Workforce Developments

When do Americans care about the homeless?

Americans are a kind, caring people, right? If internet searches are a good measure of what people care about, then check out this chart from Google Insights:

 

There are four things you can learn from this one simple graphic:

• Every year when Thanksgiving rolls around, Americans experience a sudden upsurge of interest in the homeless
• There's a secondary bump in interest every April - tax season!
• Interest in the homeless is at its lowest during summer - until 2010 its lowest level has consistently been in August
• Overall interest in the homeless appears to have increased since the economic collapse

Where is the greatest interest in the homeless? Top five states by Google search:

1. Hawai'i
2. District of Columbia
3. Maryland
4. Massachusetts
5. Washington 

What else do you see in the statistics? What can we learn from these stats?

You can go much deeper into this data by place, time and search terms by going directly to Google Insights.

Required reading

From Hidden Costs to High Returns: Unlocking the Potential of the Lower-Wage Workforce
National Network of Sector Partners
August 2010

American companies tend to view their low-skill, low-wage workers as a disposable resource — necessary but transient, plentiful enough to hire and lose and hire again as needed. Like many forms of waste, this approach to human capital has the advantage of simplicity, but it’s loaded with hidden costs. Chief among these is the constant expense of recruiting and training new employees. But there are other costs, too, like the stunting of employees’ loyalty, ambition, and attention to quality. A culture of transiency, where paychecks don’t pay the bills and opportunities for advancement are few or nil, is one sure way to wipe out any incentive to perform above average, to push for excellence, to get the details right.

A growing number of companies, large and small, are investing in a different approach. These companies view the lower-skill workforce as a durable asset: a means of continually improving quality and a potential talent pool for higher-level positions.... Continue reading

Tuning In to Local Labor Markets: Findings From the Sectoral Employment Impact Study 
by Sheila Maguire, Joshua Freely, Carol Clymer, Maureen Conway and Deena Schwartz
Public/Private Ventures
July 2010

For American workers, having a high school or general equivalency diploma (GED) — which once represented a means of entrance to the middle class — is no longer adequate for finding steady employment. In fact, three quarters of low-wage workers have these qualifications but lack the relevant occupational skills and connections to employers needed to launch a career. At the same time, in some regions of the country there are persistent skills gaps clustered in particular industries, such as manufacturing and healthcare. Many of these jobs are expected to grow and require specific technical skills that can be gained only through focused training that is closely linked to the needs of local businesses.

Over the past two decades, an innovative approach to workforce development known as sectoral employment has emerged, resulting in the creation of industry-specific training programs that prepare unemployed and underskilled workers for skilled positions and connect them with employers seeking to fill such vacancies.... Continue reading

Friends don't let friends go to H&R Block

I don't mean to pick on any one company - don't let your friends use Jackson Hewitt either.

The point is that many of the best known tax prep companies charge excessively high fees. They also offer what's known as "refund anticipation loans" where the tax prep company loans the amount of your refund to you at shocking interest rates that can run from 50 to 700%. When you get your tax refund from the IRS, you have to pay back the loan and all that interest. 

The Better Business Bureau found that nearly one-third of all complaints against tax prep companies in the US and Canada were about mistakes made by the company that cost people money.

If you (or your program clients) didn't earn a lot of money in 2009, there are alternatives. Local United Ways across the country are providing free tax prep help. That's right - no fees. Well-trained volunteers will prepare your taxes. They know all the ins and outs of tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and will make sure you get the credits you're eligible for. They'll also help you get your refund fast - no loans to repay. 

Some call the EITC the nation's biggest anti-poverty measure. Tomorrow is National EITC Awareness Day. If you don't know about it, it's time to learn about it. Here's info from the IRS about the EITC, and a factsheet from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. According to CBPP,

In 2009, the EITC lifted an estimated 6.6 million people out of poverty, including 3.3 million children. The poverty rate among children would have been nearly one-third higher without the EITC. The EITC lifts more children out of poverty than any other single program or category of programs.

To get you started, here are links to the United Way tax prep pages in Los Angeles and Seattle. Find your local United Way here. 

Help spread the word about the EITC. And don't let your friends use high-fee tax prep services.

Colorado minimum wage reveals flaws in the Consumer Price Index

Actually, flaws in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) have been apparent to a lot of people for quite a while. Some argue that the CPI overstates inflation. Others argue it understates inflation. Your perspective depends on where you sit on the political spectrum, and it has been mostly an esoteric debate among the cognoscenti.

