by Kali Grant, Cara Brumfield and Sierra Wilson | Apr 15, 2024 | Report
Everyone deserves the opportunity to lead a healthy, stable, and economically secure life. Many government programs aim to provide a stable foundation for all families, but fall short due to legacies of racism. This report puts forth a visionary framework with principles for anti-racist policymaking, focusing on Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). It includes three spotlights from leaders in Puerto Rico, Texas, and the District of Columbia applying these principles to advance racial and economic justice in their communities.
by Karla Coleman-Castillo, Shengwei Sun, Kyra Weber, Kali Grant and Sierra Wilson | Apr 4, 2024 | Brief
Child care is an essential element of our social infrastructure that supports child development, family financial stability, and economic growth. But structural racism and sexism have led to the underinvestment and undervaluation of child care in the United States. This brief, published with the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) offers a new, anti-racist vision for transforming the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) into a program that actively pushes back against structural racism and advances racial equity and economic prosperity for all families. It proposes recommendations for advancing a more equitable child care system.
by Kali Grant and Natalia Cooper | Aug 1, 2023 | Report
Subsidized employment is an engine for economic opportunity, stronger labor markets, and healthier communities. It can mitigate structural barriers to work, such as racial discrimination in the labor market, and be adapted and scaled to meet specific worker, employer, and community needs. This report reviews a half-century of evidence on subsidized employment’s power to increase employment and incomes, reduce poverty, and ensure a more inclusive economy for everyone. It is the second edition of a 2016 report, “Lessons Learned from 40 Years of Subsidized Employment Programs.”
by Algernon Austin, Natalia Cooper and Kali Grant | Feb 22, 2023 | Blog
Nearly 15 million people in the U.S. who would like to work are unable to find a job—despite a historically low national unemployment rate. This blog, published in partnership with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, highlights one policy tool that would help create jobs and boost earnings for people in disinvested neighborhoods and communities: subsidized employment. A half-century’s worth of evidence suggests that a large-scale subsidized jobs program would help ensure the communities typically left behind in periods of economic growth can share in the nation’s economic security and opportunity.
by Kali Grant, Siddhartha Aneja, Adiam Tesfaselassie and Sierra Wilson | Jan 31, 2023 | Working Paper
Corporate market power touches virtually every facet of American life—from health care costs and access to grocery stores to our environment and the strength of our democratic institutions. Public benefits programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid, provide essential protections for workers and families from the harms of concentrated market power, including the prevalence of low-paid work. However, little attention has been paid to the complex relationships between public benefits and corporate market power. This working paper examines some of the relationships between corporate market power and public benefits and spotlights opportunities for further exploration of this emerging area of research.
by Julie Kerksick and Kali Grant | Sep 22, 2021 | Op-Ed
Eighteen months after the largest job losses in U.S. history, unemployment is still high as workers, particularly Black and Hispanic workers, continue to struggle. While some indicators suggest the economy continues to recover, that recovery is uneven and fragile. America urgently needs a solution that supports workers, employers and communities alike, without leaving anyone behind. One proven and adaptable strategy that policymakers at all levels of government can mobilize now is subsidized employment.
by Kali Grant, Julie Kerksick and Natalia Cooper | Aug 24, 2021 | Brief
The COVID-19 public health and economic crisis made employment more scarce and exacerbated long-standing challenges—like access to quality child care—for millions of workers, particularly workers who are Black and Brown. This brief, published in partnership with Community Advocates Public Policy Institute, shares the success story of Milwaukee’s New Hope Project—a program with a package of work-based supports that included subsidized jobs, earnings supplements, affordable health care, and child care. New Hope provides a blueprint for creating holistic, work-based approaches that significantly improve employment and family outcomes for participants and their communities, during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
by Matthew Eckel, Jess Belledonne, Bre Bambrick, Kali Grant, Zachariah Oquenda and Indi Dutta-Gupta | Feb 26, 2021 | Data & Workbooks
Subsidized employment programs—programs that use public funds to create temporary job opportunities—have positive impacts on employment and earnings for people facing barriers to employment. This workbook provides a detailed look at dozens of federal and state subsidized employment programs spanning over half a century, synthesizes evaluation data, and offers a resource for policymakers and advocates interested in subsidized employment as an equity-advancing response to unemployment.
by Cassidy Viser, Isabella Camacho-Craft, Kali Grant and Indi Dutta-Gupta | Feb 3, 2021 | Brief, Data & Workbooks
The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the growing need for child care, paid leave, and unemployment assistance, but many state and federal unemployment assistance and paid leave programs fail to account for the child care needs of working families. This project chronicles and analyzes state-by-state policies on the availability of wage replacements for workers without child care. The table lists policies on the availability of unemployment assistance and paid leave by state, including D.C. and territories, including definitions of school “closures” for regular and pandemic unemployment assistance eligibility, work search requirements, and working documentation of state paid leave programs.
by Steve Holt, Kali Grant and Funke Aderonmu | Nov 16, 2020 | Data & Workbooks, Report
Refundable tax credits are powerful tools for advancing economic security and opportunity, reducing poverty, and improving the lives of families in need. Despite their successes, these tax credits are limited by a key misalignment: unaffordable living expenses, unstable pay, and persistent hardship are experienced consistently or unpredictably throughout the year, unlike the single annual tax credit disbursement. This report provides a framework for policymakers and advocates seeking to create periodic payment options that align tax credit disbursement timing to need and advance economic, racial, and gender equity. The report also outlines specific periodic payment design recommendations for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, including flexible disbursement options.
