HomePostTopic: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Top 2026 issues for Georgia lawmakers and citizens include welfare, cost of living, education, and crime.

Key Points

  • In 2026, Georgia voters will elect key political leaders who will have the ability to remove barriers and open doors to better futures for the state’s residents. 
  • Top concerns for both lawmakers and citizens include welfare reform, the cost of living, educational opportunities, and public safety. 
  • Proposed policies and reforms will help lift many Georgians above the poverty line and provide clearer pathways to upward mobility and thriving communities.

Opportunities to drive progress and hope will greet Georgians in 2026. Critical issues will dominate the legislative agenda, and top governmental positions will be up for election.

The well-being of many Georgians, their families, and their communities is at stake as pressing concerns like welfare reform, the cost of living, educational opportunities, and public safety take center stage in political discussions. These issues involve significant challenges, but policymakers are working to find promising solutions that will enable people across the state to flourish.

Electing leaders to fill key political offices

Georgians will elect new officials for the state’s top posts in 2026. The primary election will take place on May 19, and the general election is scheduled for November 3.

The roles of both the governor and lieutenant governor will be on the ballot. Georgia’s current governor, Brian Kemp, isn’t eligible to run again because he’s reached his term limit, so several candidates are competing for the position, including Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones. 

Georgians will also vote on one of the state’s U.S. senatorial positions—Senator Jon Ossoff currently holds the post. All of Georgia’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be up for election as well.

These political races are pivotal because the elected officials will have the power to remove barriers and open more doors to opportunity for the state’s residents.

Reforming Georgia’s public assistance programs and creating a pathway out of poverty

The candidates running for office will likely take positions on ways to reform government assistance (welfare or safety net) programs in Georgia. This should be a top priority because about 13.5% of the state’s population is currently living in poverty. 

One of the main concerns about the welfare system is that it isn’t helping to lift people above the poverty line or empowering them to become self-sufficient. Instead, the complexities and regulations in the system tend to trap people in long-term cycles of poverty that affect families for generations.

To make real change, Georgia’s top lawmakers need to focus on streamlining the state’s welfare system and integrating it with workforce development programs. This strategy, called the One Door model, connects recipients of government benefits with one caseworker who not only helps them meet their immediate needs but also provides resources to support them in finding a rewarding job.

In Georgia, around 28% of prime-age (25-54) adults aren’t working, and disengagement from work is one of the primary reasons people seek public assistance. Developing a One Door strategy in Georgia will help these individuals become self-sufficient and also enable them to experience the sense of dignity and purpose meaningful work provides.

Georgia’s political leaders can take steps toward implementing a One Door model by advocating for federal authorization to do so. At the state level, they can also establish a task force to explore ways to connect and improve Georgia’s public assistance and workforce programs.

A reform called the One Door model would allow Georgia to connect more welfare recipients to meaningful work and economic opportunity. 

Making life more affordable in Georgia

Many low- and middle-income families in Georgia are struggling to cover the basic costs of living, as prices for just about everything seem to be rising. The increasing costs add extra hardship to the numerous barriers that already impact people’s well-being. But Georgia’s policymakers have opportunities to make some things more affordable for the state’s residents.

  • Housing shortages and costs: At least 94 of Georgia’s 159 counties don’t have enough housing for their residents. The shortage is driving up prices and making affordable homes hard to come by. Builders want to construct more houses, but they face restrictive regulations regarding land use and infrastructure, including roads and water lines. Local policymakers can address the issue by allowing greater flexibility in lot sizes and housing types. Doing so will bring more affordable homes to the market, and that will reduce rent and mortgage payments and free up income to cover other necessities.

  • State income taxes: Georgia’s state income tax is set to drop to 4.99% in January 2027, but some lawmakers want to eliminate it completely. For many Georgians, every dollar matters, and doing away with the tax would allow them to keep more of their income in their own pockets. State leaders are considering eliminating corporate tax breaks to offset the potential loss in government revenue from income taxes. But it’s important to note that they could also raise the sales tax to recoup the state’s lost revenue. That could leave lower-income families worse off because essential goods would cost them more.

