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Family Economic Success Publications
A House of Cards: Refinancing the American Dream. Borrowing to Make Ends Meet
This is the third in a series of Borrowing to Make Ends Meet briefing papers. Since the refinancing boom began in 2001, American homeowners have cashed out over $330 billion in home equity to cover rising living expenses and credit card debt, putting at risk their most important asset - their home.
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A Jobs Initiative Research Brief: Approaches to Measuring and Tracking Career Advancement
This brief focuses on the data side of career advancements by identifying issues, challenges, and methods for setting advancement targets, and collecting and reporting data associated with those targets.
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A Local Ladder for the Working Poor
This is a study showing how the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) benefits low-income families and local economies. It examines benefits of the EITC in largest 100 U.S. metropolitan areas.
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A Work in Progress: Case Studies in Changing Local Workforce Development Systems - The Jobs Initiative Final Report Series, Volume 1
Using a case study format, this report examines the experience of several Jobs Initiative sites as they sought to foster change in the broader workforce development system in their regions
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A Work in Progress: Case Studies in Changing Local Workforce Development Systems - The Jobs Initiative Final Report Series--Volume 1
Volume 1 of the Jobs Initiative Final Reports examines the experience of trying to promote workforce development system improvement in four of the Jobs Initiative sites: Seattle, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Philadelphia.
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A Workforce Development Triad: Federal Education Tax Credits, Community-Based Organizations, and Community Colleges
This report examines how community-based organizations that serve low-income clients might leverage the education tax credits as a workforce development tool by better connecting them to postsecondary education and other career advancement training.
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Accessing Affordable and Appropriate Credit: A Background Paper Prepared for the Annie E. Casey Foundation
This report examines the key issues and trends for low-income consumers accessing credit, including 1) the U.S. credit system, 2) consumer motivations and methods for accessing credit, and 3) the link between individual and community wealth.
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AdvoCasey Preprint Article: Repealing the Hidden Tax
This article focuses on strategies and programs that help low-income working families avoid expensive tax preparers, maximize their refunds, and begin saving for the future
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AdvoCasey: Spring 2002, Volume 4, Number 1
This issue focuses on tax credits for America's fragile families. It highlights the growing value of earned income and child tax credits for low-income working families. Other stories profile the remarkable rise of Houston public schools; two Miami-based adolescent substance abuse treatment programs; and Chicago's Child-Parent Centers.
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AdvoCasey: Summer 2002, Volume 4, Number 2
This issue examines the future of welfare reform. Feature stories detail one program that helps newly employed welfare recipients move from dead end jobs to promising careers and another that offers long-term welfare recipients "swimming lessons" before making them sink or swim on their own.
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AdvoCasey: Winter 2005, Volume 7, Number 1
This issue spells out the high prices low-income Americans pay for credit, home-ownership, banking, shopping, and medical debts. One article specifically explores the implications of payday lending—high-cost cash advances that have proliferated widely in recent years.
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Assessing the New Federalism: Eight Years Later
This report synthesizes selected findings from more than 450 Assessing the New Federalism publications plus dozens of journal articles, book chapters, and research presentations. These findings illustrate dramatic changes in the experience of low-income families, those who have been on welfare and those who haven't, from the mid-1990s to the present.
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Average Isn't Enough: Advancing Working Families to Create an Outstanding Ohio Economy
This report describes Ohio’s low-income working families, what they need to become financially stable, and opportunities to strengthen or alter state programs and policies to better support these families. It also demonstrates how the state’s economy and businesses benefit when hardworking families are able to have an income adequate to meet their basic needs.
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Between Hope and Hard Times: New York’s Working Families In Economic Distress
This report addresses New York's high cost of living, lack of affordable housing, and large immigrant population as key factors that add to the challenge of how to assist low-income families. Research includes a list of more than 120 nationally-derived "indicators" measuring data and policy questions.
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Beyond the Bottom Line: Expanding Economic Opportunities for Washington's Working Families
This document explores the labor market along withthe economic and policy context in which Washington workers must operate. It reveals opportunities for low-wage families to achieve economic success. Analysis is based on population and program data, with an emphasis on Washington’s diversity in geography, ethnicity and economy.
