Media blasted for ignoring study on harmful government lockdowns | Carolina Journal

Media blasted for ignoring study on harmful government lockdowns | Carolina Journal

In The News

Media blasted for ignoring study on harmful government lockdowns | Carolina Journal

A new meta-analysis from Johns Hopkins University shows that government-mandated lockdowns in America and Europe during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic only reduced the death rate by 0.2%, on average. Researchers concluded that lockdowns “have had little to no public health effects” while imposing “enormous economic and social costs” and should be “rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

Meanwhile, another faculty member at Johns Hopkins is blasting his own university and the media broadly for ignoring or downplaying the study…

The working paper comes on the heels of other research questioning the effectiveness of lockdowns in saving lives compared to the social and economic toll. A working paper from the Georgia Center for Opportunity found no correlations between the severity of government-imposed shutdowns and reported rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations or deaths. But states that imposed more stringent lockdowns — such as New York and California — continue to experience negative economic effects compared to less severe states, such as Utah.

Perspective: The surprisingly simple ways to incentivize marriage

Perspective: The surprisingly simple ways to incentivize marriage

Perspective: The surprisingly simple ways to incentivize marriage

Some parents don’t wed because they fear losing government benefits. Governors in states like Utah and Virginia could solve this problem

Originally posted on Deseret News

“I chose not to marry,” Tiana said. “For one, I get a lot of assistance. I have a disabled child. So being if I did marry or put any other type of income in, I would not qualify for anything.”

Tiana participated in a focus group the Institute for Family Studies and the Georgia Center for Opportunity convened to understand major family issues facing working-class Americans. (We changed Tiana’s name to protect her identity.) Her comments are indicative of one of the major issues that emerged in our focus groups across the nation. Many of the parents gathered in those groups indicated that either they or family and friends had steered clear of marriage for fear of losing their government benefits, from Medicaid to child care subsidies.

 

The Success Sequence provides an outline of how to reverse the cycle of poverty in our communities. GCO uses this as a framework for much of our work.

They are not alone. More than 1 in 10 unmarried Americans whose income falls below the median reported they were not married for fear of losing “access to government benefits,” according to a recent Institute for Family Studies/Wheatley Institution survey. These marriage penalties tend to hit hardest the working-class couples with children and household incomes between about $28,000 and $55,000. The research indicates that the penalties can amount to between about 10% and 30% of household income for many families in this income bracket.

With Republican governors like Utah’s Spencer Cox and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin underlining their interest in helping parents and families, one big step they could take to help parents is to work to eliminate or minimize the marriage penalties that keep all too many parents from marrying. This is important because children are much more likely to thrive — to avoid poverty, flourish in school and steer clear of prison, for instance — when they are raised by their own married parents.

Much of the blame lies at the feet of the federal policymakers because of the way Congress set up tax and safety-net benefits over the last six decades. While Congress tackled many of the marriage penalties hitting upper-income families in 2017, they have left penalties hitting lower-income families in means-tested programs like Medicaid and child care.

Although some of the marriage penalties embedded in our social welfare programs can only be addressed at the federal level by Congress, there are some areas where state legislatures and governors like Cox and Youngkin can take action. For instance, states could take some funding from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which is designed to help lower-income families, to address this issue. After all, TANF was specifically designed to promote marriage, reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies and assist with the formation and maintenance of two-parent families, goals that have all too often been ignored by both the federal government and the states.

Because TANF is a block grant, states control how the money is spent within the program’s broad parameters. Governors could take advantage of this flexibility to direct its funding at the marriage penalty problem. A first step would be to convene a task force to determine the best ways to use TANF funds to accomplish the goal.

One way TANF funds could be used to promote marriage would be to provide a bonus to low-income couples with children under 5 who wish to marry. This bonus could be pegged to remedying the actual penalty they would incur by tying the knot. (The Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution have a handy “Marriage Calculator” that estimates these penalties for couples.) Another way would be to let newly married couples with children continue to receive welfare benefits even after they marry for a full two years after they marry — so long as their total family income is not above the state’s median family income (about $79,000 across the country). This would mean that families like Tiana’s would not be so worried about losing benefits if the parents wed.