Creating an educational system that meets the needs of every child

In 2026, Georgia lawmakers will continue their efforts to develop an educational system that honors every child’s unique situation and needs.

Several education-related bills that carried over from 2025 will likely be up for consideration in the Georgia General Assembly.

  • Senate Bills 124 and 152: These bills will expand eligibility for Promise Scholarship accounts to students with a parent who’s an active-duty military service member stationed in Georgia and to biological or adopted children of foster parents. The bills will help support more families who want to consider alternative education options for their children

  • Senate Bill 171: This bill will require Georgia’s Board of Education to develop an advanced math pathway for students in grades 3-8. The program will prepare students to take higher-level math classes in middle school and ultimately to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The opportunity will pave the way to brighter futures and upward mobility for participating students, and particularly for young African Americans, Hispanics, and girls who haven’t traditionally received significant STEM education.

  • House Bill 917: This bill will provide open enrollment processes for students who want to transfer between local school systems or from one school to another within a school system. This will enable students to attend the school that’s the right fit for them, regardless of where they live.

Charter school funding will also be on policymakers’ radar. In 2025, the Georgia Senate created the Study Committee on Funding for Charter School Capital Improvements. The committee was tasked with reviewing current funding processes for public schools, examining the differences in capital funding between charter and public schools, and analyzing the challenges charter schools face in getting funding. Georgia’s leaders will likely use the study’s findings to make sure charter schools have equal access to capital improvement funds so they can continue to offer alternate educational options for families. 

Prioritizing neighborhood safety and reducing crime

Public safety is a top concern for Georgians, and especially for those living in impoverished communities. High crime rates lead to losses in property value, community resources, business activity, and job opportunities—all making it increasingly difficult for people to escape poverty.

Among several public safety bills, Georgia lawmakers will likely consider two that were drafted during the 2025 session.

  • Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for juveniles: The first bill will enable greater use of CBT with young people who get arrested, even those who are non-violent or have minor convictions. CBT teaches participants to look at the relationship between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and helps them respond to challenging situations more effectively. Studies show that CBT programs can reduce recidivism by an impactful 25%. They also set participants on a path toward healing and growth, which will, in turn, help their communities flourish.

  • Support for local law enforcement agencies: The second bill will create grants for local law enforcement agencies to assist them in solving more violent crimes. Local departments can use the funds to improve investigations, enhance the technology and data systems officers use, and support victims and families. The resources will also help authorities deter future crime and boost community safety and resiliency.

Taking action to transform lives and communities

Georgia’s policymakers know that more needs to be done to break down the social and economic barriers so many people are facing, and they’re taking action. But this responsibility doesn’t lie with government leaders alone.

Georgia residents should pay close attention to the issues lawmakers discuss, but also to the needs of their families and communities. They can then use what they learn, along with their voices and votes, to create real change. 

In doing so, Georgians will bring even greater promise and prosperity to the state—making it a place where everyone has the opportunity to achieve their full potential and thrive.

Additional resources

Alliance for Opportunity applauds introduction of the House “One Door to Work” Act
Alliance for Opportunity

How do we know the One Door model works?
Alliance for Opportunity

Georgia candidates for governor should make welfare reform a top priority
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia lawmakers explore plan to eliminate state income tax
CBS News

A better way to get welfare recipients back into the labor force
City Journal

How Georgia can fix its housing shortage
Dalton Daily Citizen

The Georgia Promise Scholarship (SB 233): questions and answers
Georgia Center for Opportunity

How many adults aren’t working in Georgia communities?
Georgia Center for Opportunity

National poverty rate fails to capture the problem of poverty concentration in Georgia and beyond
Georgia Center for Opportunity

The One Door model: a solution to improve economic opportunity for safety net participants
Georgia Center for Opportunity

Reducing crime in Atlanta
Georgia Center for Opportunity

What Georgia can learn from other states about fixing welfare
Georgia Center for Opportunity

Short supply: How many more homes does Georgia need?
Georgia Public Policy Foundation

The safety net “system” that isn’t
Governing

Unlocking opportunity – how Pelican Institute brought “One Door” to Louisiana
Pelican Institute for Public Policy

Image Credit: Canva

Atlanta's public safety funding for 2025 invests in best practices for better community safety.

