Unemployment

When you were a teenager, did you work summer jobs? According to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, about 57% of 16-19 year olds had summer jobs in 1989. Fast forward to 2010 and just 29.6% of these older teens are employed in the summer months.

A Boston Globe story from this morning highlights the challenges teens face this summer in finding employment and points out the role that social networks, socioeconomic background, and families play in paving the way to employment for some kids. The piece profiles a handful of Boston-area teens whose parents have hired them to work in family businesses because opportunities were so limited elsewhere.

A recent article from Minnesota Public Radio described the consequences of curtailing the policy option that allows states to lift or eliminate their asset tests for most SNAP applicants (also known as broad-based categorical eligibility). State administrators interviewed for the article pointed out that asset tests hurt families trying to move toward self-sufficiency, particularly when they impose limits on vehicle ownership. But one passage from the article, quoting the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector, expressed some other concerns:

"The current way the system works, you can have $100,000 sitting in the bank, and if you're unemployed, you can get food stamps. It's a total waste of money. It's like a bad joke.”

. . . [Rector] argues that food stamp applicants should have to take such a test, even if some people who need help are denied benefits."I'm sure you can find one or two, or a dozen, or a hundred very sympathetic cases like that," he said. "But you're also going to find tens of thousands of people that are now taking assistance under this program who don't really need this."

Below are just a few of the myriad reasons this is not, in fact, true:

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 financial services, homeownership, and poverty.

The Asset Building Program hosted an event Wednesday, July 11 to release the July/August issue of the Washington Monthly. The issue focuses on the importance and applicability of the asset building agenda in the lives of all Americans. Utilizing the magazine's focus as a frame for the event, our panelists tackled critical themes such as savings as a path to higher education, the importance of life-long savings mechanisms, the role of federal policies in promoting prosperity, and a growing political divide between young and old Americans.

Wednesday July 11^th, the Asset Building Program will be hosting an event focused on the special July/August issue of the Washington Monthly. "The Future of Success" takes a look at current economic conditions, how we got here, the impact of the recession on the wealth of American families, and how we might get out. The editors and writers of the Monthly have taken the asset building perspective to heart and decided that it is a critical tool for restoring the American Dream. The event will feature two panels, one comprised of contributors to the issue, the other of expert commentators on the issues at hand.

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 anti-poverty initiatives, access to financial services, and inequality.

Alexandra Starr talks about how President Obama's new immigration executive order could impact U.S. competitiveness - and the Latino vote. Dana Goldstein explores a counter intuitive way to get more women to pursue science, technology and engineering careers: Get them to play more video games as kids.

Yesterday, the Senate voted down an amendment that would have gotten rid of the mechanism that allows states to eliminate asset tests for SNAP.  Nearly forty states have lifted their asset tests for most applicants to the program through the challenged policy, known as broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE). It’s not a big surprise that the amendment failed; a similar proposal was defeated in the Senate last year. However, in light of the vote, it’s worth taking a moment to recognize many of the ways in which this policy has played a positive role, both in helping families access the benefits they qualify for and in easing administrative burdens at a time when state budgets are in crisis. Despite frequent statements to the contrary, BBCE has actually increased state flexibility and allowed for greater efficiency and associated cost savings.

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 poverty, inequality, financial products, and student loan debt. 

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 housing, women in poverty, access to public assistance, banking, student loan debt and inequality.