Another way states could minimize marriage penalties is by reforming their child care policies. Federal block grants subsidize child care for low-income families. These child care programs have some of the largest marriage penalties. States could fix this by doubling the income threshold for child care subsidies for married families with young children.

In his recent State of the State address, Cox said that much of Utah’s success “can be directly attributed to our family-centric identity — and yes, that includes our nation-leading marriage and birth rates.”

“We know that the family, the basic and fundamental unit of our society, continues to be the most effective and least expensive place to solve problems. When families are healthy and happy, society benefits,” Cox said.

By being proactive in making policy changes in means-tested programs like TANF and child care where states have more control, Cox and Youngkin — along with other governors who are committed to advancing the welfare of families in their states — can contribute to solutions that can help parents like Tiana access the long-lasting benefits of marriage without fear of losing government benefits.

After all, poor and working-class parents should not have to choose between seeking government benefits for their children and giving their children the benefit of two married parents.

Brad Wilcox is an American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar and director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. Erik Randolph is director of research at the Georgia Center for Opportunity and author of a three-part series on how to reform welfare to address welfare cliffs and marriage penalties.

 

GCO honored to be listed on Atlas Network’s top 10 to watch in 2022

GCO honored to be listed on Atlas Network’s top 10 to watch in 2022

GCO honored to be listed on Atlas Network’s top 10 to watch in 2022

atlas top 10

The Georgia Center for Opportunity team is honored to be named as one of the Atlas Network’s top 10 nonprofit partners to watch in 2022. Atlas acknowledges GCO as an organization working “to make the world a better place for countless everyday people.”

Atlas’ designation focuses on our work to ensure that Education Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) are passed into law during the current session of the Georgia Legislature. These would allow public school funds to be used for private school tuition. Quoting Atlas:

Coming out of the pandemic and its devastating effects on educational outcomes, GCO sees the expansion of educational choice as more important and more achievable than ever before. With that perspective in mind, their campaign will push for the implementation of a sweeping educational savings account program in Georgia. These programs are an effective way of providing parents the financial means to choose the best educational option for their children, restoring hope, dignity, and prosperity.

 

 

The Success Sequence provides an outline of how to reverse the cycle of poverty in our communities. GCO uses this as a framework for much of our work.

Who is the Atlas Network

The Atlas Network is a nonprofit organization that seeks to secure for all individuals the rights to economic and personal freedom through its global network of strategic partners.

 

Basic Income is the Wrong Solution for Atlanta’s Poor

Basic Income is the Wrong Solution for Atlanta’s Poor

Basic Income is the Wrong Solution for Atlanta’s Poor

Hope and help is the only true solution.

Originally posted on RealClearPolitics.

Three hundred Atlanta residents are poised to receive $500 per month for a year, no strings attached. It’s part of a nationwide “basic guaranteed income” experiment largely bankrolled by Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.

To qualify for the pilot program, residents must be 18 years or older and have a maximum income of 200% of the federal poverty threshold ($53,000 for a family of four). The ultimate goal is to gauge how the guaranteed payments impact residents’ economic, mental, and physical health.

 

The Alliance for Opportunity is focused on a mission to reduce those in poverty by 1 million over the next 10 years.

A noble mission with failed outcomes

The mission of this pilot is laudable in attempting to help lower-income Atlanta residents during particularly trying times. But there are reasons to proceed with caution. A significant reason is how these payments could provide a perverse incentive that would discourage people from finding work or moving up the economic ladder. 

Ultimately, we believe there is a better way forward that supports dignity and opportunity for those in need. The mission should be to empower lower-income earners to attain a better life.

For Atlanta to make a real difference in seeking innovative solutions to providing poverty relief, the city must focus on giving those in need opportunity, not simply pity. Most people living in poverty want to provide for their families, get ahead, and live dignified, self-sufficient lives.

In 2020, the poverty rate in Georgia was 21.3%. Major welfare programs in the Peach State in September 2021 had around 3.9 million residents enrolled.  