Key Points

  • The Atlanta City Council approved nearly $30 million dollars for public safety funding as part of the 2025 city budget. 
  • They also approved a 3.8% increase in the number of authorized positions within the Atlanta Police Department.
  • More officers on the street and more tools for those officers generally mean less crime.

Atlanta’s City Council has adopted its budget for 2025, which includes $29.8 million for public safety funding as well as a 3.8% increase in the number of authorized positions within the police department. 

This is good news for the city. In the first quarter of 2024, murders in Atlanta were up 15%—a trend that runs opposite to other major cities and to Atlanta’s own drop in violent crime in 2023. 

While it’s not helpful to overreact to changes during such a short period of time, the increase is a reminder that Atlanta must keep prioritizing best practices to lower crime, reduce fear, and foster an environment where opportunity can thrive.

Atlanta's murder rate is up 15% in the first quarter of 2024.

Atlanta public safety funding to boost a key element of the justice system

Atlanta, like many cities around the country, began to see increased homicides in the late 2010s that then exploded with the onset of the COVID-19 lockdowns, urban unrest, and changes in policing practices in 2020. Atlanta then had three of its deadliest years in decades in 2020, 2021, and 2022. 

Thankfully Atlanta’s elected leaders have not sat by idle. By investing more in policing, Atlanta Mayor Dickens and the city council are attempting a time-tested truism: more police means less crime. 

Police are the element of the criminal justice system most visible to the public and the arm with which citizens are most likely to interact. As Eastern Kentucky University professor Dr. Gary Potter puts it, “[t]he American system of criminal justice is predicated on an assumption of effective policing. After all, in order to deter criminals and punish the evil-doers you have to catch them.”

This is more than theoretical. Research on policing and crime has repeatedly found that more well-managed police leads to less crime. Most recently, a 2018 study looked at police and crime data from 1960 through 2010 and concluded that every $1 spent on policing generates about $1.63 in social benefits, mostly through reductions in homicides.

Atlanta City Council invests in technology for a safer community environment

Atlanta’s public safety funding will go to more than just additional police staffing and pay incentives for officers. Other allocations include:

  • $3.4 million for technology upgrades like body cameras, data storage, and identification technology.
  • $750,000 for additional security cameras in city parks and other areas highlighted by the department. 

Of particular importance are the funds allocated for additional cameras.

Washington, D.C., which until recently had been plagued by skyrocketing homicides and carjackings, recently implemented a similar expanded security camera program. As a result of the program, DC chief of police Pamela Smith recently revealed a substantial increase in arrests for shootings, carjackings, and robberies. Importantly, she also noted an increase in cooperation from crime-weary citizens due to increased trust in the department. 

Hopefully the new investments will produce similar results in Atlanta, where residents are equally crime-weary and hoping for relief. 

More Crime Solutions for Atlanta

How to reduce crime in Atlanta: Six practical policy methods (Georgia Center for Opportunity)

A path that could reduce Atlanta’s juvenile crime (Josh Crawford in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

There’s hope for reducing Crime in Georgia (Georgia Center for Opportunity)

There’s a crime divide between Americans and politicians, and voters are watching (Josh Crawford in The Hill)

new years resolution, 2024, year in review

Key Points

  • Research has shown that safe communities, stable relationships, and meaningful education and work are essential to making poverty escapable. 
  • In 2023, we focused on helping communities develop solutions and tools to improve public safety, jobs, education and student achievement, and family formation. 
  • Through these accomplishments in 2023, more communities are being empowered to help people imagine and pursue better futures for themselves. 

It seems like everywhere you go these days, people are struggling. You can see it on street corners, in grocery stores, in news headlines, and—most heartbreaking of all—in the eyes of the people who have lost hope.

What they need is opportunity. And that’s exactly what the mission of the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) is built to deliver. As the year draws to a close, let’s take a moment to celebrate the good that has been done to alleviate poverty by removing barriers to opportunity and creating conditions that empower people to flourish and achieve their full potential.

The good news is that research consistently shows that people who experience personal safety, get a good education, find meaningful work, and have healthy, committed relationships only have a 2% chance of falling into poverty. And for those currently living in poverty, these opportunities are the way out to experience freedom and flourishing.

