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Latest Urban Institute Reports

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Next Steps for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (Series/Perspectives on Low-Income Working Families)
Sheila R. Zedlewski, Olivia Golden

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the nation's primary safety net program for families with children, is due for reauthorization this year. The Urban Institute held a roundtable of experts from federal and state governments, academia, and policy organizations to discuss the program's current status and effectiveness. Experts agreed that TANF's goals need to be better articulated and that many key features of the program ,including funding, work requirements, and its place within the broader safety net, should be reexamined. Any assessment should consider especially how well TANF responds to family needs during a serious recession.

Posted to Web: March 11, 2010Publication Date: February 15, 2010

The Next Challenge for Public Housing: Serving Its Most Vulnerable Families (Audio Podcasts / Thursday's Child)
The Urban Institute

As the federal government, localities, and housing authorities seek to revitalize scarred inner-city neighborhoods, a unique set of responses is needed to aid public housing's most vulnerable families. The Chicago Family Case Management Demonstration may have some innovative answers.

Posted to Web: March 11, 2010Publication Date: March 11, 2010

The Cost of Uncompensated Care with and without Health Reform (Policy Briefs/Timely Analysis of Health Policy Issues)
John Holahan, Bowen Garrett

In this report the authors estimate that under the health reform bill passed by the Senate, the cost of uncompensated care will fall from $62.1 billion in 2009 to $46.6 billion in 2019. If no health reform is enacted, they project that uncompensated care would rise to between $107 and $141 billion in 2019. Over the six-year period of proposed health reform legislation, 2014–2019, the costs of uncompensated care without health reform would be between $560 and $700 billion. With reform, the cost would be $330 billion under the Senate bill and provide substantive savings to each level of government.

Posted to Web: March 10, 2010Publication Date: March 09, 2010

Preliminary Revenue Estimate and Distributional Analysis of the Tax Provisions in A Roadmap for America's Future Act 2010 (Research Report)
Joseph Rosenberg

The Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2010 is a detailed reform package that overhauls Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the U.S. federal tax system. In a January 27, 2010, report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed the spending provisions of the plan. This paper presents the Tax Policy Center's estimates of the revenue and distributional impact of the Roadmap's tax provisions.

Posted to Web: March 09, 2010Publication Date: March 09, 2010

Social Scientists Decipher the Values Underlying the U.S. Social Safety Net (Press Release)
The Urban Institute

Strongly held but conflicting values have shaped the U.S. social safety net and the policy debates since its expansion in the 1960s. A new Urban Institute Press book disentangles these beliefs and shows how they have led to the patchwork of mostly uncoordinated programs the safety net is today.

Posted to Web: March 09, 2010Publication Date: March 09, 2010

A New April 15: Make It a Day of Giving (Efficiently) (Commentary)
C. Eugene Steuerle

President Barack Obama on January 22 signed into law a provision allowing charitable gifts made for Haiti relief during February and most of January 2010 to be deducted on 2009 federal tax returns. This noble sentiment would work a lot better if deductions were allowed for all giving made to qualified charities by April 15.

Posted to Web: March 05, 2010Publication Date: March 04, 2010

How Do Drug Courts Work? (Presentation)
John Roman, Jennifer Yahner, Janine M. Zweig, Ritadhi Chakravarti

The Multi-Site Evaluation of Adult Drug Courts will report on a mediation analysis to empirically test theoretical pathways to desistance. The analysis considers the theoretical mechanisms through which drug court practices are meant to impact outcomes and how such pathways can be operationalized. A path model is proposed that delineates how drug-court practices affect modifications in behaviors and attitudes, and how these changes affect outcomes. Proposed mediators include changes in: perceived risk and reward (deterrence), perceived legitimacy, and motivation to alter one's behavior. The analysis will suggest the pathways that are most crucial to desistance and the most effective drug-court components that impact these pathways.

Posted to Web: March 05, 2010Publication Date: November 05, 2009

Do Drug Courts Reduce Crime and Produce Psychosocial Benefits? Methodology and Results From the MADCE (Presentation)
Mike Rempel, Mia Green

The Multi-Site Adult Drug Court Evaluation compares outcomes between offenders in 23 drug court and six comparison sites. Such a research design poses several potential threats to validity, including selection bias (do drug court and comparison offenders vary in background), attrition bias (do offenders retained for follow-up interviews vary from the original baseline samples), and site-level bias (are the drug court and comparison sites comparable in ways other than drug court status). In addition to outlining the analytic strategy, simple outcomes are reported comparing drug court and comparison sites with respect to criminal re-offending, incarceration, and other psychosocial outcomes.

Posted to Web: March 05, 2010Publication Date: November 05, 2009

Substance Abuse Findings from the Multi-Site Adult Drug Court Evaluation (MADCE) (Presentation)
Shelli B. Rossman, Mia Green, Mike Rempel

Several studies have found that drug courts reduce recidivism rates, but few studies have focused on the effect of drug courts on substance abuse. Substance abuse treatment approaches used in drug courts are identified based on data from participant surveys and process evaluation of the 23 participating drug courts. Baseline data for 1100 drug court participants and 600 comparison offenders is reported as descriptive analyses. However, the focus is on reporting substance abuse impacts, including 1) the trajectory of recovery and whether drug courts work in terms of reducing drug use, and 2) for whom drug courts are most effective.

Posted to Web: March 05, 2010Publication Date: November 05, 2009

Held Harmless by Higher Income Tax Rates? (Article/Tax Facts)
Rachel M. Johnson, Eric Toder

In 2010, 45 percent of tax returns will either remit no federal income tax or receive a net tax refund. But this figure overstates the share of taxpayers who would be unaffected by higher income tax rates. Raising all rates by 1 percent would hold only 34 percent of tax returns harmless; others would either pay higher taxes or receive smaller net rebates.

Posted to Web: March 04, 2010Publication Date: March 01, 2010

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