But when Colorado announced this week it would be the first state to lower its minimum wage because the CPI has fallen, flaws in the CPI became a very real problem for a lot of people.

Colorado is one of ten states that have tried to take politics out of the wage debate by setting their minimum level to move automatically with the CPI. However, laws in the other nine states set their minimum wage only to rise if the CPI does, with no provision for lowering the wage if the CPI drops. For example, Washington and Montana have just announced that minimum wage in their states will remain flat next year. For those of you keeping score, the other seven states are Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon and Vermont. 

The news from Colorado makes the flaw obvious. The cost of living has not decreased. Not for residents of Colorado, for any of the states that use the CPI to set their minimum wage, or for anyone else. Seriously - has your cost of living decreased since last year? The only places where I'm saving money is where I've made an effort to cut back on spending. But just because I'm eating chard and eggplants from my community garden plot doesn't mean the cost of veggies has gone down at the grocery store. 

If you work for more than minimum wage and are outside Colorado, this still may affect you. Many businesses use the CPI to calculate cost-of-living raises for their employees and are using this year's decline to withhold salary increases.

Here's the kicker: the Bureau of Labor Stats - they collect the data and run the numbers - states quite clearly the CPI is not a good measure of the cost of living. 

Then why do states and businesses use the CPI to set wages and salaries? Because it's widely treated as a cost-of-living index. Which now seems very strange. To truly calculate the cost of living at the community, city or state level would require collecting a lot of data regularly on buying habits and visiting local stores to find out how much things really cost. A prohibitively costly endeavor.

There are a number of alternatives to calculate wages that would truly cover the cost of living, including self-sufficiency standards and the universal living wage campaign that would base the wage on housing costs.

For Coloradans, the wage drop is three cents per hour, which comes to $62.40 for a full-time worker over the course of the year. If you think that's not a lot of money, talk to someone who's trying to get by on the minimum wage. Or talk to someone who won't be getting their annual raise this year thanks to the CPI decline. 

It's time to figure out a better way to more accurately calculate the cost of living for American workers.

DOL rules for green jobs training grants

The Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration (DOLETA) has just issued guidance on how it plans to use Recovery Act (ARRA) funds to make grants for green jobs training programs.

It's not a small chunk of change. Out of $750 million in the Recovery Act set aside for competitive grants for worker training and placement in high growth and emerging industries $500 million will be granted to projects preparing workers for careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Training and Employment Notice (TEN) 44-08, as the guidance document is known, is available here. Info about all DOL grants is here. DOLETA's page on how it's using Recovery Act funds is here.  

DOLETA is expecting to make grants in five major areas:

State labor market information improvement grants. That means we get to do some background research before jumping into programs.

Energy training partnership grants. Looks like these are primarily for labor-management organizations or partnerships that include them. Some of these will be set aside for areas heavily dependent on the auto industry.

Pathways out of poverty grants. Targeting low income adults and youth, eligible parties will be community- and faith-based organizations or partnerships that include them.

State sector training grants. Sector initiatives hit the big time! Some of these funds will also be set aside for auto-dependent areas.

Green capacity building grants. Designed to build the capacity of current DOL grantees to "prepare targeted populations for employment in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors."

DOLETA expects to issue solicitations for grant proposals in June 2009 with application closing dates in the summer. So read up and get ready now.

Spotlighting poverty in the presidential campaign

Here's a new website you'll want to check out and keep updated on: Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity.

Created by the Annie E. Casey and Eos Foundations, Spotlight on Poverty is working to "build momentum for national action addressing poverty in 2009." They've begun by asking the 2008 presidential candidates to answer five questions related to poverty and economic opportunity. They include "Would your Administration set a specific numerical target and timeline for reducing poverty?"

Imagine that!

The candidates have been invited to submit written or videotaped answers, and all responses will be posted on their site. I'm delighted to see foundations pushing for greater debate on poverty in America, and I'll be watching closely to see what the candidates have to say.

Albuquerque makes the case for workforce housing

Last month Albuquerque voters approved setting aside $10 million in bond funds for the city's Workforce Housing Opportunity Act. Home prices in Albuquerque might seem low by comparison to places like L.A. and NYC, but the city ranks 128th out of 219 metro areas in terms of housing affordability.

Anybody who hasn't had their head in the sand for the past few years knows that nationally, housing prices have shot up dramatically while worker wages have been stagnant or falling. Even if you work hard and play by the rules, you might not be able to afford a home. That's bad for you, your family and the community. Research is beginning to show it's bad for your employer too.