In 2023, GCO celebrated big wins in several key areas that foster community transformation: public safety, jobs, education, and family formation. Here are a few examples of how we’ve helped our neighbors live better and build thriving communities. 

Public safety

Thanks to our public safety research, we convened state policymakers and city leaders in Atlanta and Columbus to look at the causes of increasing violence, and provided a proven set of practical solutions for reducing crime—especially in low-income communities. At the national level, our public safety recommendations were well received in Dallas and Louisville, and an opinion piece we co-authored reached 28.7 million people through Newsweek. Soon thereafter, MSN and other media outlets amplified its reach to another 167.1 million Americans.

And given how important it is for people to live in safe communities where they feel comfortable walking around and living their lives, we also created a resource page on our website so that elected officials, law enforcement, and community leaders can easily find the best practices for addressing crime. 

 

Workforce

On the jobs front, our BETTER WORK program continues to help communities build local employment support systems that bring employers, nonprofits, and community partners together to help more Georgians find local jobs. We’ve also joined forces with Lyft to help people get to work and focused on solutions to the benefits cliff challenges that keep many mired in government dependency. 

 

Safety-net reform

This year, GCO remained on the vanguard of educating lawmakers and the public about the need for reforming the safety net. Broadly, we worked to reveal the challenges posed by benefits cliffs, which discourage people from looking for meaningful work and gaining independence. Specifically, we expanded our impact to Utah, Arkansas, and Missouri, in addition to launching a redesigned benefits cliffs website and calculator that adds Utah and West Virginia to the models.

As we educate states and businesses about the benefits cliff problem within the welfare system, we are also developing solutions that equip them to do something about it. This year, we released our first report focused on benefits cliffs solutions, which focused on fixes for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

 

Education

Our efforts to expand educational opportunity have given nearly 84,000 Georgia kids access to the schooling option that best fits their needs. And we led efforts to advance a groundbreaking school choice bill through the state senate. This means there’s strong momentum going into 2024 to expand education options for 500,000 more students stuck in Georgia’s failing schools. We also updated our Education Guide for parents and received the Lilburn Middle School Business Partner Recognition Award for partnering to deliver free relationship education classes for parents and students.

See How The Georgia Center For Opportunity Is Expanding Hope In 2024!

See How The Georgia Center For Opportunity Is Expanding Hope In 2024!

  

Family

For families, parents continued to graduate from our Strengthening Families Program. And GCO kicked off our Raising Highly Capable Kids (RHCK) program with a vision-casting meeting attended by more than 20 community organizations. By reaching into homes, schools, and faith-based groups, RHCK teaches parents how to raise responsible, caring kids—and turns local communities into nurturing places where healthy families help people escape poverty. An example of how RHCK brings key stakeholders together to foster thriving families is the Lilly Endowment grant that introduced the Parents First Initiative to Lawrenceville.

 

National and state impact

Finally, GCO had a number of important wins with far-reaching, favorable media coverage on topics we care deeply about. This means that our voice was out there advancing importance conversations about human flourishing. For example, The Wall Street Journal ran our opinion piece calling out pre- and post-COVID crime comparisons for what they really are—an excuse not to blame bad public safety policies. And RealClearPolicy ran an article on our ideas to make safety nets more successful at turning welfare into work support.

Beyond these, GCO’s views were featured in important conversations about Georgia’s position among the leading states for economic freedom and why people remain trapped in poverty when there are so many public assistance programs. And for those concerned about rising crime across the nation, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution carried our must-read piece on public safety.

 

Wrapping up

Of course, these are just a handful of GCO’s successes in 2023. Yet each win adds to the legacy we are building to help our neighbors enjoy meaningful and productive lives in safe, vibrant communities that value work, education, and family. We’re proud of our successes this year, and we look forward to continuing to advance common-sense policy solutions in 2024 that bring greater peace, dignity, and freedom to individuals and families across Georgia and beyond.

Georgia news, in the news, current events, Georgia happenings, GA happenings

By Buzz Brockway

The year is only half over, but 2023 has already been a banner year for the expansion of educational opportunity for students in other states across America.

