whether a campaign sets a poverty goal probably doesn’t matter.

Yet, it’s helpful (for our work) to continue this dialogue about whether it was a good plan for Senator Clinton to announce her goal to cut poverty at all.

Is it a good strategy? Shawn suggests that Senator Clinton needed to have a plan in the primary and cites a Huffington Post commentary written by a former Edwards campaign staffer as evidence.

A few reactions:

• Voters are not clamoring for this - even in the primary, and even in the hard hit areas of southeastern Ohio, where poverty rates are relatively high. In February, the Gallup Poll asked voters about "the most important problem facing the country" and just 2 percent named poverty/hunger/homelessness.

  
  The dynamic might (possibly!) be different if the primary had come down to a race between Clinton and Edwards. In that case, the target for cutting poverty might have been used by Edwards to illustrate a difference between the candidates. But, that isn’t where we ended up. Moreover, in that scenario, the campaign would likely have undermined the party and the policy goals…given what we know about opposition to the policies and voter preferences.
  

• We know that some people (democrats and low-income voters) are persuaded by the sympathy frame (the one that the word “poverty” calls up for voters) to support a limited set of policies. But, this language actually decreases support for a living wage. Moreover, we also know that an economic lens moves these same voters and others to support more of our policy goals!
  
  So, if there is no true demand for a goal to cut poverty and it won’t help add new voters, why not use an economic case to promote the same larger policy agenda without a damaging poverty headline? (In fact, the Clinton campaign appears to have included most of the same policy in an earlier announcement about her economic plans.)




• Why does this matter at all? Maybe it doesn’t. But, I’m afraid it could. And I’d prefer a candidate who is thinking beyond the next primary and stays focused on the goal of building political space and public will for the policy goals. Or at the very least, one who doesn’t take the risk of underming the policy in order to win.

  
  Some time ago, Rachel Gragg (one of inclusion’s co-founders) co-authored an article outlining a topic we’ve all discussed at length: the advantages of “winning by losing well.”
  The poverty debate provides a classic example of this imperative not to sacrifice our larger policy goals for the sake of an incremental or different advance, particularly when that advance actually undermines the shared agenda for the long term. By advancing a plan to set a target for cutting poverty, Senator Clinton sets up a problematic future, and one that threatens to undermine the policy goals.

  Let’s assume (for the sake of this posting) that Senator Clinton were to win the nomination. She could then be forced to campaign on her poverty goal in the general election. This would allow opponents to raise the arguments outlined by the Heritage Foundation in response to her announcement last week.

  And if she ended up in the White House, we can expect that some advocates would demand that she make good on her plan to call for a target to cut poverty. And that would likely fail, as we’ve outlined before. In the process – a lot of the policy we need to implement could be undermined by the debate over whether these policies are the ones our government should adopt to “cut poverty”.

No other leading candidate remaining the race has adopted a goal to cut poverty. I hope it stays that way.

Senator Clinton announced her plan to cut poverty just days before the Ohio primary.

Why? Really, why does she think this will help her win – or help build public will for the policies she promotes: like a higher minimum wage, pre-K, improving child support collection, etc?

Her plan incorporates lots of ideas we’ve identified and include on our list of new ideas for good jobs: democratic workplaces, health care, paid family leave, etc. She also has a laundry list of additional good ideas that support economic and social mobility: expanding green jobs, more strategies for worker advancement, etc.

It’s so…. not cool…. that she put it all these great ideas under the poverty headline!

Using the poverty banner means it is unlikely that this plan will generate support. While lots of people want to do something about poverty—it’s not a high priority for voters.

I’ve written about this before.

• The U.S. definition of poverty is out of date and flawed.
• Public understanding of the causes of and remedies for poverty hinders adoption of the policy solutions we seek to address it.
• Defining the problem as “poverty” opens the door to a losing scenario in the legislative debate. Media will portray the options as two competing proposals: one we like (comprehensive approach to addressing inequality and economic mobility) and one we don’t (solve poverty with marriage and harder work). We already lost that fight in battles over welfare. Why we would we want to engage in it again?

