Washington

Frankie and Luisa

Key Points

Frankie made an unexpected choice when she turned down a $70,000 a year job opportunity while living in hotel housing.
Oftentimes people on safety net services make rational choices to stay on these services because the system would punish them before they have a firm place to land.
Frankie, in a place of crisis, was unwilling to gamble with a stable choice despite a potentially great job opportunity.
Our safety net services must be reworked to address these “cliffs” and rebuilt to encourage and support the move into the workforce.

The thought of someone turning down a well-paying job to stay on welfare seems absurd. But that’s the exact scenario Frankie Johnson faced. It’s a real world example of the way benefit cliffs hurt people. Thankfully, Frankie found the BETTER WORK program and is on a new path to success.

An unexpected journey in life

Frankie Johnson, a Washington, D.C. native, grew up in a middle-class neighborhood and spent time serving her community. Through her community service work, she connected with many individuals who were victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, job loss, and poverty. By the time she’d reached her teens, Frankie knew she found fulfillment in working alongside others to improve their lives.

At age 14, Frankie became pregnant with her first child, Evelyn. She gave birth just before her 15th birthday. She went on to get an internship through Job Corps, then earn her high school diploma. After graduation, she attended California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where she planned to study photography and 3D installation.

But leaving Evelyn in Maryland with her parents while she studied in California proved to be too difficult a separation for Frankie. She moved to New York instead, which allowed her to see her daughter more often.

At age 18, Frankie married a member of the military who was six years her senior. His deployments and resulting war-related trauma proved to be difficult on the family and the couple’s marriage. For the next six years, they lived in Texas and the Midwest before returning to Maryland. Steadily, the situation with Frankie’s husband deteriorated.

It’s time to stop funding poverty.

And start finding solutions.

Learn How To Fix The Cliff

It’s time to stop funding poverty. And start finding solutions.

Learn How To Fix The Cliff

High aspirations, hidden pain

Despite the trouble at home, Frankie was a high achiever, building a career in human resources and working for firms such as Monumental Sports and the Nick Cannon Foundation. She worked as a high-end event planner, where she regularly brushed elbows with celebrities and influencers.

When the family returned to Maryland, Frankie found herself heading up events for women who were victims of domestic violence. Meanwhile, at home, she was living in an abusive environment herself.

“At home, I never knew what was going to become of my peace or if he was going to get triggered,” Frankie says. “I was serving in the community as a social worker. I put on events for women, took them on yacht parties, and tried to boost their self-esteem. No one knew I was suffering so much.”

Finally, the situation in Frankie’s home came to a head, and she fled to Atlanta with her children. Her uncle lived in the city, and she planned to make a fresh start there.

But that fresh start didn’t come quickly or easily.

Seeking safety in Atlanta

Without a job or a place to live, Frankie was forced to seek out government assistance and transitional housing in Gwinnett County for her family.

“This was my first time being on the opposite side of transitional housing and understanding what the women who would talk to me [in the past] were going through,” she says. “It was strange to see the scarce resources, and to see women locked out of their hotels because the projects or community partners ran out of funding.”

Transitional housing in hotels and apartments can cost women $500 or more per week, and according to Frankie, the living conditions are unsafe and unsanitary. Worse, residents got a chilly reception from their case workers when they raised concerns.

“The water makes your skin itchy, and there are roaches coming up out of the sink and the drains,” Frankie says. “We were told we needed to boil our water to use it. It comes [out of the faucets] brown, and we had brown rashes on our bodies.”

While Frankie’s family was living in transitional housing, she experienced relentless prejudice, racism, and ridicule.

“I had people come to my hotel, and ask me if I was a prostitute because my daughter said we were living in a hotel at school,” she says. “Someone from [the Department of Family and Children Services] came to my apartment and asked if I left my children [alone] at nighttime. He asked me if I was a stripper.”

Forced to choose between assistance and higher income

While Frankie was waiting for available childcare and a pathway to affordable housing, she was forced to turn down a job placement that would have paid $70,000 per year. While she needed employment, she also needed the support from the government program. That was her ticket to a home she could afford, but she wouldn’t qualify if she took a new job that raised her income past eligibility requirements.