A key is to improve opportunities to work while giving greater flexibility to our neighbors. This can be done in changing how they may use their temporary government assistance payments to meet their current needs while setting them up for self-sufficiency later. 

 

Exploring Empowerment Accounts

One innovative idea that would do just that are Empowerment Accounts.

These accounts would provide safety net funding to certain eligible recipients on a debit card. To qualify, people would need to be working, training, or being educated while meeting with a community case manager. The program also includes a financial literacy and savings component that paves the way for recipients to pay for long-term needs. 

Atlanta leaders could test these Empowerment Accounts in a pilot project, funded at first by philanthropists.

Why are Empowerment Accounts a better solution than basic guaranteed income?

Their primary benefit is that they treat each recipient as an individual with a long-term upward trajectory. We must help the impoverished through immediate aid, but the best long-term solution to poverty is through creating incentives and opportunities for work. This combination of work and community support will help build the hope and social capital too often lost with the current safety net system.

If implemented on a state or even national scale, Empowerment Accounts would also provide a crucial reform to our flawed safety-net system. 

They would condense and replace the overstretched, wasteful programs into one consolidated, more effective program. By reducing bureaucratic bloat and streamlining payments, more resources would go to needy families while fostering eventual financial independence.

Another benefit of Empowerment Accounts over the current safety-net system is that they would eliminate burdensome benefit cliffs when current programs end. Safety net recipients are often discouraged from earning an additional dollar because the cliffs often trap them in a system they yearn to escape. As a solution, Empowerment Accounts funding would taper over a specified period and any savings would stay with the recipient, helping with the problem of a benefit cliff.

The goal of Atlanta’s basic income experiment is commendable, but as with so much in the charitable and welfare sectors, it is misguided. It oversimplifies the struggles of low-income Georgians and falls well short of providing a comprehensive way forward — which should be centered around providing a path to self-sufficiency.

This was originally posted on RealClearPolitics.

 

Media blasted for ignoring study on harmful government lockdowns | Carolina Journal

The Importance of Building and Measuring Resilience in Our Community | SAPORTA REPORT

In The News

The Importance of Building and Measuring Resilience in Our Community | SAPORTA REPORT

As we look back on the last two years, everyone has experienced challenges. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the negative mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue their impact through 2029. Families First knows the families we serve were already hurting, and their trauma has been made worse during the pandemic.

“I’ve got a full team of people here working on my behalf. All I have to do is hold up my end of the bargain too.” Darrell B., Families First Client…

We work closely with community partners to achieve success within our Navigator Care Model. Community partners have access to our FFRNS to measure the resiliency of their clients and work with us to put together comprehensive care plans and community connections. One example of the importance of community collaborations is the ReCast Grant in Lawrenceville. Families First is part of a coalition of community partners including the City of Lawrenceville, Impact46 and Georgia Center for Opportunity. With the five-year, $5-million federal grant from the Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma (ReCast) program administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA), this group is working together to increase access to mental health services and reduce trauma among high-risk youth and their families; increase access to social services; strengthen community relations; and increase diverse voices in city government. The five-year grant provides an opportunity to have exponential impact in the city and improve the quality of life for nearly all of Lawrenceville’s more than 30,000 residents.

Media blasted for ignoring study on harmful government lockdowns | Carolina Journal

A lighter government touch would have saved more Minnesota jobs during pandemic | Center Square

In The News

A lighter government touch would have saved more Minnesota jobs during pandemic | Center Square

Less economic interference from Minnesota state government could have saved jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research from the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) suggests.

The GCO measured the impact of each state’s actions on its respective economy in a 510-page study “Assessing Each State’s Response To The Pandemic: Understanding The Impact On Employment & Work.” The report compared the states’ government’s responses to the pandemic using the Abridged Oxford Stringency Index (AOSI) from the Coronavirus Government ResponseTracker of Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government. GCO created a Government Severity Index (GSI), which analyzed the impact of school closures (kindergarten through 12th grade), workplace closures, gathering restrictions, capacity limits and stay-at-home mandates.