In fact, she gave the Heritage Foundation an opening:

Robert Rector, senior research fellow on welfare and family issues at the Heritage Foundation, says Clinton refuses to even acknowledge the two primary causes of child poverty -- out-of-wedlock births, and parents living on welfare instead of working. "What she wants to do is combat poverty by putting the responsibility on the U.S. taxpayer, who already spends about $450 billion a year fighting poverty," says Rector, "while [at the same time] specifically avoiding the issue of changing the behaviors that are the cause of poverty.”

See the problem?

We present these findings, and more, in a variety of media. Check out the newest version of The Mobility Agenda’s “New Lens on Policy”.

Responding to a comment on my cross-posting about auto insurance mandates and uninsured rates at Talking Points Memo, I note that it’s important to know how states enforce the mandate. A commenter implied that there is almost no down side to going without auto insurance—especially if one is “judgment proof”.

Driving without insurance can be very costly. States impose penalties including license suspension, hefty fines, vehicle impoundment, and jail time.

It’s an unacknowledged reality of our labor market that most people must drive to work. Public transit just doesn’t work in most places or for many workers; less than 5 percent of workers commute using transit and many of those people live in Manhattan, Chicago, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. Thus, loss of license or car as a penalty for driving uninsured has a very high cost and it's one most would avoid If they can.

There are certainly differences between auto and health insurance, yet there are still important lessons in the comparison.

Senators Clinton and Obama are continuing the debate over how best to ensure that everyone has health insurance and access to care.

Some online analysts have raised questions about the effectiveness of mandates by reviewing car insurance mandates.

We have been spending some time looking at access to car insurance in our transportation research.

Car insurance is regulated by states. Only two states do not require drivers to maintain insurance – New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Yet, a recent report finds that nearly 15 percent of drivers across the nation are uninsured.

What happens in the two states without a mandate?

Wisconsin ranks 20th with about 14 percent uninsured, while New Hampshire has one of the lowest rates of all states at 9 percent. Other state rates range from 26 percent (Mississippi) to 4 percent (Maine).

Some writers have noted that California has a low-cost insurance option for low-wage workers. In that state, these writers point out, the uninsured rate is one of the highest at 25%.

We’ve interviewed some of the key actors implementing the California low-cost insurance option and find that there is a major problem with outreach and access. Most low-wage workers probably don’t even know about the option and the incentives don't seem to be structured in a way that encourages brokers to sell it.

A number of people are working on improving knowledge and use of the low-cost option in California, but we should not assume that low-wage drivers wouldn’t buy it—-if they knew about it.

So, what do we know? A mandate does not guarantee universal coverage in this case. And creating and implementing a lower-cost insurance option for low-wage workers will require creativity, careful implementation, and outreach.

Paul Krugman takes on poverty in his column. He’s highlighting new research about the impact of childhood poverty on “the American Dream”.

Unfortunately, while he had strong opinions about the impact of campaign promises on legislative debates over health care after the election, he doesn’t acknowledge what we know about public reaction to use of the language of poverty.

We’ve said it before:

• The U.S. definition of poverty is out of date and flawed.
• Public understanding of the causes of and remedies for poverty hinders adoption of the policy solutions we seek to address it.
• Defining the problem as “poverty” opens the door to a losing scenario in the legislative debate. Media will portray the options as two competing proposals: one that's about our interdependence (comprehensive approach to addressing inequality and economic mobility) and one that's not (solve poverty with marriage and harder work). We already lost that fight in battles over welfare. Why we would we want to engage in it again?

We present these findings in a variety of media. Check out the newest version of The Mobility Agenda’s “New Lens on Policy”. We use this powerpoint several times a month (at least) for talks around the country with all kinds of stakeholders – academics, advocates, policymakers, elected officials, students, media, organizers, service providers, etc.

