Sarah Burd-Sharps

What Does the Opportunity Index Tell Us?

2012-10-09T09:47:26-04:00

In the United States, we tend to see opportunity through an economic lens and to assess how people and communities are doing using money as a yardstick. We calculate the poverty rate and track wages; we watch the stock market; we gauge the nation's health quarterly using Gross Domestic Product. When it comes to opportunity--particularly opportunities open to young people to further their education and gain a foothold in the labor market--these money metrics matter, but they don't tell the whole story.

The Opportunity Index, which we at Measure of America created in partnership with Opportunity Nation, uses more than a dozen data points to rank every state and assign almost every county in America an opportunity grade ranging from "A" for excellent to "F" for failing. These data points, which include but go beyond economic indicators, are grouped into three vital dimensions of opportunity: jobs and the economy; education; and community health and civic life.

Opportunity rankings are closely tied to the percentage of young people aged 16 to 24 who are "disconnected," neither in school nor working. Places that shine on the Opportunity Index are much more likely to be states or counties that provide more opportunities for young people to lay the foundation for a rewarding life; in low-scoring states and counties, more young people are adrift and isolated from the anchor institutions of school and work.

The top five states in the 2012 Opportunity Index are (from 1 to 5 respectively): Vermont, North Dakota, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nebraska. The bottom five states are (from 47 to 51 respectively): Alabama, Arizona, New Mexico, Mississippi, Nevada. (A complete list of state rankings and county scores can be found at www.opportunityindex.org. )

One would expect that states at the top of the opportunity list would be the richest ones, the states at the bottom the poorest. But top-ranked Vermont and bottom-ranked Nevada have about the same median household income, straddling the national average of $50,000 per year; in fact, Nevada edges out Vermont by about $1,600. But Nevada's economic standing is built on a shaky foundation; it has some of the lowest levels of educational attainment in the country, the worst scores on civic health and community engagement, and the highest rate of youth disconnection. Too many young people in Nevada are detached from the worlds of school and work and, as a result, face an uncertain future. On the other hand, Vermont's strong commitment to education and history of civic participation such as volunteerism and group membership contribute to one of the country's lowest rates of youth disconnection. North Dakota and Nebraska, both with median incomes below the national average, are also punching well above their economic weight, registering some of the lowest rates of youth disconnection and the highest opportunity scores in the country.

A similar story exists at the county level. Some counties that are average in terms of household income (around $50,000 per year) score a B+ in opportunity, among them San Juan County in Washington, Winneshiek and Dickinson Counties in Iowa, and Yellow Medicine County in Minnesota. Yet other average economic performers are struggling to provide opportunity. Hall and Jones Counties in Georgia, Berkeley County in South Carolina, and Cumberland County in New Jersey score C-, and Lassen County in California has a grade of D+.

The Opportunity Index highlights that income is just one ingredient in creating opportunity for young people. More important is how that money is--or isn't--invested in people. Places that have used education and civic participation to build pathways for young people to transition to a productive adulthood have high opportunity scores; those that have not built a robust infrastructure of opportunity are struggling.

This post is part of a series produced by Opportunity Nation for The Huffington Post in conjunction with their Week of Action, a seven-day collaborative exercise demonstrating that every American can play a role in the shared effort to restore opportunity and social mobility in our country. More information is available at Opportunity Nation.

The State of the Union Is Unequal: 10 Things Presidential Candidates Should Know About Inequality

2012-02-13T19:11:53-05:00

The presidential campaign and the Occupy movement have thrust inequality into the spotlight -- and with good reason. When it comes to income inequality, the United States is on par with Gabon, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia; in fact, our country has greater inequality than 66 other nations, including every other affluent democracy. No Western European or Nordic country even comes close.

Every nation has some inequality. And not all inequality is bad. Good inequality helps motivate us by others' success, spurring us to seek new skills, innovate, and work smarter and faster. Good inequality can have a positive impact on people's lives and on America's global economic competitiveness.

But considerable research demonstrates that extreme inequality is very damaging for a society. Extreme inequality does not just affect the disadvantaged -- it affects everyone from all walks of life; its effects are separate from the effects of poverty, which blights the lives of those at the bottom of the ladder.

As the presidential campaign heats up, here are ten things the candidates should understand about why extreme inequality is toxic for America:

Average Assets Per U.S. Households

10. Economic health. When ordinary Americans get a raise, they tend to spend it quickly, replacing big ticket items that have broken, making delayed home or car repairs, or just catching up on the bills. Those at the very top of the ladder may buy additional services or goods as well. But $1,000 each in the hands of 5,000 Americans is far more likely to spur the economy than $5 million in the hands of one multi-millionaire.

9. Health. Research shows that extreme income inequality is bad for people's health. This "biology of inequality" is rooted in the conditions of daily life. Those who routinely experience little autonomy in their work, have less control over their living situation, and experience chronic stress from economic insecurity and a nagging sense of exclusion and unfairness face a higher risk of stroke and heart attack, higher rates of depression and other mental illnesses, and greater conflict in their personal relationships.

8. Children's aspirations. Disadvantaged children know what life looks like on the other side of the tracks. Research has shown that extreme inequality can lead to weakened self-esteem and frustration, ultimately curbing kids' aspirations and limiting their achievements.

