Welfare

Last week, a bipartisan coalition came together at the state capitol to launch Step Up California, a statewide campaign to reduce poverty in the state. After the press conference, over 70 legislative staffers participated in an interactive poverty simulation, that had them assume the role of a member of a struggling family.

Please join the New America Foundation for a conversation with Steven Hill about his new book, Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age. And find out why California would be better off seceding from the U.S. and joining the European Union!

... Became a month in the shoes of the poor. After a bipartisan press conference, the coalition that launched Step Up CA on Wednesday also provided lawmakers and their staff with a personal understanding of poverty.

On February 3rd at 12:00 p.m., a bipartisan coalition of legislators, in partnership with a diverse group of organizations, launched Step Up CA, a statewide campaign to reduce poverty in California.

The Social Security system was intended not merely to provide public pensions for the elderly but to establish a framework for a comprehensive system of economic security. Steven Attewell writes: “We need to go back to the original drawing board – the Social Security Act of 1935 – to finish the job it began and create a truly universal and comprehensive social welfare state.”

This measure repeals the vehicle asset limit on CalWORKs applicants and recipients to encourage low income families to become employed and self-sufficient by building the savings they need to permanently exit CalWORKs.

With falling home prices, rising food and fuel costs and an unemployment rate well above the national average, the current economic downturn may push already vulnerable California families to the brink of financial destitution. Thousands of people may turn to welfare for support in the coming months. That's OK -- that's the purpose of temporary assistance. It's not as if this is the money-for-nothing welfare of the early 1990s; these folks are required to start looking for work the second they land on the rolls.

There's the war in Iraq and then there is the war over the war in Iraq. The first is about gaining ground against the sectarian militias and terrorists who plague that country. The second is about storytelling.

Paul Krugman calls Europe the "comeback continent" because of its resurging economy, yet repeats another stereotype -- Americans pay less in taxes than Europeans. The situation actually is more complex.

For their taxes, Europeans receive many benefits for which most Americans must pay additional fees and payments out of pocket. Many Americans, if they have health care at all, are paying for escalating premiums and deductibles. Other Americans are saving $100,000 for each of their children's college education, yet European children attend for free or nearly free.

The blue-ribbon commission has an inauspicious history in American public policy. Most often, assembling a dozen or two bipartisan grandees to deliberate soberly about a problem for several years is merely a way of evading the problem.