An Opportunity Roadmap For Poverty Relief | The Georgia Virtue

An Opportunity Roadmap For Poverty Relief | The Georgia Virtue

In The News

An Opportunity Roadmap For Poverty Relief | The Georgia Virtue

The South is the fastest growing region in the country. The pull of our warm winters, friendly people, and low cost of living has drawn millions over the last few years. However, an old foe that we have attempted to fight for decades continues to afflict our people.

Rampant, inescapable poverty has been a staple of urban and rural areas in the South for generations. Government has long purported to be the solution to this problem, but after years of government programs and promises of a better tomorrow, our fellow man continues to be stuck in the cyclical nature of poverty. The status quo and government solutions have failed…

It’s time to change focus and realize that while our safety net programs are well intentioned, they often act as snare nets trapping people in poverty with no means to escape. Safety net programs should catch people when they fall and put them back on their feet. The Pelican Institute for Public Policy has joined together with the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) and Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) to forge a new path forward to bring poverty relief to our friends and neighbors, beginning now.

BETTER WORK has changed Latesha’s and Shay’s lives forever

BETTER WORK has changed Latesha’s and Shay’s lives forever

BETTER WORK has changed Latesha’s and Shay’s lives forever

A newly released video shares the impact of BETTER WORK with the world

For single mothers, Shay and Latesha, the effects of being trapped in the system meant that not only were they impacted but their kids were as well. Like most mothers, all they wanted for their kids was an opportunity to thrive and have a better life. But unlike many parents, the instability of work presented a sense of hopelessness that both Shay and Latesha struggled to overcome.

In 2020, the Atlas Network, an international organization that partners with over 500 think tanks around the world to remove barriers to opportunities; and empower individuals to live a life of choice came to Georgia to create a documentary on the Georgia Center for Opportunity. What they found was a program that was bringing dignity through work to a struggling community in Columbus, GA.

The moving story of Shay and Latesha overcoming adversity as they joined the Georgia Center for Opportunity’s groundbreaking BETTER WORK program (then titled Hiring Well, Doing Good) is a powerful one. It is one that both highlights the struggles many low-income mothers face, while showing an example of the dignity that can come out of programs that empower individuals.

 

“Dignity comes from us giving what we’ve been gifted with back to the world and figuring out our place in it,”

– Joyce Mayberry

BETTER WORK means a better opportunity

The BETTER WORK program started as a pilot program to help address the entire need of unemployed or underemployed individuals. Many people struggling and living on government assistance need a community to come around them to address immediate needs as well as vocational needs. BETTER WORK is designed to do just that. It is a program that brings together local resources through non-profits and businesses. Through mentorship and community, BETTER WORK is helping get individuals in sustainable and rewarding work.

Shay and Latesha’s story is just one example of how something as simple as work, can lead to a thriving and hopeful future for an entire family. It is why work is more than just a job to those in need. It provides hope, dignity and a sense of purpose.

The Georgia Center for Opportunity is proud to have been able to share this story and thankful to the Atlas Network for making sure the world sees it.

 

An Opportunity Roadmap For Poverty Relief | The Georgia Virtue

Media blasted for ignoring study on harmful government lockdowns | Carolina Journal

In The News

Media blasted for ignoring study on harmful government lockdowns | Carolina Journal

A new meta-analysis from Johns Hopkins University shows that government-mandated lockdowns in America and Europe during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic only reduced the death rate by 0.2%, on average. Researchers concluded that lockdowns “have had little to no public health effects” while imposing “enormous economic and social costs” and should be “rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

Meanwhile, another faculty member at Johns Hopkins is blasting his own university and the media broadly for ignoring or downplaying the study…

The working paper comes on the heels of other research questioning the effectiveness of lockdowns in saving lives compared to the social and economic toll. A working paper from the Georgia Center for Opportunity found no correlations between the severity of government-imposed shutdowns and reported rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations or deaths. But states that imposed more stringent lockdowns — such as New York and California — continue to experience negative economic effects compared to less severe states, such as Utah.

Basic Income is the Wrong Solution for Atlanta’s Poor

Basic Income is the Wrong Solution for Atlanta’s Poor

Basic Income is the Wrong Solution for Atlanta’s Poor

Hope and help is the only true solution.

Originally posted on RealClearPolitics.

Three hundred Atlanta residents are poised to receive $500 per month for a year, no strings attached. It’s part of a nationwide “basic guaranteed income” experiment largely bankrolled by Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.

To qualify for the pilot program, residents must be 18 years or older and have a maximum income of 200% of the federal poverty threshold ($53,000 for a family of four). The ultimate goal is to gauge how the guaranteed payments impact residents’ economic, mental, and physical health.

 

The Alliance for Opportunity is focused on a mission to reduce those in poverty by 1 million over the next 10 years.

A noble mission with failed outcomes

The mission of this pilot is laudable in attempting to help lower-income Atlanta residents during particularly trying times. But there are reasons to proceed with caution. A significant reason is how these payments could provide a perverse incentive that would discourage people from finding work or moving up the economic ladder. 

Ultimately, we believe there is a better way forward that supports dignity and opportunity for those in need. The mission should be to empower lower-income earners to attain a better life.

