Ownership & Assets

Editor's note: this post appears as an op-ed in today's edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. It is authored by Judy Darnell, Director of Public Policy at United Ways of California, and Aleta Sprague, Policy Analyst at New America Foundation.

After Melissa’s parents kicked her out at age 15, she survived on her own for years. She eventually married and had children, but her husband was abusive. Melissa left him after he broke her 2-year-old’s leg. She needed help to pick herself up. So what stopped her from getting it? Her 8-year-old van.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include public benefits, poverty, housing, and unemployment.

Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and a “hard work” ethic are the hallmarks of America’s definition of success. To achieve success and the economic mobility of the American Dream, however, requires not only the ability to generate income, but also the ability to translate such income into assets. While income may measure whether or not a person has enough to get by, assets measure whether or not a person has enough to get ahead.

On Tuesday, the Illinois Senate voted to become the eighth state to eliminate its TANF asset test—and the second state thus far in 2013. This development reflects a longstanding trend initiated by the states to reform their programs’ asset limits to better support families’ long-term financial stability—while saving time and money in the process. Yet in the current Farm Bill debate happening at the federal level, House Republicans are proposing changes that would completely undermine this wave of progress. Let’s take a look at some key lessons from Illinois about why asset limit reform makes so much sense.

On Wednesday, the Asset Building Program was pleased to host Gar Alperovitz for a conversation about his new book, “What then Must We Do? Democratizing Wealth and Building a Community-Sustaining Economy from the Ground Up.”. A recording of the event is available here.

Alperovitz is a political economist and co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, an organization based at the University of Maryland working to develop innovative community development policies that promote shared wealth ownership. As introduced by Asset Building Program director Reid Cramer, Aplerovitz is a “big thinker,” whose work on democratic access to wealth and capital has the potential to shift our thinking about economic equality and shared prosperity.

As any parent will tell you, mobility is a game-changer. Once junior can crawl, gone are the days of leaving him on his playmat while you step away, however briefly, and expect him to be in the same spot playing with the safe and developmentally appropriate toys you left him with. No, he'd rather be exploring the shoes you left in the corner of room with his mouth or in pursuit of the family cat. What worked before has to be reexamined to be successful once mobility enters the picture. 

Editor's note: This post originally appeared on New America's Early Education Initiative blog. Conor Williams recently joined the Early Education Initiative as a Senior Researcher. He's just completed a PhD in Government at Georgetown University, a degree he pursued after teaching first grade in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Conor's research addresses the challenges immigrant families face in the American education system, educational equity as a means to increased social mobility, and the history of education in the United States.

In an era of Washington gridlock, there’s almost nothing quite as gratifying as seeing big policy changes that echo one’s recent arguments. Along those lines, Thursday was a great day for advocates of more and higher-quality child care in the United States. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a new Obama administration proposal to raise the federal baseline for subsidized child care centers across the country. 

What if I told you that very poor people, living in the most expensive city in America in the aftermath of a massive economic collapse, were challenged to save $500 and not touch it for a year with the promise of a 50 percent bonus if they succeeded? Do you think that some of them would be able to do it? A few?

What would you think the impact of that small amount of money would be? Equally small? Would you think that sequestering those resources would make families more likely to go into debt? More likely to skip paying their bills?

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include inequality, retirement, the workforce, and financial services.

Editor's note: This piece originally appeared on New America's In The Tank blog.

The average childcare worker in the U.S. earns less than a janitor. Sure, some daycare centers pay well, but the average parent can’t afford those high-end centers that can cost as much as public university tuition.

Piling on to that: The daycare industry is largely unregulated with low standards on quality of care. At an event this week based off of a recent New Republic article, The Hell of American Daycare, panelists showed how that painful reality -- a broken system full of tales of toddler deaths and injuries – can also have dire consequences for our economy.