“I never thought it would come to this,” she says. “I hadn’t prepared financially; I spent through my savings because I was waiting on childcare.”

Frankie found herself trapped on what we call the Benefits Cliff — torn between taking steps toward a more secure future, but ultimately forced into making decisions that trapped her into long-term dependence on government benefits. Individuals and families who make over a certain amount of income per year are automatically struck from the list, and are no longer qualified for affordable housing, food support, or other government assistance.

“They want to see your pay stubs, your bank statements. They want to make sure you’re poor,” Frankie says. “If you have a car, they want to know what kind of car you’re driving and if you have insurance. They want to make sure there’s no possible way you can work a job.”

“If there are no daycare facilities within a 30-mile radius of where you place me in my hotel and I don’t have a car to take my child a city over, I’m not going to be able to get a job,” she added. “Who’s going to watch my child all day?”

Families in these transitional programs often find themselves stuck paying high bills while they await affordable housing. Frankie was forced to pay more than $2,000 per month for the hotel she and her children stayed in. Financially, staying put made no sense, but Frankie held on in hopes that affordable housing would come through.

Leaving transitional housing puts parents at risk of losing their children to CPS, particularly if they’re perceived as living out of their vehicle. On the other hand, getting a higher-paying job disqualifies them from further government and charitable support.

“It’s like a loophole to keep you destitute,” Frankie says.

Dreams for a brighter future

After three months in transitional housing, Frankie was able to connect with BETTER WORK Gwinnett. Her case worker, Luisa, formed a close connection with her, encouraging her and checking in on her as she prepared for a fresh start.

“We lost our jobs during the pandemic,” Frankie says, “and that was the time when we needed encouragement and to find our way again — laugh again. Ms. Lusia provided a lot of that. She called me every day just to check on me.”

After experiencing the frustration, humiliation, and helplessness of transitional housing herself — including witnessing another mother abandon her children when her time at the hotel was up — Frankie wants to help other women in similar circumstances. She hopes to go to law school to provide legal aid to other families who have suffered at the mercy of the system.

“We need to get them their GEDs and diplomas. Start them off as home health aides, CPAs, LPNs, RNs, physician’s assistants, or doctors,” Frankie says, “But no one’s willing to help. They just want to enable their programs to get money for housing us. After that, you’re out on the street like a dog.”

As for Frankie, she’s working with Luisa to get back into the human resources field, and considering a move to a more affordable city in south Alabama.

“I’m not going to sit and wait for anyone to take care of me,” she says. “For the women who don’t have options, I’m going to school to fight for them.”

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Reality is likely to be less rosy…

Some economists are hoping that inflation has peaked and will tick down in the coming months, after the pace of inflation slowed slightly in April. But Erik Randolph, director of research for the Georgia Center For Opportunity (GCO), warns that the reality is likely to be far less rosy.

“What we saw with the April Consumer Price Index was disinflation. That means the rate of inflation decreased but inflation is still occurring and our purchasing power is declining,” Randolph said. “Meanwhile, wage increases are lagging behind price increases. The vast majority of workers will have lower standardsof living because their budgets will not buy as much as in the recent past. Some workers will get handsome pay raises, but they will be the exception rather than the rule.

Erik - Inflation swells quote

What’s needed?

“The core problem here is that the price level has risen, setting a new floor for costs. The only way to lower the price level, by definition, is to allow for deflation. But our policymakers are afraid of deflation because of the economic schools of thought that they adhere to. What is needed is new economic thinking in Washington, D.C. from economists who are not afraid of deflation but recognize it’s the only way to bring the price level down that benefits the most people. The mess we’re in now are the signs of stagflation, meaning the rising price level may be soon accompanied with slower economic growth and loss of employment. The only way to mitigate that scenario would be to adopt policies to allow for supply-side growth.”