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Borrowing to Make Ends Meet: The Growth of Credit Card Debt in the 90's
Using new data, this report explores how families are increasingly using credit cards to meet their basic needs. It also examines the factors driving this record-setting debt and the impact of deregulation on the cost, availability and marketing of credit cards.
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Breaking Through: Overcoming Barriers to Family-Sustaining Employment
This report examines barriers, interventions, and employment outcomes across Jobs Initiative sites based on an extensive participant database. Analysis focuses on the relationship between the many intervention strategies used by the Jobs Initiative sites and the outcomes achieved by participants.
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Building Family and Economic Success - Fact Sheet Series
This document includes a series of nine fact sheets focusing on strategies for families and economic success. Some of the topics covered include Centers for Working Families, The High Cost of Being Poor, Financial Planning and Education, and Worforce Development.
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Building Family Assets: A Guide to Key Ideas, Effective Approaches, and Technical Assistance Resources for Making Connections Cities and Site Teams
This resource guide describes ways of enabling low-income, working families to build up assets (such as home and business ownership), through savings and through supplements. It includes asset-building for those receiving very low wages often paid for entry-level jobs.
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Building Native Communities: A Tribal Leader's Guide to Launching an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Campaign
The purpose of this handbook is to provide guidance to Native American tribal leaders and community organizers who want to improve awareness about the Earned Income Tax Credit and expand affordable access to tax preparation services in Native communities.
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Building New Partnerships for Employment: Collaboration among Agencies and Public Housing Residents in the Jobs-Plus Demonstration
This report examines the Jobs-Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families (or Jobs-Plus). It shows how the seven cities in this national demonstration collaborated to design, fund, and operate a place-based employment initiative for residents of selected public housing developments and includes lessons with implications for a wide range of community-building and other initiatives.
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Building Strong Financial Futures for Families and Communities: A Framework for Family Economic Success
This framework document discusses what Casey means by Family Economic Success and describes a range of strategies for achieving and sustaining economic well-being. It provides background information on the need for the FES approach, and illustrates what family economic success can look like. It also describes desirable outcomes, and benchmarks that mark progress on the way to achieving those outcomes.
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Business Leaders and Communities Working Together for Change
This report presents an overview of what corporate leaders have been doing in, and with, high-poverty communities. It describes skills and leadership attributes they bring to the work; identifies their personal and organizational motivations; and portrays front-line perspectives on the communities and bureaucracies they are involved with.
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Card-Based Remittances: A Closer Look at Supply and Demand
This report examines the extent to which prepaid card-based remittances are emerging as another solution for international money transfers.
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Caregiver's Handbook for Money Pals: "Being Cool with Cash" and "I Know Where I'm Going (But Will My Cash Keep Up?)
This guidebook supplements the two-part guides, "Money Pals" and "I Know Where I'm Going," spelling out a curriculum schedule, activities, and prompts for conversations with foster children, ages 8 to 15, about financial skills.
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Carsey Institute Policy Brief #1 Fall 2005: Rural America Depends on Food Stamp Program to Make Ends Meet
This policy brief, funded by the Casey Foundation, provides a demographic picture of food stamp recipients in rural America. It provides detailed information on income, race, age, and family size. Also included is a comparison of food stamp recipients in urban areas.
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Casey Connects Newsletter, 11, Summer 2002
This issue focuses on making work count for low-income families, racial disparities in juvenile detention, and the role of cultural competency in connecting workers to jobs.
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Casey Connects Newsletter, Issue 3, Summer 2000
This issue focuses on the 2000 KIDS COUNT data book, the work of Casey Family Services, and challenges faced by immigrant families.
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Casey Connects Newsletter, Issue 9, Winter 2002
This issue focuses on the Foundation’s juvenile justice, family economic success, and immigration work.
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Census 2000: The Risk of Negative Child Outcomes in Low-Income Families
This report presents information for a broad range of income brackets in order to compare the relative risks for children living in different types of families.
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Centers for Working Families EarnBenefits Evaluation-Learning Paper
This learning paper focuses on the core service areas of Casey's Center for Working Families initiative. The authors of this paper discuss Seedco’s EarnFair Alliance implementation of EarnBenefits, a natural experiment used to test the hypothesis that integrating services is a better way to help low-income families achieve economic self-sufficiency.