7. Housing. Alongside the soaring income of America's wealthiest, the typical size of a new house has expanded as well. The higher sticker price of a home in a good school district has had a ripple effect for everyone else as they stretch to afford a place to live -- meaning that a quality public education is anything but free.

6. Services. There is a growing trend for the most powerful to "opt out" of public services, for example by sending their children to private schools, seeking boutique health care, or providing their own security and recreational facilities in private enclaves. When the rich choose not to use public services themselves, they are less likely to support vital collective investments in schools, hospitals, parks, police, and public transportation.

5. Trust and Cohesion. Neighborhoods with active civic groups tend to have greater levels of trust, community cohesion, and tolerance. Income gaps divide people, often resulting in large differences in lifestyles as well as social distance. When these distances grow to extremes, they too often result in physical segregation and breed suspicion and distrust.

4. Violent Crime. Inequalities between groups, especially when they are significant and increasing, can cause even run-of-the-mill disagreements to take a violent turn. Unequal access to basic needs such as jobs, schools, and housing, perceptions of unequal recognition, and other manifestations of inequality fuel resentment, humiliation, and a sense of exclusion, all common triggers for violence.

3. Democracy. Ultimately, extreme inequality threatens our democratic institutions. When only the rich even dare contemplate running for state-wide or national office and those without money to make political contributions are marginalized, the essence of our democracy is lost.

2. Stability. Extreme inequality can threaten and even upend social stability. We need only to look at the Arab Spring to see the consequences that follow when citizens believe they can no longer resolve their grievances through a political process.

1. The American Dream. A poor child born in France, Sweden, or Germany has a greater chance of being well-off as an adult than does a poor child born in America. As the country has grown more unequal, the steps on the social mobility ladder have grown farther apart, making it increasingly difficult to climb. A bedrock belief of most Americans -- that with motivation and hard work, anyone can make it in this country -- grows less true as inequality increases.

The good news is that much of this extreme inequality can be reduced or prevented. America has always been tremendously creative in finding ways to make the American Dream a possibility for more Americans. From Social Security to the GI Bill to the Earned Income Tax Credit, forward-looking policies have helped to reduce inequality, spur economic opportunity, and foster the building blocks of educated participation in our society. Reducing extreme inequality will require a similar collective investment in our future. To compete in a global market, as well as to stay true to our core national value of equal opportunity for all, there is no other option.

Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis are Co-Authors of the "Measure of America" series of the Social Science Research Council.

The Supplemental Poverty Measure: A (Small) Step in the Right Direction

2011-11-30T15:17:42-05:00

The Census Bureau recently released the supplemental poverty measure (SPM). By this gauge, 49.1 million Americans, or 16 percent of the population, live in poverty -- more than the official poverty number of 46.2 million, or 15.1 percent of the population, reported in September.

The SPM takes a broader, far more illuminating view of poverty than the traditional poverty measure does. But at the end of the day, it remains an indicator of income poverty only. A broader definition of poverty is still needed -- one that goes beyond measures of income alone.

Still in the research phase, the SPM does not replace the Census Bureau's official poverty formula, which determines eligibility for billions of dollars in federal programs for the poor -- a hot topic in the conversation about how to cut trillions from the federal debt in coming years. Interestingly, the official poverty measure, first adopted in 1969 and based on the price of food, was originally intended as a placeholder until a more sophisticated measure was created.

The SPM is a big improvement in that it reflects the realities of life in the United States today -- as opposed to 40 years ago. Among other changes, it accounts for the costs of working, including big-ticket items like childcare. It includes benefits received from government programs intended to reduce poverty, such as food stamps, energy assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit and excludes taxes and other unavoidable expenses, such as out-of-pocket medical costs.

The SPM provides a useful barometer of how some federal programs help reduce poverty and how some common classes of expenses exacerbate it. For example, the Earned Income Tax Credit lowered poverty by two percentage points according to the SPM, whereas deducting out-of-pocket medical expenses from family income pushed the poverty rate up 3.4 points.

While many people consider basic physical necessities (such as food and shelter) of a higher order when addressing poverty, those who experience poverty are as likely to speak about the powerlessness they feel to change their situation as they are about lack of money or material things. In short, poverty is about more than not having money. It's about lacking the basic capabilities and opportunities a person needs to fulfill his or her potential and to sustain a freely chosen life of value. These capabilities include decent material living standards, but they also include a good education, political voice and influence, neighborhood safety, a healthy living environment, and autonomy and self-respect.

To better understand the distribution of capabilities and opportunity in America, the American Human Development Index breaks with the singular focus on income alone and considers critical indicators of well-being in the areas of health and education, in addition to material standards of living. The Index is calculated for states, congressional districts, and major metropolitan areas and broken out by gender, race and ethnicity. Tracking the American Human Development Index, in addition to SPM, over time enables us to know whether we're also taking steps forward on the other things, beyond income, that expand people's choices and opportunities.

Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis are co-directors at the American Human Development Project, a non-partisan project to introduce a well-honed international tool for measuring well-being in the United States.

Poverty Kills. Better Policy, Not Better Medicine, Is the Solution

2011-07-26T10:34:33-04:00

Which causes more deaths in the United States: heart attacks or failure to graduate high school? Strokes or racial segregation? Lung cancer or poverty? The surprising answer is that poverty and its attendant deprivations are deadlier than disease.