Read the full article here

 This opinion was originally published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on August 7, 2023. 

Media statement, in the news, Georgia news, ga news

Today, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced preliminary grant awards totaling more than $83.5 million for 118 community safety projects, including for addressing staffing shortages for law enforcement.

The Georgia Center for Opportunity’s (GCO) take: “We commend Gov. Kemp and the legislature for continuing their commitment to public safety, especially in an environment where we continue to see high crime rates in cities across the state,” said Josh Crawford, director of criminal justice initiatives for GCO. “Ensuring safe communities requires involvement from all of us, including partnerships between state and local officials.”

Crawford recently wrote an op-ed for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on a path forward in reducing Atlanta’s juvenile crime rate. Read it here.

Georgia news, in the news, current events, Georgia happenings, GA happenings

In January, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens launched the “Year of the Youth” plan to combat juvenile crime rates in the city. The issue is a pressing one. Consider that in 2022, 19 of the 170 homicide victims in Atlanta were children. Deshon DuBose, a 13-year-old, is among the juvenile homicide victims already in 2023. He was gunned down while leaving Cascade Family Skating in January.

Meanwhile, Georgia Juvenile Justice Commissioner Tyrone Oliver says that around 50% of youth incarcerated in the state self-identify as gang members. Jayden Myrick, who was found guilty of murder in a 2018 robbery and fatal shooting at an Atlanta wedding, admitted under oath that he was recruited into gang life when he was just 9 or 10 years old.

Juvenile violence skyrocketed across the country in 2020, reversing decades of decline. But even before the increases, juvenile crime was reported in 2018 as 15 times higher in Fulton County than the national average.

Juvenile offending, like adult criminality, concentrates among a very small number of offenders. These juveniles are typically either associated with or being recruited into street gangs and often pressured by adults to commit serious violent offenses.

Thankfully, there are well-documented ways to reduce that kind of offending. Look to Louisville, Kentucky for a recent example of solutions.

In recent years, Louisville has experienced substantial increases in juvenile violence, with arrest rates for juvenile homicide suspects 50% higher than the national average and a majority of carjacking arrestees being under 18 in 2020 and 2021. This prompted Republican State Representative Kevin Bratcher to begin working on what would become House Bill 3, a comprehensive violent juvenile offender accountability and treatment bill. While some of House Bill 3 dealt with issues specific to Louisville, many of its provisions offer policies and best practices worth adopting in Georgia.

Most importantly, the bill required that any juvenile charged with a serious violent offense such as murder, rape, robbery, burglary in the first degree and so on, be immediately detained for a period not to exceed 48 hours. This mandatory detention serves two purposes. It not onlyprotects the public and the juvenile by disrupting the cycle of violence but it also ensures meaningful time for mental health and drug abuse evaluations and comprehensive evaluations of the risks posed by the juvenile before a judge ultimately determines long-term release conditions or pretrial detention.

They also funded a new detention center in Louisville and a myriad of treatment programs intended to get juveniles with one foot in the streets and one foot in civil society back on the right track. This includes funding cognitive behavioral therapy which is being used toeffectively get serious juvenile offenders back on a positive life course. Why fund programs in facilities and not just in the community? Treatment programs for high-risk juveniles are most effective after 200 hours of treatment.

Finally, the new law creates early intervention points for young people who showed no improvement in their diversion programs. It does so by allowing an interdisciplinary team to alter the treatment methods earlier. If parents are unwilling or refuse to comply with a child’s diversion plan, a judge has the authority to hold the parents accountable. Chronic, unexcused absences from schools are strong predictors of future juvenile delinquency.

Unresolved truancy is strongly predictive of future juvenile delinquency and even adult criminality. So, getting it right with those kids today can help a child escape being preyed on by adult gang members and prevent serious violence in the future.

We didn’t get here overnight, and the reasons for the spike in juvenile crime in Atlanta are multifaceted. But the bottom line is that policy solutions similar to those enacted this year in Kentucky can help the city move forward and create a safer community and a more just and fair system.

Josh Crawford is the director of criminal justice initiatives at the Georgia Center for Opportunity.

Read the full article here

This opinion editorial was originally published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 6, 2023. 

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