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Changing Labor Markets: A Systems Approach to Reform
This report describes a systems reform response to the challenges of U.S. labor markets. It offers a dual-customer approach: the objective is to change the labor market system so that low-income people find and hold good-paying jobs and employers efficiently find qualified workers to fill vacant jobs.
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Changing Workforce, Changing Economy: State Unemployment Insurance Reforms for the 21st Century
According to this report, the unemployment insurance program has failed to keep pace with the new realities of our diverse and changing workforce. Those who care about working families need to promote a new agenda that includes access to affordable health care, child care and decent wages for those who are struggling against all odds to make ends meet.
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Children First for Oregon: Strategies for Fighting Child Poverty in Oregon
This policy brief provides statistics on the number of children in poverty in Oregon. It specifically highlights action items that Oregon state can do to improve the quality of life for its children.
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Children's 2008 Budget: Fact Sheet
In an effort to draw attention to trends in decreased federal funding for children, First Focus published Children’s Budget 2008. This fact sheet highlights trends and statistics as delineated in the publication.
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Children's Budget 2008
In an effort to draw attention to trends in decreased federal funding for children, First Focus published Children’s Budget 2008. This publication serves as a comprehensive guide to over 180 different federally-funded children’s programs as well as serves a helpful resource for all advocates, policymakers, and program administrators who support improving the well-being of America’s children.
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Closing the Gap: How Sectoral Workforce Development Programs Benefit the Working Poor
This publication examines data from a longitudinal survey of participants in six sectoral employment training programs, and documents what participants report one year after completing training, about their earnings, employment situation, and experiences with the programs.
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Community Investments for Family Economic Success
This guide offers strategies that can work to level the economic playing field for low-income families by helping communities plan, secure, and direct new investment. These ideas, approaches, and resources can help Making Connections site teams, neighborhood residents, and community leaders work with businesses and other partners to realize the often untapped market strength of low-income neighborhoods. This document is part of the TARC Resource Guide series.
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Commuting Cost Estimator
Among the costs low-income rural families juggle as they try to make ends meet are housing and transportation. This tool calculates the estimated costs of commuting based on commuting distance and car depreciation, maintenance and insurance costs. It illuminates the often hidden costs when long commutes to good jobs are exchanged for affordable housing.
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Connecting Families to Jobs
This resource guide provides key ideas, effective approaches and technical assistance for Making Connections cities and site teams. The guide containing information on strategies for connecting low-income residents to jobs. Part of the TARC Resource Guide series.
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Connecting Low-Income Families to Good Jobs: A Policy Road Map for Maryland
This report is designed to inform policymakers about the conditions of employment and financial stability facing low-income workers in Maryland, and to recommend changes in state policy that can improve those conditions.
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Continuing the Investment in a Competitive Workforce and a Brighter Economic Future for Arkansas
This report’s assessment of state policy reveals that Arkansas has many policies in place that support or help facilitate the achievement of economic self-sufficiency among working poor families. It also reveals that many more policies to improve state support to working poor families could be adopted.
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Contributions of the Earned Income Tax Credit to Community Development in Indian Country: 2005 Native Community VITA Site Project
This study examines the amount of money flowing to Native people and the potential uses of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). It also highlights the types of community infrastructure and programs that could help promote the usage of EITC within Native communities.
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Creating Change: Pushing Workforce Systems to Help Participants Achieve Economic Stability and Mobility
This report looks at some of the initial systems reform efforts by Jobs Initiative sites and what strategies seem to be working. It uses a case study approach to identify the most significant reform changes to date. For each case, the report describes the challenge facing the site, its strategy, and the impact of its work.
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Diversity Among State Welfare Programs: Implications for Reform
This brief depicts the diversity of state Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programs prior to passage of the new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) legislation, as a guide for assessing the potential implications of TANF for different states.
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Driver's License Suspension Policies
While access to an automobile can be difficult for the working poor because of cost or credit issues, license suspension is another barrier to reliable transportation. For workers without a license, jobs may be inaccessible because the license is a prerequisite, or because a car is the only means to access a job far from home.