For years, poverty has been cited as a contributing factor to poor health. But a recent study goes further, quantifying how many people poverty kills per year -- 133,000 in 2000 -- in the same way experts attribute deaths per year to, say, smoking. The report also quantified deaths attributable to non-income aspects of poverty, such as low levels of educational attainment, income inequality, racial segregation, and lack of social support. The new findings in the American Journal of Public Health "argue for a broader public health conceptualization of the causes of mortality and an expansive policy approach that considers how social factors can be addressed to improve the health of populations." We could not agree more.

Tackling social and economic disparities and improving the conditions in which people are born and raised hold the greatest promise for longer, healthier lives. This is not to say that health care and health-care reform are unimportant to human well-being; they are critical. Universal health coverage is vital both to saving lives and to addressing the leading cause of bankruptcy among U.S. households: medical bills. Health insurance contributes to both health security and economic security, essential foundations of a freely chosen life of value. In fact, a study this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research showed that when poor people are given medical insurance, they visit doctors more often, feel better, are less depressed, and are better able to maintain financial stability.

Though medical treatment is essential once we are sick or hurt, medicine's capacity to prevent chronic disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, pales compared to the power of social and economic factors, such as education and standard of living, to influence our health.

Education confers well-documented health advantages, making high-quality universal preschool education, quality K-12 education, and greater equity in access to and completion of college education good health policy as well as good education policy. Education enables more fulfilling work with greater stability, control, and freedom, which facilitates longer lives.

Likewise, policies that lift families out of poverty and help them build assets -- such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, childcare subsidies, food stamps, job training, and increases in the minimum wage -- are also policies that foster health resilience by reducing stress and increasing resources available for building wellness. Policies on housing and crime prevention that improve neighborhood safety and walkability, and community empowerment efforts that strengthen agency and self-determination, also improve health. For people with serious mental illnesses, supportive housing helps unlock both better health and greater participation in society.

The evidence is clear. Poverty kills. Addressing the underlying social and economic conditions that breed poverty and ill health -- in other words, better policy, not better medicine -- is the solution.

Measuring a Better Life

2011-06-29T12:15:23-04:00

How do you define a better life? The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of 34 countries comprised chiefly of the world's affluent democracies, is taking its turn to answer this ageless question with its Better Life Initiative. This interactive tool and index draws attention to the many ingredients of a good life, and in so doing attempts to move beyond GDP as the sole measure of a country's well-being. According to data released last Friday, U.S. GDP increased at a rate of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2011, although many Americans may have missed that news while searching for a job or fighting foreclosure. Moreover, from 1975 to 2009, America's GDP nearly tripled while median personal income for Americans inched up. It's no surprise then that GDP, which the OECD has used since its formation in 1961, is no longer the first place economists, policymakers, and individuals go to answer the question "how are people really doing?"

The OECD's initiative marks a milestone for the post-GDP movement. Its decision to take into account indicators like housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, governance, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work-life balance -- all of which are important to understanding people's quality of life as opposed to just the size of the economy -- is admirable. The ability to compare the United States to the 33 other OECD countries on important social and economic measures will be globally valuable.

While the overall U.S. statistics tell an interesting story (we're ranked #6 on the Better Life Index, as opposed to #1 on GDP), it's only when you look beneath the national averages that you can begin to understand the challenges facing America. The Better Life Index is a great jumping point for discussion, but it can't be used for policymaking in the U.S. In most of the areas measured by the OECD, policy is made at -- and varies widely by -- the state and local level.

Where the Better Life Index takes a telling and important snapshot at 30,000 feet, the American Human Development (HD) Index uses a microlens. Based on the internationally renowned Human Development Index, which was developed by the United Nations and is used in more than 160 countries, the American HD Index uses government statistics to measure education, health, and standard of living. What results is a composite number representing well-being and access to opportunity.

The AHDI ranks well-being on a scale of 0 to 10 and can be analyzed by state, congressional district, major metropolitan area, neighborhood groups, gender, race, and ethnicity. The AHDI augments other indices like the OECD's by determining where people within the country are today and setting a benchmark for progress in the future. Philanthropic organizations and social service providers are using the index to determine need, and policymakers are using it to allocate funds; as the approach gains traction in the United States, individuals can use it to hold their elected officials accountable.

Given America's skyrocketing debt, diminishing revenue, and stagnating economy, well-being for Americans of all developmental levels is at risk. If we can't make the pie bigger in the short-term, the American HD Index offers a fact-based, nonpartisan tool for policymakers and individuals alike to determine how to cut the pie more effectively, in a manner that removes constraints and improves opportunities for all Americans.

Which California Are You?

2011-05-17T11:56:53-04:00

California has long been a leader in implementing progressive policies and developing innovative programs to improve the lives and broaden the opportunities of its people. From education to environment, California has been at the forefront. But the Golden State is at risk of losing this edge, disinvesting in the very areas that California needs to compete in the 21st century and to ensure that its people have the tools they need to realize their full potential.

The difficulties facing California are emblematic of challenges facing states across the country in the aftermath of the most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression. In addition, other states will soon grapple with demographic challenges that are already well under way in California. Given California's budgetary outlook in today's hyper-partisan political environment, wouldn't it be great if an objective, fact-based tool existed to identify the most strategic levers for change -- to help keep California from losing its edge?

