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A New Paradigm for Economic Development
Universities and higher-education systems across the country are taking leading roles in their states’ economic development efforts — and this Institute report says that trend seems likely to strengthen as the nation moves into the era of an “innovation economy.” The study found that higher education’s increasingly important role builds on, but goes well beyond, the research strengths of universities – incorporating efforts as wide-ranging as job training, business consulting, housing rehabilitation and even securing seed money for new businesses.
David F. Shaffer and David J. Wright, March 2010
The Decline of States in Financing the U.S. Safety Net:
Retrenchment in State and Local Social Welfare Spending, 1977-2007
This paper, presented at the “Reducing Poverty: Assessing Recent State Policy Innovations and Strategies” conference at Emory University, examines social welfare spending on the eve of the recession to understand the likely trajectory of funding for different elements of state and local social welfare systems. It finds that state and local spending outside of medical assistance lost much of its real fiscal value since the last recession of 2001-02, especially when inflation-adjusted expenditures are compared to measures of need. Other trends include a growing concentration of state social welfare budgets around medical assistance, declines in federal assistance to states, and growing differences in social service spending across states of different fiscal capacities. The recession may exacerbate most of these developments and, along with the federal stimulus package, reduce the role of state governments in funding the national social welfare system.
Thomas Gais and Lucy Dadayan of the Rockefeller Institute and Suho Bae of Sung Kyun Kwan University, November 2009
Helping in Crisis: Government Assistance in Recession and Beyond
The Institute joined the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance to co-host the 49th National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics conference in Albany. The conference brought together representatives from federal, state, and local government, from universities, and from the private and nonprofit sectors, representing the full spectrum of human services programs, to discuss the latest on efforts to reduce poverty and increase self-sufficiency. Much of the discussion involved questions about how the recession and federal stimulus package will impact state and federal roles in providing an adequate safety net for poor Americans.
July 12-15, 2009
Stretched Net: The Retrenchment of State and Local Social Welfare Spending Before the Recession
[PDF]This article examines social welfare spending on the eve of the recession to understand the likely effects of the economic downturn on the funding of state and local social welfare systems. State and local governments face strong pressures to cut spending in social programs, as they experience sharp slowdowns or reductions in tax revenues. The article finds that state and local spending outside of medical assistance lost much of its value since the last recession of 2001–02, especially when inflation-adjusted expenditures are compared to measures of need. Other trends include a growing concentration of state social welfare budgets around medical assistance, declines in federal assistance to states, and growing differences in social service spending across states.
Thomas Gais, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, June 2009
The New Retrenchment: Social Welfare Spending 1997-2006
[PDF]State and local spending for social welfare programs — including cash assistance, medical assistance, and social services — fell in 2006 after adjusting for inflation and need, for the first time since 1983. Although this decline was due in part to one-time changes in the Medicaid program, the 2006 decline also confirms broader, downward trends in social welfare expenditures since 2002, as well as major shifts in the relationship between state fiscal capacity and social welfare spending.
Thomas Gais and Lucy Dadayan, September 2008
Spending on Social Welfare Programs in Rich and Poor States
[PDF]Social welfare spending supports lower-income households. Programs include health initiatives such as Medicaid and state child health insurance programs; cash assistance programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; general assistance, and state supplements to SSI, as well as other service programs including child care, foster care, low-income energy assistance, and services to the homeless.
The Lewin Group and The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, June 2004
How States and Counties Have Responded to the Family Policy Goals of Welfare Reform
[PDF]Describes how 18 states and 26 counties within those states responded to the family policy provisions of the 1996 welfare law. The report also offers explanations for why state and local efforts to move clients from welfare to work were greater than efforts to promote marriage and prevent nonmarital births; why abstinence-based efforts to achieve lower rates of teen pregnancy overshadowed state and local efforts to achieve the other family policy goals of PRWORA; and how states and localities responded to the family formation goals of the 1996 welfare reform law.
Deborah Orth and Malcolm Goggin, December 2003
The Fiscal Effects of Welfare Reform: State Social Spending Before and After Welfare Reform
[PDF]This study addresses how state spending on social services has changed since the advent of welfare reform, using detailed survey data from 16 states and the District of Columbia for state fiscal year 1995, and for fiscal years 1999 and 2000.
Donald J. Boyd, Patricia L. Billen, and Richard P. Nathan, May 2003