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Earn It, Keep It, Save It -- Making a Difference: The National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign
The National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign puts the power of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to work for low-income families across the nation. This brochure reflects the impact of the National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign across 30 diverse communities.
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Earned Income Tax Credits Help
Too often children suffer because of financial issues facing low-income families. This guide helps low-income families learn more about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a federal tax relief credit that has helped lift over 5 million families out of poverty.
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Earned Income Tax Credits: Lessons Learned
Since 2003, the Casey Foundation has worked with funders, nonprofits and other organizations around the country on a national tax assistance campaign to encourage and assist qualified tax filers to claim the earned income tax credit (EITC). A new report documents key lessons learned by the local campaigns and provides valuable insights on the EITC and asset building, engaging policymakers, improving quality, and more
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Education Policy and The Jobs Initiative: Part Three
This paper is the third in a series of Jobs Initiative issue briefs. It looks at findings from the Jobs Initiative and the implications for public policy, including reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
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EITC in Indian Country: Beyond the Tipping Point for Family Economic Success
This is the story of what tipped toward progress in the nationwide movement to make the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) campaign an option for native families in America, what has happened since, and how partners can better heed the call to action.
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Employing Welfare Recipients with Significant Barriers to Work: Lessons from the Disability Field
The purpose of this report is to examine the disability community's efforts to help individuals with significant disabilities access and maintain employment . It also identifies how welfare agencies can build on lessons learned from the disability community.
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Employment Placement and Retention in the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative
The 2001 Annual Statistical Report of the Annie E. Casey's Jobs Initiative provides analysis of site-collected program data with a focus on issues pertaining to Jobs Initiative participants’ labor force retention patterns. This report focuses on employment barriers, training and placement services provided, and employee retention issues.
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Encouraging Work, Reducing Poverty: The Impact of Work Incentive Programs
This report offers a quick summary of the historical conditions and recent developments that have made incentives a central part of welfare policy. It also lists key policy questions driving the analysis, describes specific programs and research designs in detail, compares and contrasts the programs' effects, and concludes with lessons and implications for policymakers and program designers.
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Engaging Employers to Benefit Low-Income Job Seekers: Lessons Learned from the Jobs Initiative
Employers make choices that are key to the ability of low-income people to get and keep jobs and to advance in the workforce. Given the importance of the employer’s role regarding opportunities for low-wage, entry-level workers, there has been surprisingly little research into employers’ opinions and actions on this topic. This paper presents research on this topic using data collected from the Annie E. Casey’s Jobs Initiative.
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Evaluation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative- First Annual Report
This report examines the accomplishments and challenges of the planning phase across the six sites of the Jobs Initiative, designed to improve access of disadvantaged young adults to family supporting employment opportunities.
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Evaluation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation Jobs Initiative-First Annual Report: Executive Summary
This is the executive summary of the report that examines the accomplishments and challenges of the planning phase across the six sites of the Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative, designed to improve access of disadvantaged young adults to family supporting employment.
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Exposing Urban Legends: The Real Purchasing Power of Central City Neighborhoods
This study explains how researchers in Milwaukee created an alternative to private marketing data, using a variety of local and state data sources, and offers a template for using similar data to create urban economic profiles elsewhere.
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Extending Ladders: Findings from the Annie E. Casey's Jobs Initiative
This document offers an insightful look at some of the employment outcomes and lessons of The Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative, which sought to improve the way urban labor markets work for low-income, inner-city residents.
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Fact Sheet on Latino Youth: Income and Poverty
Poor children are at a greater risk than non-poor children for several negative outcomes. These children are more likely to perform poorly in school, become teen parents, and to become unemployed. This fact sheet highlights additional challenges to Latino children such as language and cultural barriers, and the stresses of aculturation for immigrant families.
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FES Local Action Handbook for Making Connections Teams
This handbook is designed to meet the needs of Making Connections’ site teams focused on improving results for families by strengthening the structures that lead to family economic success. It features ideas and examples of policy and regulatory actions that can be promoted by residents.
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Good Jobs and Careers: What Communities Need to do to Train and Move Low-Income, Low-Skilled People into Good Jobs and Careers
This brochure wheel illustrates the 10 steps communities need to consider in creating a successful workforce initiative.
