by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Jul 11, 2018
By Erik Randolph, GCO Contributing Scholar
Last December, President Trump signed into law changes to the federal income tax. One of the supposed achievements was the elimination of the marriage penalty. This is not entirely correct.
I recently analyzed marriage penalties for the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO). Summarized in a policy briefing, my analysis found that Congress only succeeded in eliminating the marriage penalty if a couple does not have children. If they do have children, the marriage penalty is alive and well.
Certainly, it is a positive change that two individuals without children can now marry without having a tax shock when they file their federal income taxes. This is a fairer system ensuring they do not have a higher tax bill just because they got married. Congress can be proud of this achievement.
However, it’s unfortunate that the tax code continues to punish couples with children.
To make matters worse, the poor face an additional marriage penalty if they receive food stamps, and it doesn’t matter if they have kids or not.
The recent analysis I conducted on the food stamp marriage penalty relied on computations of 256 wage combinations of what two individuals might earn. These combinations ranged from earning nothing up to earning the national median wage. For every wage combination considered, the food stamp program discourages marriage.
The good news is that Congress has an opportunity right now to fix the marriage penalty in the food stamp program. The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have two versions of the Farm Bill to consider. The final version that will come out of the conference committee could eliminate the marriage penalty in the food stamp program.
There are two approaches Congress can take. The first is to get into the details and redesign the food stamp factors that cause the marriage penalty. This approach is lengthier, and given the urgency of passing the Farm Bill, it may be less appealing.
The simpler approach would be to give the states the authority, under the direction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to make adjustments to the food stamp program to eliminate the marriage penalty. Although the food stamp program is a federal program, the states administer the program and pay for half of the administrative costs.
Prior research I did for GCO demonstrates that the more welfare programs an individual or family receives, the greater the likelihood for marriage penalties and the greater the severity of those penalties. Therefore, it makes sense to allow states that administer most welfare programs to address the marriage penalties in a coordinated manner.
Once they’ve fixed the marriage penalty in the food stamp program, Congress should revisit the tax code to fix the lingering marriage penalty there. It is unfair for single individuals with children who want to marry to face tax penalties if they do so. Equally unfair is that married couples with children end up paying more in federal income taxes than they would if they were unmarried and living together.
Combined, the penalties provide a strong and perverse disincentive to couples with children to remain unmarried. It is public policy directly opposed to the behaviors we know are most likely to lift people out of poverty and it needs to end. Congress has a chance to start addressing the problem in the Farm Bill, and it’s an opportunity they shouldn’t miss.
For more on GCO’s recent research on the marriage penalty, check out “How the Food Stamp Program and the U.S. Tax Code Continue to Penalize Marriage.”
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Jul 3, 2018
What goal is more important than ensuring our most vulnerable students have the best shot at success? That’s what Georgia’s Special Needs Scholarship Program is all about. Now in its 11th year, the scholarship enables children who have special needs to transfer to another school to better meet their unique educational needs.
Over 4,500 students benefited from the program during the 2016-2017 school year, with scholarships averaging $5,722 per student.
But despite the success of the program, there is a lot more to be done. A House study committee convened in mid-June to consider updates to the program, specifically revisions contained in House Bill 801. HB 801 would make two significant updates to the Special Needs Scholarship Program—first, by giving parents more flexibility in how to best use scholarship funds on behalf of their child, and second by opening up scholarship funds to home-educated students.
In the first case, the bill would allow parents to use scholarship dollars for ongoing therapies, tutoring, or specialized equipment. This, in turn, would empower children with special needs to excel in the classroom and beyond.
Sometimes, students with special needs are lagging behind in their traditional public school environments. So, when they transition to a private school through the scholarship, they have to play catch up to get fully up-to-speed. Allowing parents to use scholarship funds for approved non-tuition expenses would go a long way toward helping these students stay on track at their new schools.
This type of change makes sense: Public schools are already required to provide in-house speech, occupational, and physical therapy for children with special needs. Granting scholarship recipients the same flexibility is wise.