The Albuquerque bond funds will be used to benefit people earning less than 80% of the local median income ($55,900 for a family of four), and who pay more than 30% of their income on all housing costs. What kinds of workers are these? Child care workers, home health aides, teaching assistants, janitors, call center workers, paramedics, postal workers and even some nurses and firefighters.

As part of an project to educate the public about affordable workforce housing, the Workforce Housing Public Education Project created a slideshow video and posted it to YouTube (broken out into four parts). It does a great job of explaining the issues, presenting data that shows the need for affordable housing, and even explaining how bond funds work. Here's part 1:

Click on the following links to see part 2, part 3 and part 4. And here if you can't see part 1 embedded above. For more info, check out the website Our House ABQ, which  links to all the research the video cites, legislation and more.

Still time to endorse Skills2Compete

The Workforce Alliance will officially launch its Skills2Compete campaign early next month, and they're urging organizations to get on board now.

TWA's State Policy Director Jason Walsh explained the campaign to me earlier this year, saying the goal is to guarantee at least two years of post-high school education to all Americans. Research shows that's where labor demand is growing, and pay for those jobs is better than for jobs only requiring a high school degree. The S2C Principles and Priorities are a little wordy and confusing, but the underlying idea Walsh explained to me makes sense. These days, a high school education isn't enough, not for American workers, businesses or the economy.

Click here for info on endorsing the campaign. And if you haven't already, be sure to check out this YouTube video from Skills2Compete. 

Register now - NNSP sector conference

There's still time to register for the biennial conference of the National Network of Sector Partners (NNSP).  This year's theme: Digging Deep, Reaching High. The conference runs Nov 13-15 in Denver and "will explore industry-specific (sector) strategies that expand employment opportunities for low-wage / low-skilled workers and improve low-wage jobs while meeting companies' workforce needs." The conference program is here, and the registration page is here.

NNSP is a a project of the National Economic Development and Law Center (NEDLC) overseen by a national advisory committee of workforce development partners, national organizations, business and labor leaders. Its mission is "to encourage the use and effectiveness of sector initiatives as valuable tools for enhancing employment and economic development, opportunities for low-income individuals, families and communities."   

What does "sector" mean in a workforce development context? Check out this definition from the Workforce Strategies Initiative (WSI) at the Aspen Institute:

Sector (or industry-specific) initiatives are employment projects that work to improve economic outcomes for both low-income job seekers and employers. Four basic elements characterize sector-based approaches to workforce development:

• They target a specific industry, and often an occupation or set of occupations within that industry.
• They involve an organization acting as a strategic partner with deep knowledge of the targeted industry and its companies.
• They provide or coordinate training, supportive services and other types of assistance to improve career opportunities for low-wage, low-income or unemployed workers in that industry.
• They promote systemic change within an industry by working collaboratively with other parties to achieve changes in employment practices that benefit employers, low-wage workers, and low-income job seekers.

To learn more, check out the websites for NNSP, NEDLC and Aspen's WSI. Or just go to the conference.

Might want to double check your pay stub, too

Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District showed up en masse at yesterday's school board meeting with an outrageous demand - they want to be paid for their work.

Back in January the LAUSD district rolled out a new payroll system. Soon, some teachers were being underpaid, some overpaid, and some not paid at all. Some teachers reported receiving paychecks of $0.99 for a full month's work. The system is now making deductions from the paychecks of teachers who are believed to have been overpaid, but the teachers themselves have no way of knowing whether they've been paid correctly or not. Blogger and L.A. third grade school teacher Jane at My Many Colored Crayons tells her own story here.

United Teachers of Los Angeles, the union representing L.A. public school teachers, filed suit back in April. Blame is being tossed back and forth between Deloitte Consulting, which the district hired to create a new payroll system, SAP AG in Germany whose software the payroll system is based on, LAUSD and other elected officials. The graphic here showing how payroll problems break down is from Education Week's June story on the problem.

It's been announced that all problems are expected to be worked out by June 2008. In the meantime, teachers are getting behind on credit payments and making do however they can. LAUSD even issued a letter teachers can print and send to their creditors as they beg for leniency on payments. Could the timing be any worse, what with the ongoing mortgage meltdown?

With more than 110,000 employees and 708,000 students, LAUSD is the second largest employer in L.A. County, after county government. Demand for teachers nationally is expected to continue to be high for the next decade. Teacher turnover is also high, and the cost to school districts, taxpayers and students is significant. What's amazing is that under these conditions more L.A. teachers aren't leaving.