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Helping Working Families: Action for Municipal Leaders
This kit, based on research and best practices from across the nation, was designed for municipal leaders to address each of the Institute for Youth, Education, and Families’ five core program areas: education, youth development, early childhood development, the safety of children and youth, and family economic security.
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Honoring Work in Wisconsin: State Policies To Promote Self-Sufficiency for Working Families
This report uses five state-level reports to bring working poor families into the spotlight of state and national policymakers. Starting with basic outcome data on families in economic distress, the Wisconsin report goes on to identify benchmark data in key areas, and policy levers that can help improve outcomes for working families in the state.
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Housing as a Productive Family Asset
This study investigates how particular types of low and moderate-income families seek to use their homes and land as productive, economic assets. Doing so helps them to generate income and lower their costs of living.
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How are Families that Left Welfare Doing? A Comparison of Early and Recent Welfare Leavers
This brief examines whether a more recent group of leavers—those who left welfare between 1997 and 1999—appears more disadvantaged or less job-ready than an early group of leavers—those who left between 1995 and 1997—by comparing barriers to work and economic outcomes between the two groups.
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How Can We Encourage Job Retention and Advancement for Welfare Recipients?
Part of the New Federalism program by Annie E. Casey and the Urban Institute, this brief presents evidence on job performance and retention among welfare recipients in an effort to assess changing social policies.
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I Know Where I'm Going (But Will My Cash Keep Up?): Part One
Part one of this two-part guide is a workbook designed to stimulate conversations with foster children, ages 12 to 15, about money values, attitudes toward money, setting goals, planning spending, and using a bank. There is a focus on using mathematics to solve practical word problems related to budgeting. Part I of the Foster Youth Money Guide Series.
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I Know Where I'm Going (But Will My Cash Keep Up?): Part Two
This workbook is designed to stimulate conversations with foster children, ages 12 to 15, about investing money, being a savvy shopper, and using a credit card. It deals with personal responsibility, planning a career, sharing with others--both financially and in other ways, and setting long-term aspirations.
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Implementing Financial Work Incentives in Public Housing: Lessons from the Jobs-Plus Demonstration
The Jobs Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families incorporates the first large scale test of new rent rules that help to make low-wage work pay. Drawing on the experiences of housing authorities in six cities, this report presents lessons on the implementation and use of these innovative work incentives as part of a comprehensive package of employment-related assistance.
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Increasing the Availability of Affordable Homes: A Handbook for State and Local Leaders, Fact Sheet
This fact sheet highlights the main points of the full handbook "Increasing the Availability of Affordable Homes: A Handbook for State and Local Leaders."
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Increasing the Availability of Affordable Homes: A Handbook of High-Impact State and Local Solutions
This publication identifies six broad strategies for increasing the availability of affordable homes and details 22 high-impact policies within those strategic categories. Also included are examples of the successful implementation of each policy solution, including photos that demonstrate that affordable homes can be well-built, well-maintained assets to a community.
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Increasing the Availability of Affordable Homes: An Analysis of High-Impact State and Local Solutions
The intent of this analysis is to identify promising strategies that states and localities can adopt to expand the availability of homes affordable to teachers, firefighters, nurses and other families who live or work in their communities.
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Increasing The Return: Investing in Mississippi's Working Families
Pennsylvania is well positioned to create a new era of growth that delivers opportunity and security for all. This report examines policy recommendations essential to boost economic security from Erie to Philadelphia, Greene County to Monroe County.
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Investing in Massachusetts Working Families: A Framework for Economic Prosperity
This report describes the state of low-wage working families in Massachusetts, the reasons why they remain poor, and the policies and programs that are in place to help working families advance to self-sufficiency. The focus is on the scale and effectiveness of essential public services meeting the needs of these families.
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Job Prospects for Welfare Recipients: Employers Speak Out
This report includes a nationwide survey to determine employers' attitudes and perspectives on hiring welfare recipients. It examines their expectations and requirements, the types of jobs available, and the pay and benefits offered.