American poverty

Work has intrinsic value

Last month, I had the honor of participating in the Heritage Foundation’s annual Antipoverty Forum, where scholars and practitioners discussed the state of poverty in the country and the local efforts to confront the issue.

The discussion this year centered on the Biden Administration’s Build Back Better (BBB) bill that is now making its way through Congress and the ways in which the bill would undermine work by using much of its $2.4 trillion to expand safety net benefits and create new entitlements, all while eliminating work requirements.

Despite unemployment numbers dropping nearly to pre-pandemic lows in most states, what is not widely understood is that labor force participation (the number of people who are able to work and are actively looking for work) is much lower than when the pandemic began. Some 4-5 million people have effectively dropped out of the workforce – at least for now – despite record job openings (10.4 million in September).

While the drop in workforce numbers is partially explained by fear of COVID and mothers forced to stay home with children, much of it can only be explained as being caused by increased benefits (and the elimination of many requirements for qualifying), rescue-related payments and, now, monthly child tax credit payments. The BBB bill is very likely to make these trends and others, like inflation, worse.

Although we’re concerned that people are choosing not to work and agree that more money coming from Washington, DC, will make matters worse, my remarks reflected our concern at GCO about why worklessness harms the individual. Work is not merely about earning money; it has intrinsic value.

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.

Championing a return to normalcy and healthy social interaction

Work provides each of us with an outlet for our God-given talents and creativity. It allows us to serve others and contribute to other individuals’ well-being in exchange for having our own needs met. More than that, it provides us with social capital and a network of colleagues and friends who can help us when we need it. Much research has also shown that worklessness leads to poor mental and physical health and can contribute to increased drug and alcohol abuse – the 100,000+ overdose deaths during the pandemic representing the latest example.

As our government wrestles with how to deal with the pandemic and sets its priorities, it should avoid anything that discourages employment and causes more isolation. For individual and societal health on every front, the government should be championing a return to normalcy and healthy social interaction – including at work – that allows the American people to be resilient during times of crisis.

healthcare politics

The federal government’s surprise move against Georgia

In a raw political move, the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) removed the approval of Georgia’s Pathways to Coverage, labeling the program as “pending.”

Despite the fact that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is consuming the resources and attention of the Governor’s office and the Department of Community Health, CMS gave Georgia only 30 days to respond before the federal government might eviscerate the program. In its February 12 letter, CMS targeted the program’s work or other community engagement components and also threatened “review” of other provisions of the program.

This move by the new administration in Washington, D.C., appears to be unprecedented. Finally secured last fall, the approval was part of an administrative process, which included time for public comments, that took years to develop.

Pathways to Coverage serves non-disabled adults below the poverty line. It is a critical component of Georgia’s plan to reduce the number of uninsured and make healthcare coverage more affordable, without sacrificing quality of care or causing other serious drawbacks associated with a traditional Medicaid expansion. It is based on the idea of not keeping these adults below the poverty line but moving them above it.

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.

Let’s focus on helping people instead

Pathways to Coverage is really about helping people. Readers might want to check out my prior blog on this program as well as some of our published research on fixing the healthcare system.

The so-called Affordable Care Act (ACA) has caused havoc for Georgians when it comes to healthcare coverage and costs. The rate of healthcare price increases did not abate but accelerated. As we reported before, our own data analysis confirmed other research by showing that for individual markets, “Georgians suffered average price increases of 70.7% for Bronze plans, 77.3% for Silver plans, and 70.4% for Gold plans” over five years.

We also found that prior to the ACA, the median cost for a health insurance plan on the individual market for a family of four was $5,386 per year. But within six years, the cost varied from $17,550 to $26,081, depending on the level of the plan.

The bulk of Georgia’s uninsured problem lies not below the poverty line, but above it. Therefore, Pathways to Coverage necessarily links to Georgia’s Reinsurance Program designed to drive down costs in the individual markets. The test of the demonstration project will be to see how well Georgia can move people out of poverty into situations where they have better opportunities and more resources for health coverage, such as coverage through affordable individual markets or, better yet, employer-based coverage.

