This report is an analysis of alternative datasets and research approaches to assess the effects of Hurricane Katrina on populations served by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The assessment addresses four overarching research questions, with an emphasis on using existing datasets: 1) where did populations of interest go and where are they living since Katrina; what are the effects on income and employment; what are the needs for ACF programs and services; and how did the disaster affect ACF programs themselves? The report includes an extensive annotated bibliography of analyses through January 2007.

With the warring between left and right, Democrats and Republicans, advocacy groups on one side and advocacy groups on the other, it seems as if those who set our national agenda are those who shout the loudest. But shouldn’t scholarship count for more than preconceived notions? With humor and insight, Paul Gary Wyckoff debunks myths about economic and social policy while explaining the standards of evidence that should guide our legislation. He also recommends revisions to economics and law curricula so that legislators will know how to craft policy from research rather than conventional wisdom and theory.

When youth in the child welfare system face problems such as juvenile delinquency, the agencies charged with their care often find that they do not have the capacity to act without the cooperation of other government departments. The trap gets tighter when parents have lost custody or are in the criminal justice system themselves. Such scenarios frustrate staff in government agencies and cause vulnerable youth to lose confidence in the system just when they need it the most. Child Welfare: The Challenges of Collaboration highlights several scenarios requiring interagency collaboration and also includes an evaluation of Project Confirm, a cross-agency effort to help foster children in juvenile detention. Though the challenges of collaboration will be difficult to solve, this book offers practical examples to guide child welfare service agencies.

For the past two decades the United States has been transforming distressed public housing communities, with three ambitious goals: replace distressed developments with healthy mixed-income communities; help residents relocate to affordable housing, often in the private market; and empower former public housing families toward economic self-sufficiency. The transformation has focused on deconcentrating poverty, but not on the underlying role of racial segregation in creating these distressed communities. In Public Housing and the Legacy of Segregation, scholars and public housing officials assess whether—and how—public housing policies can simultaneously address the problems of poverty and race.

Education is a key pathway out of poverty, yet schools that primarily serve minority students often fail to provide the educational opportunities available in predominantly white schools. A series of state court cases has addressed one cause of that disparity, the dramatic funding differences that result from reliance on local property taxes to fund schools. This paper examines the success of court-mandated solutions in equalizing spending per pupil across districts serving minority and white students. However, we show that there remains much disparity in other measures of educational quality and outcomes.

Tax policy has been a major issue in the Presidential election campaign, with both candidates proposing extensive changes. The candidates take very different approaches to tax policy. The main differences are two: first, McCain’s plans would reduce revenues by significantly more than Obama’s; and second, McCain’s would be substantially less progressive, especially among very high income taxpayers. From the standpoint of growth or simplicity, both plans disappoint. It is hard to believe that either set of changes would have significant growth effects on the economy.

Small employers cannot buy health insurance unless 75 percent of workers offered coverage enroll. Under Senator McCain's proposal to replace the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) with tax credits usable for ESI or non-group plans, many young and healthy workers would save money by shifting from ESI to non-group coverage; non-group plans typically lower premiums for healthy enrollees. Some employers could no longer meet participation requirements and would become unable to buy group insurance. Many of their employees would involuntarily lose ESI, forcing them into the non-group market, where older workers and those with health problems may fare poorly.

In this paper I note the basic paradox of workforce development policy: that, in an era in which skills are more important than ever as determinants of labor market earnings, we spend fewer and fewer public (federal) dollars on workforce development over time. I present trends in funding and in program evolution over time for programs funded by the Department of Labor and others. I then review the cost-effectiveness of programs for adults and youth from the evaluation literature. I consider some other possible reasons for funding declines, and some newer developments in workforce policy, mostly at the state and local levels, before concluding with some policy recommendations.

In this paper, I review what we have learned about living wage laws and their impacts on the wages, employment and poverty rates of low-wage workers. I review the characteristics of these laws, predictions from economic theory about their likely effects, and two bodies of empirical evidence: studies across cities or metropolitan areas and those within particular cities. I conclude that living wage laws have modestly raised wage levels of low wage workers and have reduced their employment at covered firms, but that the magnitudes of both effects are likely quite small, given how few workers are usually covered by these ordinances.

One promising aspect of retirement saving policy in recent years is the "automatic" or opt-out features in 401(k) plans. Automatic 401(k)s enable saving even if the worker makes no effort to participate in their 401(k) plan. Prior research has shown that automatic enrollment increased participation in 401(k) from 75 percent to as high as 90 percent of newly eligible employees; with the highest change among lower-income and minority workers. This paper provides estimates of the effects - on federal revenue and the distribution of after-tax income - of a policy under which all 401(k) plans are converted to automatic 401(k)s.