Spotlight

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released new data showing that a majority of states have yet to tap into the Emergency Fund set up through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Emergency Fund is intended provide additional support to states so that they can meet the costs of increasing TANF rolls as well as use TANF to help provide services to others who are struggling to make ends meet. The Emergency Fund provides states with $5 billion in federal TANF block grant funding during FY 2009 and FY 2010, but so far less than $1 billion has been awarded to 21 states.

The TANF Emergency Fund (TEF) is potentially an important resource for states, which get four federal dollars from the fund for each dollar they put up. To get those funds, however, states need to have increased the amount they are spending through TANF for basic assistance (cash aid), subsidized employment, and short-term emergencies, such as non-recurrent, short-term benefits. In the current economic climate, however, many states are hard pressed to find that dollar.

Spotlight On Poverty And Opportunity presents a webcast on the White House Middle Class Task Force Working Families. The featured guest is Jared Bernstein who heads the task force and is the Chief Economist and Economic Advisor to the Vice President. He is interviewed by “Spotlight’s” Mary Jo Walsh, former anchor at the ABC affiliate in Washington, DC.

Originally posted at Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity.

An impressive gathering of political leaders, advocates and policy wonks were in attendance on Monday in San Francisco for a major forum examining the social and economic factors that influence health and the role those issues should play in the upcoming health care reform debate. The event was jointly sponsored by the California Endowment, the Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, and Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity.

When we launched Spotlight with a bi-partisan Council of Advisors, we hoped to communicate that it was possible to achieve a big tent, common ground approach to reducing poverty and building opportunity for all. Two of Spotlight’s expert advisors, Mark Greenberg and Ron Haskins, underscore this common ground in a piece in The New York Times, “Welfare Aid is Not Growing as Economy Drops Off.” In interviews with Times reporter Jason DeParle, both Greenberg and Haskins, who represent different political ideologies, decry the failure of the welfare program to help families in need during the recession.

OOTS sources tipped us off that President-elect Obama himself (not just his staff) has gone on record during the campaign stating his support for overhauling the federal poverty measure.

The Washington Times really missed the mark with this headline: Poverty Off Political Radar.

Joe Biden just announced that Jared Bernstein, of the Economic Policy Institute, will be Biden’s chief economist and economic policy advisor.

Melody Barnes’ tune is right out of the Poverty Reduction Songbook…. Any doubt that cynics might have had about the depth and sincerity of Barack Obama’s commitment to cut poverty was eliminated last night at the annual meeting of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, at which Melody Barnes, Obama’s choice for Director of the Domestic Policy Council, delivered a pitch perfect keynote address highlighting the new Administration’s commitment to cut poverty in half in the next ten years. This was no fluffy “Let-me-tell-you-why-I-love-Barack” piece. It was meaty, substantive and detailed – just what OOTS likes in a DPC director.