Such a tool now exists. It's called the American Human Development Index, and it appears in the first-ever California Human Development Report, A Portrait of California 2011, just released today.

The American Human Development Index is a composite measure of well-being and access to opportunity made up of official government data on health, education, and earnings. The Index is expressed as single number that falls on a scale of 0 to 10. A Portrait of California uses the American Human Development Index to rank California's major racial and ethnic groups, native- and foreign-born residents, major metropolitan areas, and 233 Census-defined neighborhood clusters across the state on this ten-point well-being scale.

To help people make sense of the vast trove of available data, we sorted the 233 Census-bureau defined areas into "Five Californias" based on their index scores. Doing so cuts across racial and ethnic categories and geographic boundaries to highlight shared challenges and makes clear how basic capabilities like health, education, and earnings translate into the real choices and opportunities available to ordinary people.

All Californians appear on the Index: which California are you?

Silicon Valley Shangri-La, with a score of 9.35, comprises the top 1% of the population in terms of well-being. The majority of those living in the Santa Clara County communities that make up Shangi-La are extremely well-educated professionals and entrepreneurs fueling and benefiting from the innovation economy. Their highly developed capabilities give them unmatched freedom to pursue the goals that matter to them.

Metro-Coastal Enclave California, with a score of 7.92, makes up 18% of the state's population. These affluent, credentialed, and resilient knowledge workers reside in upscale urban and suburban neighborhoods, chiefly along the coast.

Main Street California, with a score of 5.92, makes up 38% of the population. This majority-minority group of suburban and ex-urban Californians have higher earnings, better health, and more education than the typical American, but they also have an increasingly tenuous grip on middle-class life, thanks to California's high unemployment, changes in the labor market demand, and housing market woes.

Struggling California, with a score of 4.17, makes up 38% of the population. Struggling California can be found across the state, from the suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas of the Central Valley to parts of major metro areas and the Inland Empire to swaths of Northern California. Struggling Californians work hard but find it nearly impossible to gain a foothold on security.

The Forsaken Five Percent, the worst-off 5% of California's population, have an American HD Index score of 2.59. Residents of this California were bypassed by the digital economy and left behind in impoverished LA neighborhoods as well as in rural and urban areas in the San Joaquin Valley. People living here face an extremely constrained range of opportunities and choices.

A resident of Shangri-La lives nine years longer than a resident of the Forsaken Five Percent, earns $45,000 more, is 10 times less likely to have dropped of high school, and is nearly nine times as likely to have a bachelors degree. Residents in the top-ranking group have a score that will characterize the U.S. as a whole, if current trends continue, in the 2060s, while the health, education, and earnings outcomes in the Los Angeles neighborhoods and San Joaquin Valley areas that make up the Forsaken Five are on par with those of the nation as a whole in the 1970s.

So while it's not news that people in Silicon Valley are doing better than those in Watts or impoverished pockets of the Central Valley, it is astonishing that nearly a full century of progress separates them.

In this time of epic deficits and draconian cuts, our attention first goes to the harm that curtailed social services and diminished investment in public goods will do to the Forsaken Five. But in fact disinvestment in education and health, in public transport and affordable housing, hits Struggling and Main Street California -- together home to roughly three in four Californians -- very hard, as well, narrowing people's horizons as well as hampering the state's ability to compete in a globalized world.

Considering the stakes, there could be no better time for an objective, road-tested tool like the American Human Development Index at the heart of A Portrait of California to help all who have a stake in California's future. The report paints a portrait of well-being in communities up and down the state -- and up and down the socioeconomic ladder -- and helps to identify the most strategic and pressing areas for intervention to move California forward. Don't lose your edge, California.

Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis are co-authors of the first ever California Human Development Report, A Portrait of California 2011.

Health Care Reform Passed, Now What?

2010-04-27T16:50:22-04:00

After a year of vociferous debate, health care reform passed. But the unprecedented attention to Americans' health somehow managed to miss one of the country's most alarming health problems: the huge disparities in health outcomes for different population groups.

How big are these disparities?

They are huge. Recent research by the American Human Development Project found that Asian Americans in New Jersey live, on average, 26 years longer than Native Americans in South Dakota. Whites in Washington, D.C. live, on average, 12 years longer than African Americans in D.C.

In 1999, the federal government launched Healthy People 2010, an ambitious project to narrow gaps like these. Its two main objectives were longer, healthier lives for all, and the elimination of health disparities in our society. Healthy People 2010 involved 250 local, state and federal agencies and 400 non-governmental organizations. It set targets for 467 objectives and 28 focus areas.

Setting specific, measurable, time-bound targets was an admirable strategy. Reaching beyond the medical community to include the wide range of actors that influence health outcomes -- from environmental groups to parks and recreation departments to housing authorities -- was a pioneering approach. The conceptual framework was great, the process strong and the targets laudable. But it failed -- and no one noticed.

At least seventy percent of the targets saw no reduction in disparities. On far too many of the indicators, particularly for racial disparities, things went backwards. Why the failure? Because the initiative had no teeth.

Healthy People 2010 did not have a dedicated implementation budget. Grants were made to incentivize performance, but they were too few and too dispersed to make a real difference. There was no law associated with this work, and there was a dearth of visible leadership to ensure accountability. Finally, the effort lacked an effective public campaign. How many people outside of the public health community have heard of Healthy People 2010? Success required, at a minimum, people knowing that the initiative existed in the first place.

