Around The Dial – October 3, 2011
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
- Ben Bernanke points out that a lot of people are jobless.
- Brad DeLong sees a “free lunch for America.”
- Economix traces the flow of health spending in the US.
- Dean Baker asks, “Why don’t the deficit hawks want to tax Wall Street?”
- The Associated Press reports on rising poverty in North Carolina.
When Supplements Supplant
A new report from the Education and Law Project of the North Carolina Justice Center documents how the proceeds of the North Carolina Education Lottery are not being used to supplement public education budgets. From the report …
During the debate around the creation of the North Carolina Education Lottery in 2005, critics from across the political spectrum predicted that the state would eventually back off of its promises that lottery funds would be used to enhance rather than replace existing education funds.The reality of what has happened in the years since is worse than what critics predicted: North Carolina spent less on K‐12 education in the 2010‐11 school year than it did in the last school year before the lottery came into existence, even without accounting for inflation or increases in the student population….
…
The lottery supports vital education programs,including reduced class size in early grades, academic prekindergarten programs, school construction, and scholarships for needy college and university students. But, rather than using lottery proceeds to supplement the state’s funding for these programs and the larger public school system, North Carolina’s legislative leaders have increasingly relied on the lottery to cover up cuts to education.
…
The lottery did give a bump to spending on education in the early years of its existence during the 2007‐2008 and 2008‐2009 school years. However, that increase has disappeared completely, and spending on K‐12 educaion is now below what it was when the lottery began.
“Work First” Requires Jobs First
In a guest post at Felix Salmon’s blog, Barbara Kiviat explains that work-based social welfare programs don’t work well when jobs are scarce.
…The point is to illustrate that we can’t really have a conversation about whether or not linking cash assistance to market-based employment is problematic in a time of high unemployment, because program structure itself is distorting the behavior of would-be cash assistance recipients.
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Although, in a way, maybe that is an answer to the question. As sociologist Kathryn Edin and social anthropologist Laura Lein illustrated in their 1997 book Making Ends Meet …, the problem never really was that cash assistance recipients didn’t want to work. Indeed, interviews with hundreds of women showed that, depending on the city, between a third and half were working, just not in the formal economy….
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So maybe what we’re learning—should we be able to put aside the overly simplified view of the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor—is that it’s time for another round of welfare reform. But this time what needs to be reformed is how the system goes about understanding the needs and limitations of single working mothers. As Edin and Lein documented, barriers to formal employment include not just balancing work schedules with lone parenting and the added costs of having a job outside of the home (such as day care), but also the realities of low-wage work…..
Around The Dial – September 30, 2011
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
- Jonathan Cohn looks at improved insurance coverage for young adults.
- Simon Johnson thinks about next steps for the Eurozone.
- Working Economics charts the role of public-sector cuts in high unemployment states.
- Off the Charts explains how the TANF extension hurts poor states.
- Paul Krugman is certain that the uncertainty argument is wrong.
Rising Health Insurance Premiumns
The PBS NewsHour reports on the recent jump in premiums for employer-paid health insurance.
Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.
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