America has one of the world’s best and most innovative healthcare systems, if you have insurance to afford it. By far, employer-based and private insurance provides the best coverage. Medicaid has among the worst healthcare outcomes, can trap families in poverty (as we and others have demonstrated), and can be an obstacle in moving to the much-better private coverage. Incentivizing people to improve their circumstances is an important strategy that this demonstration project hopes to prove.

The Spirit of the Law

The new administration in Washington might feel like they are doing the right thing by attempting to strongarm states like Georgia into Medicaid expansion. However, this action raises concerns.

First, the question of whether the federal government can mandate states to expand Medicaid was already settled in the negative by a seven-to-two U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Second, removing a critical component of this demonstration project will not likely accomplish expansion but, if followed through, will compromise the effectiveness of the project. Third, it goes against the whole purpose of demonstration projects.

Pathways to Coverage is an approved—and hopefully remains so—Section 1115 waiver to Medicaid rules, which is found in the Social Security Act. In enacting this section of the law, Congress acknowledged that a one-size-fits-all approach dictated by the federal government is not always the best way to solve our public policy challenges.

Congress acknowledged this principle again when it enacted Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act that allows states to come up with alternative plans in coordination with Section 1115 waivers. Georgia took advantage of both these provisions of law in developing its healthcare strategy.

Finally, demonstration projects allow states to experiment with what works best. Without experimentation, we hinder our ability to discover better ways to run public programs for the benefit of people.

What’s next

The best overall resolution would be for CMS to reinstate the approval and allow the demonstration to move forward. CMS will monitor the project, of course, but it must let it play out to see if the project will demonstrate a better way. Georgia has a vested interest in making it work. If not, Georgia could choose to modify or abandon the project. Besides, the federal government will have the opportunity to review the results when the waiver comes up for renewal.

Failure to reinstate the approval will likely result in a legal struggle before the courts. Who knows how long such a legal process will take? Instead of using our resources and time to bicker before the courts, we should apply them to seek out the best ways to improve people’s lives.

*Erik Randolph is Director of Research at the Georgia Center for Opportunity. This blog reflects his opinion and not necessarily that of the Georgia Center for Opportunity.

The Top 5 Recommendations to the Feds on Economic Mobility

By Erik Randolph

If you had the opportunity to tell federal agencies what they need to do to help low-income people improve their economic circumstances, what would you tell them?

This is not an arbitrary question. It was formally asked by the current administration in Washington, D.C.

A New Council on Economic Mobility

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is leading the development and establishment of an interagency Council on Economic Mobility. This council will include the heads, or their delegates, of the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Education, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, and the Treasury. It will also include the heads of the Social Security Administration and the Council of Economic Advisors.

The purpose of the Council is to find areas where the participating agencies can collaborate for a very important purpose: “to promote family-sustaining careers and economic mobility for low-income Americans … and help individuals sustain their economic success.” Note that all these departments administer important welfare and workforce-development programs.

Last July, HHS solicited comments to 15 questions to help develop this new council. What should be its priorities? What barriers do individuals face? How are welfare cliffs impacting individuals?

Relying on its experience with providing services, working with other service providers, and research, the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) submitted recommendations to this request on October 2, 2020.

GCO’s Top Recommended Priorities

Below are GCO’s top recommendations for what the council’s priorities ought to be.

Priority #1: Eliminate Marriage Penalties

Marriage penalties make number one on our list.

The strong correlation between marriage and prosperity is well-researched and undeniable. Research also demonstrates overwhelmingly that a stable home with married parents benefits children in many ways, including emotional stability, educational achievement, and future income. Unfortunately for many, the idea of healthy marriage is something desirable but unattainable for themselves. A strong marriage has It’s becoming a luxury for many, and they are losing out on which denies too many the economic and otherwise fulfilling benefits.