Here we are, well into 2010, and there has been "little progress on a large scale overall," according to a leading health official. So now, there is Healthy People 2020 -- with a new set of objectives, targets and indicators.

If we are really serious about reducing health disparities, we need the same focus on bottom line accountability for health that we have for economic and financial targets. We need to monitor, report and act on fundamental indicators of health like the infant death rate and the diabetes rate with the same intense focus we as a society apply to the GDP, to the inflation rate, to interest rates and to gains and losses in the stock market.

Government at all levels, businesses, educators, health practitioners and advocates all have roles to play in attacking the major root causes of health disparities. Medical care and health insurance are only part of the story. Healthy people have access to parks, recreation facilities, sidewalks and bike-paths, and live where their kids can safely play outside. Healthy people have fresh produce and lean proteins available in their communities. Healthy people tend to live and work in healthy environments, without excessive indoor and outdoor air pollution or exposure to toxins, and they don't smoke. And they have access to a decent education, which increases the likelihood they will practice healthier behaviors and support healthier outcomes for their children.

Health care reform passed. Now it's time to tackle the root causes of health disparities. The success of Healthy People 2020 depends on it.

Damsel in Distress Seeks Better Policies, Bigger Paycheck, Prince Who Does Housework

2009-10-22T16:36:54-04:00

Stop five men and five women on the street outside an
elementary school and ask them the shoe size of their youngest child, or the
phone number of that child’s pediatrician. Odds are, the women will know both,
the men neither. Much ink is being spilled lately to probe the findings of the
University of Pennsylvania study on “The Paradox of Declining Female
Happiness,” which found that women today are unhappier than women were in the
past – and also less happy than men are.
Our research on human development offers a few clues.

The last half century has seen a sea change in the
way we organize work and family life. Today, most women work for pay, and
most children live either in families where both parents work outside the home
or in single-parent families headed by an adult (usually a woman) who is in the
labor force. This is the “new normal.” Yet
expectations and institutions are stuck in the past, leaving major needs unmet
and creating a set of often irreconcilable responsibilities that individuals
and families struggle to fulfill. The
Sisyphean task of bridging the gulf between yesterday’s expectations and
today’s realities falls chiefly on individual women.

And we wonder why women are less happy than men?

Over the last generation, women’s participation in the labor
force has surged, particularly among
women with kids. In 1975, 30 percent of mothers with children under age three
were in the workforce; now, 60 percent are, and for mothers with older
children, rates top 70 percent.

Alongside this major transformation in the American family,
technological change and globalization have contributed to major shifts in the
labor market as well. A man with a high school diploma or less can barely
support a family. And the cost of the
basics like housing and healthcare have risen steadily, new costs like
childcare have been added, and wages for all but the top-earners have stayed
flat or even gone down in real terms.

As Judith Warner argued last week in the Times, working is
not actually a choice for most. Families need two full-time workers to
sustain the kind of middle-class life that was possible for single wage-earners
just a few decades ago. And if most married women have no choice about work,
unmarried women have even less.

How do these changes disproportionately affect women’s
happiness? Let us count the ways – or at
least three of them: earnings,
expectations, and policy.

1. More education,
lower earnings. Women today are
graduating high school and college at higher rates than men, yet they still
earn significantly less. So they have less income with which to buy happiness –
or, better said, to stave off sources of unhappiness like stacks of unpaid
bills or anxiety about old-age insolvency – than men do. Although women’s
earnings have risen steadily since 1965, women still take home, on average, 78 cents
for every dollar men earn. In our recent work, using Census Bureau data, we
found that in Louisiana,
women’s personal earnings from wages and salaries are, on average, nearly
$14,000 less than men’s. And women’s smaller paychecks also lead to smaller
retirement accounts, smaller pensions, and smaller Social Security checks later
on.

The good news is that fields once closed to women are now
open and laws that prohibit gender discrimination are helping. But the earnings gap remains stubbornly
persistent. About one-third of the gap stems from lost job experience during
child rearing—women pay a high penalty for leaving the workforce to raise their
children. Women also predominate in low-wage fields; for instance, women with
low levels of education make up almost the entire labor force of child-care
providers and home health aides. These
jobs pay less than occupations dominated by men with similarly low educational
attainment levels, such as security guard or parking attendant. In addition, discrimination
still plays a role. Even in jobs where women vastly outnumber men, such as teachers,
men still make more.

2. Less time, same expectations. In days gone by, women who were
not in the paid labor force were nonetheless still working. They raised
children, cooked meals, cleaned, and cared for sick or elderly relatives as
well as helped to keep their local churches, charities, hospitals, and schools
operating smoothly. They just didn’t get paid for it. This caring labor kept families functioning and
communities cohesive.

With most women now in the paid
workforce, some of our expectations have changed; few families today keep house
to the standards of our grandmothers. But many others remain. Been to a PTA
meeting lately? Seen any men there? Go
to the waiting room of a gerentologist; most of those accompanying elderly
parents to the doctor are daughters or daughters-in-law. All of these
expectations are dependent upon a view of women’s time as endlessly elastic.