Today's L.A. Times editorializes against a school practice of giving students class credit for assisting teachers with filing and grading papers. Perhaps it would help if the teachers themselves were being paid.

I brake for job developers

The Workforce Alliance has launched its Skills 2 Compete campaign with this funny one-minute video:

Where can I can get those bumper stickers?

The Skills 2 Compete campaign has set a goal of ensuring every American has the chance to get at least two years of post-secondary education and training, or its equivalent. A high school education isn't enough any more. Click here to learn more, and here to endorse the campaign.

If the embedded video doesn't show up on your screen, click here to see it on YouTube.

Federal minimum wage rises to $5.85

On Tuesday the federal minimum wage - to not-so-much fanfare - rose by seventy cents per hour. I suppose those of us in the mainland U.S. should be grateful. Today in Saipan (aka the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands) the minimum wage went up to $3.55 per hour. The rules for  American Samoa are too complicated to describe here.

Does everyone who qualifies for the minimum wage actually get it? The National Employment Law Project reports major problems with enforcement, especially among immigrant workers and those working in health care, child care, retail, building services, construction and hospitality. As the number of workers covered by the minimum wage has grown 55% over the past 30 years, the number of federal inspectors in DOL's Wage and Hour Division has actually fallen 14%.

Perhaps the lack of fanfare has something to do with the fact that most states gave up waiting and raised their minimum wage levels long ago. Today, only eleven states either match the federal level or have no minimum wage law at all. Maybe it's just bad reporting, or perhaps a reflection of the issues NELP is raising, but here's how Tuesday's LA Times story about the minimum wage rise and enforcement problems ended:

No Labor Department officials were available for comment.

Summer's halfway over - have you taken your vacation yet?

Do you even get one?

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) recently issued a report comparing laws governing the right to paid time off from work among the 21 richest countries in the world. If you're feeling overworked and cranky already, you might not want to read it.

No Vacation Nation (press release)finds that twenty of those countries guarantee paid annual leave and most of them guarantee paid public holidays to all workers. France leads the pack in paid annual leave with 30 days off for all workers. Most of the rest provide 20+, while Canada and Japan are almost at the bottom with a guaranteed minimum of ten days off per year. Fifteen countries provide between one and thirteen paid public holidays each year for every worker. For total days off per year, Austria, Italy, Portugal and Spain vie for the top spot, with a combined total in each country of nearly 35 days for every worker.

The U.S. is the exception. How many paid days off are American workers guaranteed by law? I'll give you a hint. It's a ROUND number. That's right, American exceptionalism rules. We're the only industrialized country in the world that doesn't guarantee any paid time off to our workers. That's zero days. We don't even guarantee our workers time off for public holidays.

Why does this matter? Report authors Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt reviewed survey data and found that

In the absence of government standards in the United States, almost one in four workers there has no paid leave and no paid public holidays at all. According to U.S. government survey data, the average worker in the U.S. private sector receives only about nine days of paid leave and about six paid public holidays per year.

Moreover, vacation benefits in the U.S. are distributed unevenly:

Lower-wage workers are less likely to have any paid leave (69 percent) than higher-wage workers (88 percent); part-timers (36 percent) far less likely to have paid leave than full-timers (90 percent); and workers in small establishments (70 percent) are less likely to have paid leave than those in medium and large establishments (86 percent). Even when lower-wage, part-time, and small-business employees in the United States do receive paid leave, they typically receive far fewer paid days off than higher-wage, full-time, employees in larger establishments.

I learned about this report from an article in the LA Times Health section that summarized research that overwhelmingly finds people who take time of from work are physically and mentally healthier. If your employer gives vacation time, they say, you should take it. But what if you don't get any time off?

Do low-wage workers at smaller companies deserve less time off? Are they less deserving of the health and safety benefits that come with time off? Are their employers actually creating a less healthy and less productive workforce, by refusing to give time off? Don't you think you deserve some time off?

Everything you want to know about low income car ownership programs

Just last month the National Economic Development and Law Center (NEDLC) issued the findings of what must be the most comprehensive survey to date of low income car ownership (LICO) programs. The study gathered information from 110 different LICO programs across the country working to "improve access to cars for low-wage workers and their families."

Some of these programs buy and sell cars, others just provide financing. Some work with used cars, others with new cars. Some partner with banks and credit unions. Some utilize Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) as part of their programs. The NEDLC report outlines all the different strategies and programs they found. They look at how the programs are structured, how they set eligibility requirements, and where they get their funding from.