Recently, the Office of Family Assistance at HHS sponsored the study Marriage Penalties in Means-Tested Tax and Transfer Programs: Issues and Options, authored by Bradford Wilcox, Ph.D., Chris Gersten, and Jerry Regier, Ph.D. This study does an excellent job at detailing current research in the area and discusses potential solutions. By the way, GCO gave input to the authors of the study.

Priority #2: Eliminate Welfare Cliffs

As just indicated, the welfare system has embedded disincentives that can discourage recipients from seeking employment, working additional hours, or accepting pay increases. And our research in this area has been recently corroborated by a National Bureau of Economic Research paper written by five economists, including two who work for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Many of these disincentives are the direct result of federal government policies and are found within the tax code and various eligibility and benefit determination rules of means-tested welfare programs.

Priority #3: Sponsor Research and Financial Modeling to Solve the Big Problems

In a prior blog , I wrote about how welfare programs and the tax code can be barriers by creating disincentives to advance economically. Also, a prior study illustrated how marriage penalties are further barriers.

Well, these problems are complex, and the solutions have perplexed policymakers for years. Therefore, it is important for continued research to come up with the best solutions.

By the way, GCO is well positioned to help examine these issues. We have studied both the problems and offered potential solutions.

Priority #4: Promote Work-First Policies

Research and experience show that promoting work first for those applying for welfare assistance—as opposed to seeking education and training first—usually works better in helping them secure meaningful employment in the long run.

A work-first policy does not mean that education and training are forsaken. It simply recognizes the reality that connecting people to real jobs in the economy gives them a foothold in the workforce where further skill development and training can often be accomplished while they are holding down a job and earning earned income.

Priority #5: Look for ways to reduce regulatory barriers

The federal government should review its policies to make sure they do not make it harder for people to get jobs or start job-creating businesses. This recommendation falls under the broad heading of “getting government to help facilitate job growth, not hinder it.”

So what do you think? Should these be the recommended priorities for the new federal council? Are there other priorities you would have included? Post your comments below.

Erik Randolph is Director of Research at the Georgia Center for Opportunity. This blog reflects his opinion and not necessarily that of the Georgia Center for Opportunity.

DISINCENTIVES FOR WORK AND MARRIAGE IN GEORGIA’S WELFARE SYSTEM

Based on the most recent 2015 data, this report provides an in-depth look at the welfare cliffs across the state of Georgia. A computer model was created to demonstrate how welfare programs, alone or in combination with other programs, create multiple welfare cliffs for recipients that punish work. In addition to covering a dozen programs – more than any previous model – the tool used to produce the following report allows users to see how the welfare cliff affects individuals and families with very specific characteristics, including the age and sex of the parent, number of children, age of children, income, and other variables. Welfare reform conversations often lack a complete understanding of just how means-tested programs actually inflict harm on some of the neediest within our state’s communities.

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We know that people do better in life when they experience the benefits of meaningful work and healthy relationships. But we also know that so many cultural forces are stacked against success in these two areas. One of the biggest is the American welfare system, which keeps people trapped in cycles of dependence while reducing incentives to climb the economic ladder or form stable relationships.

That’s why the Georgia Center for Opportunity has been on the vanguard of work-focused welfare reform that gives a hand-up to struggling people while preserving the social safety net for those who truly need it. The great news is that we’re seeing growing momentum—both at the state and national level—to make these reforms a reality.

Georgia lawmakers are poised to consider legislation in the General Assembly to take significant steps on welfare reform—what we call the “right to strive”—while nationally we are seeking waivers to expedite the reform package at the state level. In recent months, we’ve presented our welfare research to Georgia’s Rural Economic Development Committee, created by former Gov. Nathan Deal and the legislature to help rural Georgia communities become more competitive economically. The committee was already well aware of the damage caused by welfare cliffs in the lives of individuals and businesses, so they were very welcoming of our input. We’ve also met with policymakers in Washington, D.C., on our welfare reform proposals.

The changes can’t come soon enough. Although the Georgia economy is booming with a historic 3.6% unemployment rate, these trendlines obscure a hidden workforce crisis: Millions of Americans aren’t counted in the official unemployment rate because they’ve simply given up looking for work. A crucial step in the right direction for these non-working individuals is to create a welfare system that helps—rather than hinders—their connection to meaningful work.