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Joblessness and Unemployment: A Review of the Literature
This literature review gathers evidence on the relationship between African-American male economic potential in the formal sector of the economy, and transitions in African American family structure and marital stability. It provides insight into the crime, unemployment, family structure, and racial debates.
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Jobs Initiative Research Conference: Recent Research and Results, Conference Highlights
This document provides highlights from the February 27-28, 2003 “Jobs Initiative Research Conference – Recent Research and Results.” It contains key findings from panel sessions on achieving economic self-sufficiency; the role of race, ethnicity, and cultural competence; employers’ roles in workforce development; local workforce politics; and approaches to continuing research and policy development.
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Keeping America in Business: Advancing Workers, Business, and Economic Growth
This document details findings and recommendations from a 2003 meeting that examined policies, approaches and actions that need to be taken to assure that workers have access to economic opportunity and to assure that employers have access to the skilled workforce required for them to be globally competitive. Co-sponsored by the Casey Foundation, the meeting included 75 people representing business, labor, academia, government, workforce intermediaries, academia, nonprofit organizations, and the media.
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Low-Cost Payday Loans: Opportunities and Obstacles
This report examines how banks and credit unions can better serve their low- and middle-income customers by providing low-cost alternatives to payday loans. The report cites several examples of profitable models and recommends that banks and credit unions offering payday loan alternatives combine those products with mandatory savings features.
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Making It Work: Policies to Promote Self-Sufficiency for Kentucky's Working Families
This report addresses the situation for low-wage workers in Kentucky and state efforts to help working families become and remain economically self-sufficient. Its goal is to provide an agenda for positive action addressing critical areas of need and assuring a better future for families, businesses and the state as a whole.
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Making the Pieces Fit: A Plan for Ensuring a Prosperous Illinois
This document is based on a study of over 100 indicators from the Working Poor Families project's assessment tool evaluating states’ efforts in addressing the needs of working families and the economy. The report assesses how Illinois’ workforce and economic development policies serve the needs of its families and the state as a whole.
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Meeting the Housing Needs of Families: A Resource Guide
This guide addresses the serious housing problems faced by millions of low-income families across the country and within the 22 Making Connections sites. Part of the TARC Resource Guide series.
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Money Pals: Being Cool with Cash, Part One
This workbook is designed to teach foster children, ages 8 to 11, practical skills about using money, like counting money, distinguishing between a need and a want, and earning extra money. It also teaches saving skills, like saving for later or saving for something special, using a bank, and understanding credit cards.
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Moving Up Is a Steep Climb
This ethnographic study follows the lives and fortunes of 10 families who participated in the Casey Foundation’s Jobs Initiative programs in Milwaukee and Seattle.
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National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign
This report analyzes data collected from those participating in the National Tax Assistance for Working Families Campaign (NTA) in the 2004 tax filing season. It provides both a summary overview of the 2004 NTA activity and detailed analysis of particular data elements.
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New Hope for Low-Income Workers: Improving Economic and Child Outcomes in Milwaukee
This article was published as part of the serial ADVOCASEY, Vol.1, No. 2. in 1999. It presents an evaluation of the New Hope project in Milwaukee and its impact on children.
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No Time to Be Sick: Why Everyone Suffers When Workers Don't have Paid Sick Leave
Expansion of paid sick leave and integration of family caregiving activities into authorized uses of paid sick leave are crucial work and health supports for workers, their families, employers, and our communities at large. This document examines the real costs and benefits of paid sick leave for these workers.
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North Carolina's Unfinished Transformation: Connecting Working Families to the State's New Found Prosperity
This report examines the challenges faced by North Carolina’s low-income working families, those playing a vital role in creating, sustaining and expanding the state’s prosperity. It addresses how state programs and policies are insufficient to help many low-income working families acquire the skills and education needed to thrive in the modern economy.
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On the Road: Car Ownership as an Asset-Building Strategy for Reducing Transportation-Related Barriers to Work
This is a report on car ownership as a strategy for helping people move into the labor market and helping low-wage workers gain access to better paying opportunities. It gives profiles and experiences of seven car-ownership programs, along with a bibliography of additional publications on transportation and poverty.