This is a tremendous resource for any organization thinking about how to help their clients improve their transportation to work options. Perhaps you'll find an agency listed here that you could partner with. Perhaps you'll get ideas about a new program you could develop. For more info, check out the report, and NEDLC's Low Income Car Ownership Clearinghouse.

Tattoos on the job

Check out this article from yesterday's L.A. Times, about the growing acceptance of tattoos and other body art in the workplace. Seems they're not the same barrier to employment they once were - depending on where you want to work. As tattoos and piercings have gone mainstream, workplaces are becoming more flexible with dress codes and "grooming standards."

One guy profiled in the story couldn't show his tattoos and ear plugs at the Boston Whole Foods where he worked, but when he came to L.A., the local Whole Foods store didn't mind. Disney still insists on the same clean-cut, "wholesome" look they've long been known for, although it has evolved over time. One summer camp director said that if he adopted a no-tattoo policy, he'd lose a lot of excellent camp counselors. He allows tattoos that aren't "offensive," and determines that on a case-by-case basis.

Many programs serving at-risk and adjudicated youth encourage participants to get tattoos removed, both as a sign of giving up gang affiliation and to improve job prospects. Ditto for ex-felons. This may be an area job placement staff may want to learn a little more about - what are local employer policies about tattoos? At the same time, I wonder if job-hunting youth and ex-felons in our programs would get the same treatment as middle class kids applying for camp counselor gigs. 

Why don't the media do a better job covering American workers? Part 2

Click here for Part 1.

Rick Wartzman, whose excellent business column was recently cut from the L.A. Times, was part of a team that investigated and wrote a 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning series examining the impact of Wal-Mart on American towns and developing countries. At least two other reporters on that project, Evelyn Iritani and Nancy Cleeland, have also taken not-entirely-voluntary Tribune Co. buyouts. Cleeland went public with her reasons on the revered blog HuffPost:

In the easy vernacular of modern journalism, the Times and other newspapers routinely cast business and labor as powerful competitors whose rivalries occasionally flare up in strikes and organizing campaigns. What I saw was that workers almost always lose. Eventually I left the labor beat and wrote about education and housing. Even there, however, I noted a lack of enthusiasm for anything having to do with the region's working poor.

Cleeland offers a thoughtful view of what the L.A. Times could choose to cover:

In Los Angeles, the underground economy is growing faster than the legitimate one, which means more exploited workers, greater economic polarization, and a diminishing quality of life for everyone who lives here. True, it's harder to capture those kinds of stories than to scan divorce files and lawsuits. But over time, solid reporting on the economic life of Los Angeles could bring distinction and credibility to the Times. It also holds tremendous potential for interacting with readers. And, above all, it's important.

What's happening at the L.A. Times isn't so different from what's happening at media outlets across the country. The economic realities to be covered might be on a bigger scale here, but they're not so different from what's happening everywhere. Moreover, the same trends in downsizing, outsourcing and falling wages affecting other industries are playing out in the media as well. The problem is, decisions about what's worth spending money to cover and what's not - as well as who they want to keep around to do it - are made by people who just want to make a bigger buck than they did yesterday.

Folks like us who spend our days behind the scenes, quietly trying to help people get good jobs and manage their difficult lives a little better have lost two of the voices who might have told our stories, and the stories of our program clients. I suppose it's up to us to find our own outlets and tell our own stories.

Why don't the media do a better job covering American workers? Part 1

Sunday's L.A. Times had a terrific column by one of the few business reporters whose work I enjoy, Rick Wartzman. Under the headline Refining the most vital kind of energy, he told the story of a successful workforce development program that's preparing disadvantaged workers for $70,000-a-year technician jobs at oil refineries in the L.A. area. The Petro Pathway Program is run by the Southbay Center for Counseling in partnership with the refineries and the United Steelworkers union. The refineries aren't just contributing to curriculum development - they're putting in cold, hard cash to make sure the program works. This story is just the kind of publicity the workforce development system needs. [If the Times website wants you to register to Wartzman's column, click over and read it here instead.]

Then on Tuesday I picked up the paper and read this: "The California & Co. column by Rick Wartzman will no longer appear in The Times."

No, he wasn't fired for covering workforce development. He's only the latest to leave. In fact, more than fifty of the best, most experienced (and most expensive) reporters at the Times took buyouts from the paper's new owner in May. In case you haven't been watching closely, the L.A. Times' slow slide downhill over the past couple of years has picked up speed since Sam Zell bought out parent company Tribune Co. in March and started squeezing hard for profits.