The most important changes in our proposal are to reduce welfare “cliffs,” a scenario where benefit drop-offs unfairly punish workers for earning more and moving up the economic ladder. Secondly, our proposals eliminate the marriage penalty that encourages single parenthood.

A big step to accomplish this is by consolidating the major 15 welfare programs hosted by federal, state, and local agencies into five coordinated programs, headed by a sole lead agency. In the end, our reforms stabilize the safety net for those who truly need it, adopt a “work first” approach for those who are able, and create incentives to form marriages and households.

We’re optimistic that we will soon see work- and family-focused “right-to-strive” reforms in Georgia. Interested in learning more? Don’t miss our three-part series of reports on welfare reform: Part 1, part 2, and part 3.

A certain desert city’s tourism department hopes you can finish the phrase, “What happens in Vegas…,” a slogan that turns lucky 13 this fall. Yet when it comes to the changing landscape of student learning, what happens in the desert isn’t going to stay there.

At the end of July, the Nevada Supreme Court held hearings on the state’s nascent education savings account law. In 2015, Sen. Scott Hammond sponsored SB 302, and Gov. Brian Sandoval’s signature made all 450,000 Nevada public school students eligible to apply for an account. The ACLU filed a lawsuit to take children’s educational choices away shortly after the law’s passage. The group charges that the accounts violate the state constitution (a group of parents filed another suit taking away parents’ ability to choose how their children learn, saying that the accounts would be illegally funded from a state source dedicated to public schools).

Nevada’s account law is the first such law to allow all public school students the opportunity to use an account to buy a variety of educational products and services. Parental choice in education is no longer rare in the U.S., but many of the laws that give parents options between public and private schools are limited to students that meet select criteria. For example, Tennessee and Mississippi’s education savings accounts, also enacted in 2015, are only available to children with special needs. As many Georgia parents may know, the Peach State has a private school scholarship program exclusively for children with special needs, while Louisiana and Ohio have private school voucher options for children from failing schools. The situation is similar across more than two dozen states.

A ruling in favor of parents and children from Nevada’s Supreme Court would boost efforts in other states, such as Georgia, Texas, Delaware, and Missouri, to name a few, where lawmakers have considered the accounts in recent years. In 2011, Arizona lawmakers enacted the nation’s first education savings account law and have expanded student access to the accounts since its enactment. Arizona children with special needs can apply for an account, along with children from failing schools, adopted children, and children living on Native American reservations, among others. Nevada is the first state to give every public school child this opportunity from day one.

Education savings accounts have also attracted national attention. Republicans included education savings accounts in their 2016 platform (as for Democrats, who the Wall Street Journal says has a built-in “get-out-the-vote operation known as teacher unions,” education savings accounts were noticeably missing from their party positions).

In March, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced a bill to allow all children attending Bureau of Indian Education schools access to education savings accounts. Politico highlighted these students’ need for quality educational options in November 2015 with a feature headlined “How Washington created some of the worst schools in America.” Former presidential candidate and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a bill in January that would make all Washington, D.C. children eligible for accounts.

As a result, federal and state lawmakers across the country are watching what happens in Carson City, Nevada. Arizona’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of education savings accounts in 2011 after the state teachers union and other associations brought a lawsuit similar to the ACLU’s charges in Nevada (the Goldwater Institute defended the accounts alongside the Institute for Justice, the group defending Nevada’s accounts). A victory for students in Nevada would mark the second victory for the accounts over challenges that the accounts violate state constitutional provisions that block the use of public funds for private or religious schools.

Five states have passed the accounts so far, but the accounts are turning into a movement offering families flexible opportunities in education. The successes of these programs, and the lifelong knowledge and skills gained—won’t just stay in Vegas.