At the study committee hearing on HB 801, parents made emotional appeals, asking lawmakers to open scholarship funds to homeschool families as well:
A former Gwinnett teacher now homeschooling her adopted children said they would benefit if the scholarship was opened to homeschoolers for tutoring and therapies, including speech, physical, occupational and equine. Her seven children face multiple struggles related to the chaos of their early lives and, in some cases, fetal alcohol syndrome and visual impairments, that render a traditional classroom unworkable, she explained.
An Atlanta mother said she pulled her bright daughter with autism out of a public middle school because the girl grew anxious and overwhelmed in such a big setting. Her daughter’s therapist recommended homeschooling to alleviate the anxiety. The mother’s goal is to homeschool now and then enroll her daughter in a small, flexible high school. She asked lawmakers to drop the requirement that students only qualify for the voucher after a full year in public school.
The Special Needs Scholarship Program is working for Georgia families who need help the most. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. By making these two changes, lawmakers would open up the scholarship program to hundreds of additional families in need of real educational options.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Jun 11, 2018
Imagine the challenge of raising two children with special needs. That’s the task that Jan—a small business owner in Georgia—faces in bringing up her two girls. Katie has ADHD, dyslexia, and autism spectrum disorder, and Jessica has an auditory processing disorder and ADHD.
But as Jan has discovered, while raising two children with special needs presents challenges, it also presents unique opportunities. Both Katie and Jessica were caught in a local public-school system that wasn’t meeting their needs. In fact, teachers told Jan that there was nothing they could do to help Katie—and that she would never learn to read or write—and that Jessica would never be able to pass state tests.
“I remember all the days at the bus stop crying and just telling my daughters, ‘We just have to make it through the end of the year,’” Jan shared. “If you don’t fit into the box, you fall through the cracks.”
Desperate for options, Jan turned to Georgia’s Special Needs Scholarship Program (the SB10 waiver). The program allows students with special needs to transfer to another school—traditional, charter, or authorized private—to better meet their unique educational needs. Since the scholarship program became law in 2007, nearly 25,000 students have participated, including 4,154 students for the 2015-2016 school year alone.
Due to funds through the scholarship, Katie started attending a small private school specifically designed for students with reading challenges. The results have been astounding: She now reads at grade level and is performing several grade levels above in math. Meanwhile, Jessica is excelling as well, taking advanced-level chemistry and performing several grade levels above in other subjects.
“Our experience at the private school is night and day,” Jan said. “I remember my daughter saying, ‘Mom, I don’t think I ever want to leave this school. Everyone here has a disability and it’s not a big deal.”
Today, Jan is dedicated to telling other families about the enormous blessing of the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program. Even so, she sees room for improvement in the program.
“If families were able to use the scholarship for other expenses needed for children with special needs—such as tutors and therapies—it would be incredibly helpful,” she said. “A lot of students also need additional help to get caught up because they were so far behind in their public schools. Flexibility in how the funding could be used would help support getting them on track at their private schools.”
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | May 17, 2018
Of the many bills that will be under consideration by the Georgia legislature in 2019, one that we are particularly excited about is a piece of legislation creating “Individualized Education Accounts” (IEAs), which aim to improve our state’s Special Needs Scholarship by removing eligibility barriers and making it more flexible and reflective of each student’s specific needs.
Why do we think it’s necessary to enhance the current law? Because IEAs will allow students like Seth—who have special needs that merit educational alternatives—to get the help they need to learn in an appropriate environment and thrive in life. And it empowers parents—who are best equipped to make decisions for their children—to choose the educational setting that best serves their interests and needs.
Like many kids his age, Seth is an active nine-year old who loves math, reading books (particularly the Harry Potter series), and music. He’s also very energetic and excels at swimming and ice skating. But because he has autism spectrum disorder, Seth struggles to focus in a traditional classroom and acts out when he’s not challenged or given opportunities for physical activity.
Sadly, because Seth was non-verbal from a young age, he started public school kindergarten with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) and was placed in a self-contained classroom where he was given academic work well below his abilities. Frustrated by his lack of progress, Seth’s parents got a Special Needs Scholarship and moved him into private school in first grade, where he was more academically challenged. Yet even here, Seth acted out and they knew that this setting didn’t work either.