Time-use studies show that men are
doing more at home than in the past, women less (though still more than men).
There are certainly relationships in which the domestic load is carried
equitably. But the dynamic of women
being in charge of the home and the well-being of all its inhabitants, while
men help, is more than just a hackneyed complaint of privileged women – it is a
real and fairly relentless phenomenon.
And it is one that makes the day-to-day experience of life less happy
for all sorts of women. Adding to this
is the fact that women are still judged – and still judge themselves – by past
standards when it comes to the domestic realm.
While women tend to compare themselves to their mothers, and too often find
themselves wanting, men compare themselves to their fathers, a standard far
easier to exceed.

3. Yesterday’s policies, today’s reality: Our European peer countries have experienced
a similar influx of women into the labor force as well as the same sorts of
changes in marriage and childbearing patterns.
But they have dealt with it in a very different way – by offering
high-quality, universal child care and mandatory policies to support mothers
and fathers in their efforts to care for children as well as for ill or elderly
family members, all without jeopardizing their ability to put food on the
table.

How does the United States compare
to other countries, many far less affluent than the U.S., in terms of helping
working families balance their responsibilities? Not too well.

Maternity
leave. One hundred sixty-nine countries guarantee paid maternity leave; 66
countries guarantee paid paternity leave. Ninety-three countries have fourteen
or more paid weeks for mothers; 31 have fourteen paid weeks for men as well.
The United States has no federally mandated paid childbearing leave for mothers
or fathers.

Breastfeeding.
Over 100 countries protect the right to breastfeed, with 73 offering paid
breaks. This right is not guaranteed in the United States.

Vacation
days. One hundred thirty-seven countries mandate annual paid leave. United
States firms are not required to provide annual paid vacation.

Sick
leave. One hundred forty-five countries have paid sick leave for short- or
long-term illness, with 136 having at least one week annually, and 81 having
twenty-six weeks or more or until recovery. Sick leave is offered in the United
States through the Family and Medical Leave Act, but it is unpaid and does not
cover all workers.

The world is hardly a worse place
because few people iron sheets anymore.
But there is a strong argument to be made that the world is a worse
place because people no longer eat home-cooked meals, which are typically more
nutritious and less fattening than fast-food overstretched families
increasingly rely on. And there is strong evidence that the needs of very young
children for emotional attachment and appropriate stimulation are not best
served in the types of childcare centers available to most families, or that
the needs of the elderly infirm for safety, connection, and dignity are not
best met by most nursing homes.

The answer is not for women to dig
out the aprons and turn back the clock.
But nor is relying on each individual family to patch together its own
crazy quilt of care. Society failed to value the unpaid labor that women did
enough to find new ways to provide it.
If we had, women might be happier.

And bigger paychecks would help,
too.

Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis are co-authors of The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009

G-20 Missed the Point: The Real Wealth of Nations is People

2009-09-28T10:14:24-04:00

As often happens, the just-completed Pittsburgh G-20 meeting ended with admirable pronouncements, among them, the "responsibility to invest in people by providing education, job training, decent work conditions, health care...and to fight poverty, discrimination, and all forms of social exclusion". But with the near-exclusive use of GDP growth as the central measure of societal success, we risk falling short of these lofty goals by a long shot.

Just as a high personal net worth is no proof against cancer, so, too, a high GDP fails to demonstrate national vigor. As then-Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy noted in 1968, GDP, the final cost of goods and services produced within a country in a year, goes up with the sale of nuclear warheads, and counts both special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. At least as important as what GDP counts is what it omits: unpaid labor in the form of child and elder care, wide gaps in earnings between whites and citizens of other races, and more.

A report this month from Nobel laureate economists Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz suggested that it's time to change the way GDP is calculated, noting that an increase in automobile driving raises GDP, even as environmental damage and time lost to traffic jams goes unmeasured.

By several other important gauges, such as outcomes in health and education, America has slipped behind many other countries in recent years. But our still-high GDP has enabled policymakers to ignore the slippage. And what we don't notice, we can't address.

Fortunately, we don't need to cast about for brand-new, untested measures. Inspired by Pakistan's onetime minister of finance, Mahbub ul Haq, who had noticed that many ostensibly successful development programs failed to manifest as concrete improvements in people's lives, and by the poverty studies of Professor Sen, the United Nations Development Programme began in 1990 to rank every country in the world on its citizen's health, education, and standard of living. Drawing on this same measure, a recent project of the New York-based Social Science Research Council has used governmental data to develop an American Human Development Index. Our research shows that while America's GDP is second to none, and while we spend far and away the most on health care, our average life expectancy lags behind that of virtually every other advanced economy. Japan spends about one-third of what the U.S. spends on health care per person, yet the Japanese outlive Americans by an average of four years.

GDP tells us about the contribution of mothers who work, but nothing about their caring labor as parents, often overstretched and overstressed, trying to balance their work and family responsibilities. If it did, perhaps we would not find the U.S. one of fewer than five countries in the world whose mothers lack federally mandated paid maternity leave. (Two of the others: Somalia and Papua New Guinea.)

And while gross state product tells us that Louisiana's economy has rebounded nicely from Hurricane Katrina as a result of recovery dollars and large-scale rebuilding, that rise has done next to nothing for African Americans who were disproportionately harmed by that storm. Using Census Bureau data, we find median earnings for African Americans in that state less today than the average American earned in the mid-1960s. Whites earning the least have wages and salaries on par with those of African Americans earning the most.