I learn with the audience too. A few weeks ago, I met with a class of NYU law students and one of them suggested some changes in the visual presentation that I promptly adopted.

The week before that, I met with community leaders from across the state of North Carolina. They discussed better ways to present information to decision makers based on the research I’d presented. They decided to illustrate systemic solutions like universal access to health care, retirement options for those without adequate employer-based options, and guaranteed paid sick days. These are three of the ideas identified in our scan on better jobs.

It was thrilling to hear that local leaders believe the ideas from our research also provide the best economic narratives as alternatives to the traditional sympathy storyline.

View “A New Lens on Policy”.

As John Edwards left the race to be our next President, he reported that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had “…pledged to me and more importantly through me to America, that they will make ending poverty central to their campaign for the presidency.”

Here’s hoping Clinton and Obama intend to do more than establish a limited and limiting goal of cutting poverty. And that neither makes a promise to adopt the flawed “cut poverty” goal in order to extract his endorsement.

It was never clear why Edwards made establishing a national goal to cut poverty a feature of his campaign.

After all, Edwards often talked about workers whose household incomes exceed the official definition of poverty. And he was definitely focused on promoting policy solutions to systemic problems in the labor market and our economy. This makes sense, if our goal is a stronger economy and inclusive democracy.

Unfortunately, Edwards got in the way of his own message by putting up the poverty banner.

There are two problems with the goal to end poverty. First – it’s very limited. Moving people above the poverty line won’t do much to strengthen our economy, communities, or families because it was designed to establish the income necessary to avoid material deprivation, nothing more. Moreover, the formula is seriously out of date because it was developed using 1950s household expenditure data. At that time, families spent more on food and much less on housing, transportation, and child care. Yet, the formula—based on the percentage spent buying enough food to survive-- has never been updated.

Using the poverty measure to judge our success also opens the door to conservative critics who will promote marriage and “hard work” as the solutions to poverty – effectively ignoring systemic causes of income inequality like stagnant wages and declining employment benefits, and other societal shifts that are barriers to economic and social mobility.

Second, merely changing the definition of poverty to fit these policies won't work. It really doesn’t matter who or what the proposal serves. When we target the poor, too many people think they know who that is: those people who made bad choices in life by dropping out of school, or getting pregnant at a young age without benefit of a supportive, stable partner. Even the so-called "working poor" are suspect, because Americans believe that if you work hard, you will do well. So, by that definition – people who are working hard won’t be poor. And it doesn’t seem to matter how many research reports we throw at the issue – we haven’t been able to build the necessary public support or political will for the policy solutions we want.

All of which suggests, we need a new way to talk about our goal. Poverty is too limited (by U.S. definition) and limiting (by U.S. public understanding) a notion and opens the door to opposing arguments in a big way.

Defining the problem as “poverty” sets up a losing scenario for policymaking. My crystal ball predicts competing proposals in any Congressional debate over the best way to cut poverty in half:

1) The Law to Halve Poverty Over Ten Years with good schools, universal pre-k, financial education, health coverage for all, expanded child care, increased minimum wage, unions; and
2) Making Poverty History Act with marriage and work.

Conservatives would demolish a comprehensive proposal because it goes far beyond the stated goal of raising income above the poverty line (about $20,000 for a family of 4) and the public won’t support such spending proposals because they believe people are poor due to personal failures.

This debate would feel frustratingly familiar to anyone who followed the evolution of welfare legislation in the last decade.

It is time to move beyond the fight over issues of poverty and “personal responsibility” and reset the goal as one of economic mobility and social inclusion. We shouldn’t blow this opportunity by sticking to an old – and failed – framework for this debate. The candidates will benefit greatly from developing an alternative lens on the issue, one designed to build support for broader policy solutions, in addition to the many good ideas that we haven't yet created political will to enact.