So, Seth’s parents decided to homeschool their son. His mother now customizes Seth’s academic environment and his school day follows a rhythm of physical activity and school work. For example, Seth might jump on the trampoline for five minutes followed by a focused math or language arts session. Today, Seth performs at his grade level—far beyond his performance in other educational settings.
How will IEAs further enhance Seth’s learning environment? By adding more flexibility to the current law, the unique and burdensome expenses currently incurred by Seth’s parents—music, speech and occupational therapy, curricula, and communication tutoring—will be covered. And for thousands of other families like Seth’s, this means that the scholarship program will benefit children of all income levels and backgrounds—not just those who can afford private or homeschool educations requiring expensive supplemental resources.
Soon, a legislative study committee will discuss needed improvements to the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship. We hope Seth’s story will encourage them to advance IEA’s for all Georgia families with children with special needs.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | May 8, 2018
President Trump recently signed an order aiming to streamline welfare in the U.S., which is leading lawmakers to take a deeper look at the many programs that make up the complex system.
It’s a positive first step, as the current structure reinforces dependency and doesn’t reward hard work, nor does it allow recipients to strive for self-sufficiency. For example, the average welfare recipient is a single mom with two children, but with the current design, she will lose benefits with marriage and/or a pay raise.
Georgia Center for Opportunity has worked over the last couple of years with leading welfare expert, Erik Randolph, Senior Fellow with both the Illinois Policy Institute and Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Foundation, to dissect Georgia’s failing assistance programs. The data is shocking and disappointing, proving a system that should be lending a helping hand to recipients is actually hurting them instead.
Randy Hicks, President and CEO of Georgia Center for Opportunity, recently wrote on the importance of taking a compassionate and commonsense approach to welfare reform.
“We believe there is a better approach and it entails stabilizing the safety net for those who truly need it, adopting a “work first” approach for those who are able and creating incentives to form marriages and households,” Hicks wrote on FoxNews.com.
Read Randy’s full op-ed here, click here.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Apr 20, 2018
You’ve probably heard the old adage, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day … Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” And while this nugget of age-old wisdom seems like common-sense compassion to most folks, in reality most governmental welfare programs in America—though well-intentioned—are neither compassionate nor based in common sense. Instead of helping men and women become self-sufficient and take care of their families, these programs trap folks in cycles of generational dependency and poverty—and keep them reliant on the government for their daily catch.
Despite this, there’s hope on the horizon. In a positive first step toward addressing the vast, unconnected, and dehumanizing welfare system that deprives people of the dignity that comes with steady and meaningful work, President Trump recently signed a sweeping Executive Order aimed at overhauling America’s broken welfare system. The ultimate goal is to scrap the existing collection of complex, wasteful, inefficient, and budget-breaking programs and agencies with a system that actually works.
And while it’s definitely encouraging to see comprehensive action taken at the federal level to tackle welfare reform, we believe that the best solutions to help our neighbors escape poverty occur at the locally. That’s why we here at Georgia Center for Opportunity are working hard to promote common-sense policy solutions in Georgia that restore dignity to welfare recipients. How? By consolidating confusing and overlapping welfare programs and designate a single agency to manage welfare cases—all while applying safeguards to weed out fraud and end benefit cliffs and marriage penalties that keep people from learning how to fish on their own.
Taken together, we believe these reforms will convert welfare into workfare and put Georgians squarely on a path that scholars call the “success sequence”’—a three-step approach that helps people turn their lives around by getting a good education, which leads to a stable job and in turn leads to a flourishing, successful home life.
With more than 20 percent of Georgians on some form of public assistance, it’s more important than ever that we focus on overhauling welfare the right way—with compassion and common sense. It’s time to unravel decades of haphazardly cobbled together programs—each with conflicting interests, standards, and procedures—that cost taxpayers more than $23 billion annually and ultimately do not deliver the intended goal of teaching folks to fish for themselves for a lifetime.