An near-exclusive focus on the data used to measure market activity means that other data receive lower priority. We release inflation figures, trade deficits, and personal income monthly, with a one-month delay. Infant death figures, however, show up only after a three-year delay. By the time we spot a trend, it's too late. If we want our citizens to lead long, healthy lives --and who doesn't-- we must give the non-economic measures that tell how people are faring more weight.

We don't suggest the GDP be abolished. Market activity and production tell an important part of a nation's story. But the Human Development Index is a road-tested measure of well-being that can be an essential supplement. Adding data on health, education and other basic building blocks of a life of opportunity and value, and capturing the gaps between groups, would fill out our story. And after all, the American people are the real wealth of our nation.

Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis are co-authors of The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009

GDP an Inaccurate Measure of Stark Disparities in United States, Fails to Show Whole Picture in Louisiana

2009-09-18T14:29:00-04:00

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Mississippi and Louisiana four years ago, extreme weather and acute human vulnerability met head-on with tragic results. Long-standing gaps in the well-being of different groups of Gulf coast residents were suddenly everywhere in evidence - on rooftops, on I-10 overpasses, and on TV screens across the country. Many were stunned by what they saw. They should not have been. The problems of social exclusion, residential segregation, and human poverty that Katrina brought to light hide in plain sight in every U.S. state.

A new study titled A Portrait of Louisiana released yesterday in Baton Rouge and supported by Oxfam America and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, uses post-Katrina data to examine disparities by parish, race, and gender in Louisiana, and shows that pronounced social and economic gaps left African Americans particularly vulnerable during the disaster and in its aftermath. Although improved disaster preparedness makes a replay of the worst aspects of Katrina unlikely, were a similar storm to hit the Gulf coast today, African Americans would again disproportionately lack the resources - from good health to sturdy housing to a financial cushion - to weather the crisis. People whose heads are barely above water in good times have little to draw on in an emergency.

In 2008, we produced a first-ever American Human Development Report. Using a people-centered methodology developed at the United Nations and used to assess progress in over 160 countries, we created a ranked list of U.S. states in terms of human well-being. The human development index measures health, education, and income - the basic building blocks of a good life - using official U.S. government data. This work represents the only available calculation of life expectancy by congressional district and county. On the index, Mississippi ranked last, and Louisiana was third from the bottom.

But averages can hide a lot. A Portrait of Louisiana reveals a distribution of vulnerability and resilience in the region striking in its variation and closely tied to race and place. This follows A Portrait of Mississippi, also produced by the American Human Development Report and launched earlier this year. Though both Mississippi and Louisiana rank poorly on the national list, some groups within these states enjoy some of the highest levels of well-being in the nation. Others experience health, education, and income levels that the rest of the country surpassed thirty, forty, even fifty years ago.

White Louisianans living in the New Orleans neighborhoods of Uptown, Carrollton, Central City, and the Garden District have a score on our index (6.91) that bests the top-ranked U.S. state of Connecticut (6.37). (The highest score is 10, the lowest, 0.) At the other end of the spectrum, African Americans living in rural Tangipahoa Parish have a score of 0.98, the human development level of the aver age American in the early 1950s. New Orleans whites in these neighborhoods can expect to live, on average, an astonishing ten years longer, are nine times less likely to have dropped out of high school, and earn two and a half times more than Tangipahoa African Americans.

In terms of health, in Mississippi, white women live three years longer, on aver age, than African American women; for men, that gap is four and a half years. An African American baby boy born in Louisiana today can expect to live, on average, to 68.1 years, a life span equal to that of the average American male in 1974 (and shorter than that of males in Iran, Nicaragua, Philippines, and other developing countries today).

In both states, whites earn bachelor's degrees at twice the rate of African Americans and are nearly half as likely to have dropped out of high school. Higher levels of education typically lead to higher incomes; our research shows that if all adults in these two states had at the very least a high school degree, median personal earnings would increase by $1,700 per year.

When it comes to income, whites earning the least have wages and salaries on par with those of African Americans earning the most. White men in Louisiana have earnings more than $8,000 per year higher than those of the typical American worker today, and white men in Mississippi surpass the national median by over $6,000. African American women, on the other hand, have wages and salaries typical of those that prevailed in the U.S. in the 1960s (Mississippi) and the 1950s (Louisiana). For men and women together, there is virtually no overlap between white and African American earnings in both states.

Building resilience requires investing in people. Since 2005, the Gulf states affected by Katrina have received upward of $140 billion in federal dollars for hurricane re covery. According to the Louisiana Recovery Authority, and including recent federal stimulus bill funding, at least $63.3 billion has been allocated to Louisiana. This sum represents roughly $15,000 for each and every woman, man, and child in the state--about $44,000 for the average, three-person Louisiana family.

Recovery funds must be directed not just to rebuild the physical infrastructure of Mississippi and Louisiana, but also to construct a new infrastructure of opportunity to serve the next generation of Gulf coast residents. Recovery offers a unique opportunity to empower people with the tools to lead self-sufficient lives of freedom, choice, and value and the capabilities required to meet life's disasters with resilience rather than vulnerability.

But this won't happen automatically. Evidence from disaster recovery around the world suggests that the rebuilding phase often results in a further concentration of power and resources in the hands of elites. Ensuring that recovery benefits everyone requires that Gulf state governments set concrete targets and provide easily understood reports to the general public on the use of recovery dollars. Equally critical is that the people of Louisiana and Mississippi raise their voices to demand accountability.