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Opportunity Lost: When Hard Work Isn't Enough for Colorado's Families
This report is about families who, despite working hard (sometimes at multiple jobs), do not earn enough without accepting public support or private charity. It discusses those working families who often do not have enough money each month to cover food, rent, utilities, health insurance or other necessities.
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Over Half of Low-Income Children Live With a Parent Who Works Regularly
This Data Snapshot provides information on low-income working families, background on the barriers parents face to provide for their families, state-by-state rankings, and resources for helping working families suceed.
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Private Employers and Public Benefits
This report examines the Workforce Innovations Networks (WINS), which investigated the value of providing public benefits to low-income workers through their employers, and conducted research on employers' experiences with public benefit programs, including those aimed directly at increasing the hiring and retention of workers from low-income families.
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Promoting Participation: How to Increase Involvement in Welfare-to-Work Activities
This guide shares lessons from the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation's welfare evaluations and field experience about welfare to work participation patterns, where participation is likely to fall off, and how to increase it. Practical advice to policy makers and welfare-to-work program administrators is also offered.
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Providing the Missing Link: A Model for a Neighborhood-Focused Employment Program
This report provides a model for implementing a neighborhood-focused workforce development strategy. With dual goals of increasing residents' employment and income, as well as increasing the quantity and quality of career opportunities, the strategy outlined in this document helps bridge the gap between low-income neighborhoods and regional workforce development programs.
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Race Matters: Unequal Opportunities for FAMILY AND COMMUNITY ECONOMIC SUCCESS
This fact sheet offers a quick source for analysis and strategies related to issues of inequity surrounding family economic success. It is part of a series of documents in the "Race Matters Toolkit" designed to help decision-makers, advocates, and elected officials get better results in their work by providing equitable opportunities for all.
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Race Matters: Unequal Opportunities for INCOME SECURITY
This fact sheet offers a quick source for analysis and strategies related to issues of inequity surrounding income security. It is part of a series of documents in the "Race Matters Toolkit" designed to help decision-makers, advocates, and elected officials get better results in their work by providing equitable opportunities for all.
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Race Matters: Unequal Opportunities for RURAL FAMILY ECONOMIC SUCCESS
This fact sheet offers a quick source for analysis and strategies related to issues of inequity surrounding rural economic success. It is part of a series of documents in the "Race Matters Toolkit" designed to help decision-makers, advocates, and elected officials get better results in their work by providing equitable opportunities for all.
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Relative Strength: A Report on the Family's Place in Workforce Development Initiatives
This paper is a report on family centered employment strategies. It begins with a look at the economics of families in poverty and a brief outline of the many ways in which employment and training programs have begun to work with families. The report then examines the work of four employment programs now offering services to families.
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Results from the Jobs Initiative: Evaluation of the Capacity Building Phase
This is an evaluation of the initiative's capacity-building phase. The evaluation looks at how well Jobs Initiative sites have addressed the needs of very hard-to-serve populations and engaged employers. It identifies the characteristics of those served, placement and retention rates, gains in wages and benefits, and some of the critical factors in achieving these accomplishments.
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Rethinking Income Support for the Working Poor: Perspectives on Unemployment, Insurance, Work, and Welfare
This book addresses new ways for states to provide former welfare recipients with economic security. The book includes ten chapters that discuss methods of promoting long-term employment by improving state welfare, unemployment insurance, and workforce policies.
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Shifting into Gear: A Comprehensive Guide to Creating an Ownership Program
This publication offers detailed steps and strategies for organizations interested in launching car ownership programs to help low-income residents overcome the obstacles to getting and keeping vehicles. It outlines various public and private models, and gives tips to help existing programs refine their approach.
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Southern Bancorp and Southern Good Faith Fund: Tailoring Financial Services to Help Families Get Ahead
This document details findings that show that to move ahead financially low-income families need additional supports such as banking services to accumulate assets. This document also recounts the rigor in drawing low-income families into ongoing banking relationships.
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SOWING PROSPERITY: Low-Income Working Families and Connecticut's Economic Future
This document presents information about low-income workers, highlights the successful policies that are already in place to help them, and describes how Connecticut can complete the work that needs to be done to improve present conditions.