For Atlanta to make a real difference in seeking innovative solutions to providing poverty relief, the city must focus on giving those in need opportunity, not simply pity. Most people living in poverty want to provide for their families, get ahead, and live dignified, self-sufficient lives.

In 2020, the poverty rate in Georgia was 21.3%. Major welfare programs in the Peach State in September 2021 had around 3.9 million residents enrolled.  

A key is to improve opportunities to work while giving greater flexibility to our neighbors. This can be done in changing how they may use their temporary government assistance payments to meet their current needs while setting them up for self-sufficiency later. 

 

Exploring Empowerment Accounts

One innovative idea that would do just that are Empowerment Accounts.

These accounts would provide safety net funding to certain eligible recipients on a debit card. To qualify, people would need to be working, training, or being educated while meeting with a community case manager. The program also includes a financial literacy and savings component that paves the way for recipients to pay for long-term needs. 

Atlanta leaders could test these Empowerment Accounts in a pilot project, funded at first by philanthropists.

Why are Empowerment Accounts a better solution than basic guaranteed income?

Their primary benefit is that they treat each recipient as an individual with a long-term upward trajectory. We must help the impoverished through immediate aid, but the best long-term solution to poverty is through creating incentives and opportunities for work. This combination of work and community support will help build the hope and social capital too often lost with the current safety net system.

If implemented on a state or even national scale, Empowerment Accounts would also provide a crucial reform to our flawed safety-net system. 

They would condense and replace the overstretched, wasteful programs into one consolidated, more effective program. By reducing bureaucratic bloat and streamlining payments, more resources would go to needy families while fostering eventual financial independence.

Another benefit of Empowerment Accounts over the current safety-net system is that they would eliminate burdensome benefit cliffs when current programs end. Safety net recipients are often discouraged from earning an additional dollar because the cliffs often trap them in a system they yearn to escape. As a solution, Empowerment Accounts funding would taper over a specified period and any savings would stay with the recipient, helping with the problem of a benefit cliff.

The goal of Atlanta’s basic income experiment is commendable, but as with so much in the charitable and welfare sectors, it is misguided. It oversimplifies the struggles of low-income Georgians and falls well short of providing a comprehensive way forward — which should be centered around providing a path to self-sufficiency.

This was originally posted on RealClearPolitics.

 

GCO launches anti-poverty policy site as part of Alliance for Opportunity project

GCO launches anti-poverty policy site as part of Alliance for Opportunity project

GCO launches anti-poverty policy site as part of Alliance for Opportunity project

Alliance for Opportunity announces new policy roadmap to reduce poverty

The Georgia Center for Opportunity launched a resource that provides key policy recommendations for reducing the number of people in poverty as part of their newly formed Alliance for Opportunity project. The recommendations are based on creating generational transformation in Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, but the policy implications can be applied nationally as well. On the website, policymakers will see an explanation of how the safety net is failing, the path forward, and practical policy options that state leaders can act on now to advance a comprehensive and transformative safety-net reform.

The Alliance for Opportunity is a collaborative initiative between the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), the Pelican Institute for Public Policy (Pelican Institute) in Louisiana, and the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO). It is designed to promote solutions and build the political will to present and advance a comprehensive and compelling plan for reform to alleviate poverty by allowing people to find work and opportunities that will lead to a flourishing life.

 

The Alliance for Opportunity is focused on a mission to reduce those in poverty by 1 million over the next 10 years.

According to 2020 federal Supplemental Poverty Measure numbers, Georgia had 1,383,000, Louisiana had 869,000, and Texas had 3,601,000 residents in poverty.

The goal of the Alliance for Opportunity is that over the next 10 years, we reduce the number of people in poverty (defined above) by 20% in each state. That means 1 million people out of poverty: 276,600 people in Georgia, 173,800 people in Louisiana, and 720,200 people in Texas.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled with this new online portal that will be the go-to place for policymakers to find solutions to the most pressing poverty issues in our culture today,” said Randy Hicks, president and CEO of the Georgia Center for Opportunity. “Simply put, the U.S. safety net needs a paradigm shift. Our low-income neighbors deserve to move out of dependency, find lasting self-sufficiency, and flourish. The status quo is unacceptable.”

You can read the full press release from the Alliance HERE.

 

Could inflation be a persistent problem for the foreseeable future?

Could inflation be a persistent problem for the foreseeable future?

Could inflation be a persistent problem for the foreseeable future?

couple - inflation empty wallet

The CPI is up over 7% over last 12 months

Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that in December the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis. The CPI is up 7% over the last 12 months, not seasonally adjusted. That is the largest 12-month increase since 1982.

inflation graphic

Georgia Center for Opportunity’s take:

 “Pundits are breathing a sigh of relief after the latest CPI numbers landed because they weren’t worse than expected, but optimism may be misplaced,” said Erik Randolph, GCO’s director of research. “The problem is that we’ve established a new floor for prices that likely won’t go down in the coming years. Those impacts are most acutely felt in the areas that hit the pocketbooks of the lower income the hardest, such as food, rent, and energy. Now, it’s more important than ever to avoid pumping more stimulus into the economy that will only worsen the problem. Doing so could make inflation a year-in, year-out persistent problem for the foreseeable future.”