We Can Pay for Education Today - Or Prisons Tomorrow

2009-05-14T18:20:39-04:00

High school dropout rates have been in the news a lot lately. Last month saw the release of two major reports that drew renewed attention to the issue. One from the America's Promise Alliance found that in the fifty largest cities in the U.S., nearly half of all high school students fail to graduate on time. Another from McKinsey & Co. argued that the huge academic achievement gaps separating different groups of Americans take a huge economic toll on the country -- they likened the effect of leaving so many kids behind to a permanent economic recession.

A new tool that our organization, the American Human Development Project, developed with United Way illustrates in very concrete terms the nature and extent of the costs we all pay for the terrible inequities that characterize our educational system -- the Common Good ForecasterTM. This online web tool uses the most recent official data available on U.S. states and counties to put a human face on the effects of decisions we make as a society. It offers a snapshot of educational outcomes in our communities today and paints a picture of a different tomorrow.

Let's take a look at the situation today in the cities America's Promise Alliance found to have the country's worst graduation rates -- Indianapolis, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Los Angeles -- and see how things might change if more adults in those areas had completed high school or college.

We all know that more education leads to better jobs and bigger paychecks, on average. But it's startling to see just how much improving rates of high school graduation and college-going would boost a community's median personal earnings and reduce the unemployment and poverty rates.

If in Marion County, Indiana, home of Indianapolis, all adults without a high school degree had completed high school, 12,000 fewer people there would live in poverty, and median personal earnings would increase by1,400 year -- a significant sum for a family living in poverty.

If all adults in Wayne County, Michigan, home of Detroit, had at least a high school degree, 17,500 fewer people there would be unemployed.

If all adults in Fulton County, Georgia, home of Atlanta, moved up one educational category -- for example, if all high school dropouts had completed high school and all who graduated high school went on to attend at least some college -- median person earnings would shoot up7,800.

If all adults in Los Angeles County without high school degrees had them, median personal earnings would go up by about2,000 -- a sum about equal to the average Earned Income Tax Credit that low-income workers received in 2006.

But the impacts beyond the dollar are in some ways even more dramatic.

If all adults in Cuyahoga Country, Ohio (Cleveland) were to move up one educational category, the average life span there would increase by nearly two years; in Baltimore County, the average life span would grow by more than a year.

If all adults in Los Angeles County were to move up one educational category, there would be an astonishing 566 fewer murders, on average, every year. Doubling the college graduation rate in Wayne County, MI (Detroit) would likely result in some 100 fewer murders.

Completing high school has a big impact on voting. If all adults were at least high school graduates, voting rates in all the cities would rise significantly -- up by 16,000 in the Baltimore area, 37,000 in the Cleveland area, 29,000 in the Milwaukee area, and some 300,000 in Los Angeles.

Not all of our indicators are available at the country level, but looking at state-level data shows education's marked impact on incarceration, obesity, low birthweight, and children's reading proficiency.

If all adults in California had graduated high school, there would be more than 50,000 fewer people behind bars; in Michigan, nearly 22,000 fewer; in Indiana, nearly 11,000 fewer. This represents a tremendous diversion of scarce resources; keeping a single person behind bars costs the government around $25,000 per year.

If all adults in Michigan were at least high school graduates, 75,000 fewer people would be obese; in Ohio, 47,000 fewer; in Georgia, 33,000 fewer.

Low birthweight is a risk factor for developmental delays, impairments and infant death. If all adults were to move up one educational category in Wisconsin, 552 fewer babies would face the wide-ranging and persistent risks associated with low birthweight.

Nearly 30,000 eighth graders in California would be categorized "proficient readers" were all adults to move up one educational category.

Have we convinced you yet?

Education does not, of course, inoculate us against all misfortune. But education increases people's resilience and decreases their vulnerability. Unemployment, for instance, is on the rise everywhere today. But Labor Department figures show that last year the unemployment rate grew three times faster for people without high school degrees than it did for college grads. When it comes to health, people of every educational level get cancer. But better educated people are less likely to die from it -- not just because they are more likely to have health insurance but also because they can better navigate the healthcare system and understand treatment options, and are more likely to adhere to treatment regimens and use newer and more effective drugs. Research shows that more educated people have a greater ability to adjust to change, better mental and physical health, and stronger social bonds -- critical ingredients for weathering crises of all sorts.

With the economy in a free fall and state and local revenues plunging as a result, officials and policy-makers are feeling the pinch. It's tempting to say education can wait. But that would be shortsighted in ways both foolish and tragic. Education has been the engine of upward mobility for generations of Americans -- and it's more important than ever in today's globalized, knowledge-based economy. We can pay for education today -- or prisons tomorrow.

Kristen Lewis and Sarah Burd-Sharps are the co-directors of the American Human Development Project, an initiative of the Social Science Research Council that is funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. The project works to introduce to Americans a well-honed framework used around the world to assess human well-being and access to opportunity: the human development approach. Its hallmark is the American Human Development Index, a composite measure that paints a portrait of how Americans are doing today and empowers communities with tools to track progress and to hold elected officials accountable for improvements in areas we all care about: health, education, and standard of living.