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Strengthening Florida's Workforce - Stengthening the Economy
This study uses a framework intended as a tool for assessing state efforts to assist working poor families. It was developed as a component of the New Cornerstone Chapter on Diversity-Economic Opportunities for Floridians.
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Strengthening Rural Families: Avoiding the Money Trap
The Casey Foundation's 25-minute video on DVD highlights financial problems that often ensnare rural working families, including payday loans, high interest car loans, high debt, poor credit, and more. The documentary is designed to raise awareness among policymakers, service providers and advocates, as well as to be a resource for financial education. The DVD contains the full documentary in English and Spanish, a shorter version in English, and materials including a discussion guide, background papers, resources and an order form. A printed discussion guide, for various audiences, is enclosed with each DVD.
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Strengthening Rural Families: Expanding College and Job-Skills Opportunities in Western Maine
In Franklin County, Maine, a group of local leaders has brought community college classes and jobs skills training to their area, giving residents new opportunities to qualify for good jobs and higher expectations for their futures. It is also providing employers—and prospective employers—with a new supply of well-educated workers.
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Strengthening Workforce Policy: Applying the Lessons of the Jobs Initiative to Five Key Challenges
This report identifies five central problems that confront policymakers who are interested in improving workforce development programs. Based on lessons learned from the Jobs Initiative, an eight-year Casey Foundation workforce initiative launched in 1995, the report outlines specific policy actions to address these challenges. The report focuses on policy at the local, state, and federal levels.
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Stronger Links: New Ways to Connect Low-Skilled Workers to Better Jobs
This document highlights innovative programs that have emerged from a carefully planned, strategically funded, and thoughtfully implemented process to reform the labor market for low-income young adults in six cities. The stories and lessons presented are from the Jobs Initiative.
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Systems Reform in the Jobs Initiative: Lessons from Using the Framework for Labor Market Systems Reform
In the sixth of a series of policy briefs related to retention and advancement for low-income residents, Pete Plastrik and Judy Taylor look at the systems-change framework being used by the Jobs Initiative and how it is working for the Jobs Initiative sites.
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Taking the Initiative on Jobs and Race
This is a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation on the complex issue of race and regional labor markets, particularly for low-skilled workers. It includes lessons learned around issues of cultural competence and identifies helpful tools to improve the practice of workforce development for jobs seekers, workers, and employers alike.
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Texas at Work: Today and Tomorrow-The Case for Sound Workforce Investment Policies
This report examines the potential of Texas’ workforce. Of particular interest are the living conditions and public policies affecting hard working, but low-income, workers. It also considers state economic and workforce policies that have a disproportionate impact—positive or negative—on these workers.
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The Annie E. Casey Foundation: An Overview of Family Economic Success
This three-pager outlines Casey approaches to Family Economic Success. It defines factors contributing to the economic isolation of low-income families and neighborhoods, and examples of the resulting vulnerabilities. It also covers parameters for measuring long-term success and initial work at Making Connections sites.
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The Center for Working Families: A How To Guide
This guide explains the Center for Working Families’ framework and how this model can be applied to low-income families across the United States. The framework is a neighborhood service delivery model to help low-income families increase their earnings and income, reduce their financial transaction costs, and create new wealth for themselves.
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The Center for Working Families: Helping Families Achieve Economic Success
This brief provides an overview of the Center for Working Families’ framework and goals. The Center for Working Families® (CWF) is an approach to help low-income families reach financial stability and move up the economic ladder. Pioneered by the Casey Foundation and now supported by other major funders, the CWF offers an innovative framework for how families can increase their earnings and income (“Earn It”), reduce their financial transaction costs (“Keep It”), and build wealth for themselves and their communities (“Grow It”).
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The High Cost of Being Poor: TANF, Issue Brief #4
This brief, part of a larger series, examines the impact that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has on the lives of vulnerable Virginians. It discusses how TANF benefits, in combination with other social services, should be available to all children in order to lift them out of poverty.
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The High Cost of Being Poor: Tax Reform-Adequacy and Fairness, Issue Brief #3
This brief, part of a larger series, examines the impact that antiquated tax reform has on the lives of vulnerable Virginians. It discusses how a disproportionate burden of taxation is placed on low-income families, yet revenues from these taxes are not invested in essential public services.