Wartzman's departure hasn't gone unnoticed, nor has the Times' lackluster coverage of working class people and issues. The LA Observed blog provided details on Wartzman's departure, and printed part of a letter from a politics and policy professor at Occidental College. Here's an excerpt:

The Times has a daily "business" section that seems to be written for a very narrow demographic of people in management and the upper tiers of the professions. But it needn't focus narrowly on the corporate culture. It should, rather, focus on the way business and the economy shapes our lives, and look at things from the bottom up as well as from the top down.

I've voiced a similar complaint a few times here on Workforce Developments, including this post back in December.

Wartzman has left the Times to take a senior fellow position at the New America Foundation  where he promises to write about "the nexus between business and immigration, income inequality, and regional development." I suppose those topics were just too hot for a paper like the L.A. Times.

Coming Monday: Another Pulitzer Prize winning reporter leaves the Times, saying her decision "grew out of frustration with the paper's coverage of working people and organized labor, and a sad realization that the situation won't change anytime soon."

Minimum wage to rise!

It's been ten years since the last increase, and they had to tie it to the most recent emergency spending bill for the war in Iraq, but Congress has finally passed a minimum wage increase that the president has promised to sign. The federal minimum wage will increase in 70 cent increments until summer 2009, when it will top out at $7.25 per hour. This will bring the federal level in line with the level of many states. It's safe to assume that by 2009, many of those states will have already pushed their minimum wages up past the federal level.

I've put together some links on the minimum wage in this blog post. The Economic Policy Institute has loads of background info and analysis on the minimum wage. For mainstream media coverage of Thursday's minimum wage rise click here; to see what they're saying in the blogosphere, click here and here.

TANF work requirements are bad for kids

When single mothers work full time, their teen children have problems in school. That's the key finding of a new study from MDRC and Syracuse University. Using data on welfare-reliant mothers living in disadvantaged communities in four major US cities being followed in MDRC's Project on Devolution and Urban Change, the study found that when the mothers worked more than 31 hours per week, their adolescent children were more likely to skip school and have behavioral problems, and their school performance decreases.

In other words, tough new work requirements that were further tightened last year through TANF reauthorization are likely to have long-term negative impact on low-income children and the communities they live in. It means that as labor demand tightens while baby boomers retire, we may have have fewer well-educated and qualified American citizens prepared to take their jobs. When AFDC was replaced by TANF in 1996 in an effort to "end welfare as we know it," the primary focus of financial aid to poor families shifted to reducing caseloads and pushing recipients into the workforce. Reauthorization of TANF last year required more work and redefined what the feds consider work or training.

This new study provides statistical confirmation what many case managers have seen first-hand over the past ten years. It's not to say that work in and of itself is a bad thing. At least one study has found that most TANF-leavers like the jobs they found. It's that work needs to pay well and be combined with a wide range of financial and social supports to ensure that the family doesn't suffer when a parent is out of the home for 40 and more hours a week.

Maternal Work Hours and Adolescents' School Outcomes Among Low-Income Families in Four Urban Counties was conducted by Lisa A. Gennetian of MDRC, with Leonard M. Lopoo and Andrew L. London of Syracuse University. Click here to read or download the full report.

Food stamp challenge: surviving on $3 a day

Today is the final day of the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge. For one week, four members of Congress ate only what they could buy with food stamps, which worked out to about $3 a day. The participants are blogging about their experiences and what they learned here. They had to pass up fresh vegetables and leaner cuts of meat for fattier, unhealthier processed foods. The goal of the Challenge is to raise awareness that food stamp benefits are insufficient to meet the needs of Americans who are going hungry. The Food Stamp program, which is managed by the US Department of Agriculture, served some 26 million Americans in 2005 at a cost of $28.6 billion. Members of Congress who took the Food Stamp Challenge want to increase funding for Food Stamps by $4 million.

Why is Workforce Developments covering an anti-hunger program? Too many Americans work hard but still can't make ends meet. MDRC includes food stamps as one of several income supplements that workforce development programs should connect with more closely in order to strengthen and improve the workforce system. 

The Challenge is getting a fair amount of media coverage, including the Boston Globe, Washington Post, CNN and in the blogosphere. The Seattle Times, on the other hand, called it a publicity stunt that trivializes a serious issue. Sure it's a publicity stunt, but I wouldn't call it trivial. Programs like food stamps don't get budget increases without plenty of political pressure. Perhaps this event will raise awareness and get the public to light a fire under their members of Congress to increase funding for this important program.