A school board member in New Jersey pleaded guilty to wire fraud. A “longtime educator” in Palm Beach County, Florida, resigned from a school board after authorities charged him with fraud and bribery. Nearly a dozen school leaders in Detroit accepted $900,000 in kickbacks in a phony scheme to provide school supplies. A manager of an audio/visual company in Utah pleaded guilty to fraud and theft in his dealings with a local school district.

And that was just in one week.

As we’ve documented on this blog, fraud is an unfortunate reality in our nation’s schools. For that matter, it’s an unfortunate part of providing quality services in across a variety of social needs. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the indictment of state and local authorities in Flint, Michigan surrounding the locality’s water crisis. Yet the paper lamented that federal officials—those getting their paychecks from Washington, D.C.—at the EPA and in the U.S. Office of Veterans Affairs were not being held to account for ignoring warnings at the Gold King Mine (where a flooded mine ruined a water supply in Colorado last year) and in medical malfeasance, respectively.

Fraud is a serious issue at all levels of government and enforcement is inconsistent, at best.

In 2009, Apple started advertising what was, at the time, breakthrough technology in its latest iPhone by saying, “There’s an app for that,” with “that” being whatever you needed. From finding a restaurant to playing the piano on your phone, developers were building mobile applications that allowed you to access virtually anything you needed at your fingertips. Today, programmers are building applications to help prevent fraudulent use of taxpayer money.

In some states, taxpayers can event submit photos or videos along with anonymous tips about misuse of taxpayer funds. The applications may cost as much as $10,000 to $20,000 to develop, but with the potential losses from fraud totaling in the hundreds of thousands or even millions in taxpayer resources, the upfront cost is worth it.

Furthermore, the next generation of parents and taxpayers, Millennials, are the generation that is most likely to carry and use a mobile device—making these apps a natural fit. The Pew Research Center reports that Millennials are the most likely generation to “use their cellphones in public places for a variety of reasons,” and Nielsen says Millennials “are the largest segment of smartphone owners.” This means the availability of such mobile applications is coming at an excellent time.

Is Your Mobile Phone a Smartphone?

Screen Shot 2016-05-31 at 8.57.03 PM
Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services, March 2015,” https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/mobile-devices/2015-appendix-3-consumer-responses-to-survey-questionnaire.htm#Cross-tabulationsForConsumersUseOfM-C1548C7E.

While mobile apps won’t prevent fraud, such developments will help to limit the losses that bad actors cause. Research from the Goldwater Institute explains how mobile technology and education savings accounts, spending accounts that give parents choices for a child’s education, are both coming of age at the same time. Approximately 840,000 children across five states are eligible for the savings accounts. Georgia lawmakers considered legislation to create the accounts in the last session.

Millennial parents are the generation that grew up alongside mobile technology and are already using apps to get a ride from the airport or check a bank account. Flexible spending accounts that allow families to pay for online classes, public school services, private school tuition, or save for college should be designed so that parents can report fraudulent use of such accounts, check their child’s account balance, and make a purchase for a textbook, all with their mobile phone. In traditional schools and programs that give parents choices in education, taxpayers should be able to help protect students with easy, reliable ways to report misuse.

There’s no app for the American Dream, but mobile technology can help protect taxpayer resources and make sure education funding is used as it was intended—to help children succeed.

Watch a recording of the event here.

Georgia Center for Opportunity was privileged to partner with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in co-hosting an event on the issue of prisoner reentry at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, July 28^th.

The event featured two panels: The first consisting of non-profits leaders who have faced challenges and successes in helping former prisoners successfully reintegrate into society, and the second featuring government leaders who have similarly faced challenges and successes in working to reform the criminal justice system itself.

GCO’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Eric Cochling, moderated the first panel that featured four non-profit leaders, including Craig DeRoche of Justice Fellowship, Harriet McDonald of The Doe Fund, Bryan Kelley of Prison Entrepreneurship Program, and Harold Dean Trulear of Healing Communities. The panelists discussed such themes as the importance for Americans to view prisoners and people with a criminal record as a valuable asset to society, the importance of work and its role in promoting human dignity and successful reintegration, the necessity for returning citizens to experience a change in attitudes and values to avoid recidivating, and the role of the community in embracing returning citizens and “walking with” them in their journey.

