December 11 | Research
MEDIA CONTACT: Pat Vaughan Tremmel at 847-491-4892 or p-tremmel@northwestern.edu
Proposal to Encourage Work for Low-Income Americans
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Greg J. Duncan, professor of education and social policy and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, will present a proposal Dec. 12 at a Hamilton Project roundtable for a national program to support the millions of low-income Americans who work full time but still live in poverty. (The proposal is based on the highly successful New Hope program.)
Sponsored by the Hamilton Project at Brookings, the papers presented at the roundtable will focus on approaches to encourage work among the unemployed and reward low-income earners in the workforce.
“New Hope Fulfilling America's Promise to 'Make Work Pay,'” by Duncan, Hans Bos, Lisa Gennetian and Heather Hill, is one of four papers that will be presented by the first panel, titled “New Approaches to Make Work Pay.” Four other papers will be presented at the second panel, titled “New Approaches to Enhance the Social Safety Net.”
The proposal by Duncan and his co-authors is patterned after New Hope, an experimental anti-poverty program that was launched in Milwaukee by community activists and city business leaders to sustain full-time work for low-wage earners. By the time the program was launched in 1994, 1,400 low-income families had volunteered for a chance to participate in a program that promised subsidized child care, health care and temporary community service jobs in an exchange for working a minimum of 30 hours per week.
New Hope was rigorously evaluated. The evidence showed that the poverty rate for New Hope families dropped by 14 percent -- and the decrease in poverty persisted even when earnings supplements stopped after three years. The indirect effects on the achievements of New Hope children amounted to the equivalent of a 25-point increase in SAT scores or four points on an IQ-type scale.
An excerpt from the New Hope-based proposal that will be presented Wednesday: “In terms of values, New Hope hits the trifecta: (i) its full-time work focus resonates with the business community, the broader public and participants themselves; (ii) it 'makes work pay'; and (iii) its social-contract nature is at once respectful and demanding of participants.”
Duncan is the coauthor, with Aletha C. Huston and Thomas S. Weisner, of the recently released book “Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and Their Children” (Russell Sage Foundation, 2007).