Comment on "Helping Poor Working Parents Get Ahead"

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This paper is a response to New Safety Net Paper 4, "Helping Poor Working Parents Get Ahead: Federal Funds for New State Strategies and Systems" by Harry J. Holzer and Karin Martinson.

Harry Holzer and Karin Martinson propose to spend up to $5 billion a year of new federal money on creating “state-level advancement systems” to promote higher skills and earnings among low-income working parents. I find their proposals attractive but premature. I would rather spend new money first on promoting higher work levels among these adults and on developing better programs. The time for a new advancement system will come, but not right away.

In table 1 of “Helping Poor Working Parents Get Ahead,” Holzer and Martinson show that higher incomes are strongly associated with higher educational levels. Incomes are even more strongly linked, however, simply to higher work levels. Among adults age 16 and older with incomes under the poverty level, only 37 percent claimed any earnings at all in 2006, and only 12 percent worked full time year-round. Even among those with incomes under 200 percent of the poverty level, only 47 percent worked at all, and only 24 percent full time year-round. For the population as a whole, the equivalent figures were 68 and 46 percent. For heads of family with children living under the poverty level, only 54 percent worked, 22 percent full time year-round. Looking at heads of families with incomes under 200 percent of the poverty level, the comparable figures were 69 and 41 percent. Among the U.S. population, they were 83 and 62 percent.1 For the low-income group to work at levels typical of the population would do more to raise family income than anything else.

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