The second panel was moderated by Robert Doar, Morgridge Fellow in Poverty Studies at AEI, and featured three government leaders: Georgia’s own Jay Neal, former state representative and current executive director of the Governor’s Office of Transition, Support and Reentry, Gary Mohr, commissioner of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, and Chauncey Parker, special policy advisor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. This panel highlighted specific approaches that states have taken to improve prisoner reentry as a means of promoting public safety, including instilling the mindset that reentry begins at the point of arrest, basing decisions on data instead of knee-jerk reactions, facilitating better connections between family members and incarcerated loved ones, and instilling the importance of viewing offenders as human beings among the criminal justice workforce.

Watch the event and gain a better understanding of how effective collaboration between families, faith communities, service providers, and the government, as well as a changed perception of the ones they are serving, is essential for promoting successful reintegration among returning citizens.

According to the most recent data released by the National Center for Education Statistics this January, Georgia’s high school graduation rate is still one of the lowest in the nation at 72 percent, despite good improvement over the last two years. Only three states and the District of Columbia have a lower graduation rate than Georgia. Compare this to such states as Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin, which all have a graduation rate of 88, and Iowa which leads the pack at 90.

Georgia’s struggles don’t end with its graduation rate. Education Week released the latest report cards for each state this January in the categories of Chance-for-Success, School Finance, and K-12 Achievement in its 19^th annual Quality Counts – Preparing to Launch: Early Childhood’s Academic Countdown. Georgia earned a grade of C-Minus and a ranking of 31^st overall amongst the 50 states, based on its rankings of 37^th, 31^st, and 17^th in each respective category. Georgia is below the nation as a whole, which earned a grade of C.

It would be one thing if Georgia ranked near the middle of the pack in a country whose educational outcomes far exceeded those of other developing countries around the world. However, when comparing how the U.S. education system stacks up on the international playing field, the results are not promising.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assessed the competencies of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science in 65 countries and economies in 2012. Among the 34 countries who are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. performed below average in mathematics, ranking 27^th, and close to the OECD average in reading and science, ranking 17^th and 20^th respectively. According to PISA, U.S. students’ performance has not changed significantly over time despite the U.S. spending more per student than most countries.

So, what do these statistics teach us?

If Georgia stands in the middle of the pack when compared to other states in educating our children, in a country that is in the middle-to-the-back of the pack among developed countries, it’s safe to conclude that as a state we are failing to produce the level of excellence we desire for our children in an increasingly globalized economy.

Far too many students are stuck in failing schools that stifle them from reaching their full potential simply because their zip code affords them no other options. As a state, we cannot afford to let students spend another day in a failing school. The cost is too high individually and collectively.

Mediocre results call for a change in the status quo. Instead of keeping the same old system that is failing to produce the outcomes we hope to see, why not try a different strategy?

Washington

Reality is likely to be less rosy…

What’s needed?

Let’s stay connected

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Programs

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Key Points

An unexpected journey in life

High aspirations, hidden pain

Seeking safety in Atlanta

Forced to choose between assistance and higher income

Dreams for a brighter future

Reality is likely to be less rosy…

What’s needed?

Work has intrinsic value

Championing a return to normalcy and healthy social interaction

The federal government’s surprise move against Georgia

Let’s focus on helping people instead

The Spirit of the Law

What’s next

If you had the opportunity to tell federal agencies what they need to do to help low-income people improve their economic circumstances, what would you tell them?

A New Council on Economic Mobility

GCO’s Top Recommended Priorities

Priority #1: Eliminate Marriage Penalties

Priority #2: Eliminate Welfare Cliffs

Priority #3: Sponsor Research and Financial Modeling to Solve the Big Problems

Priority #4: Promote Work-First Policies

Priority #5: Look for ways to reduce regulatory barriers

DISINCENTIVES FOR WORK AND MARRIAGE IN GEORGIA’S WELFARE SYSTEM

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