Publications and Video

Law Journal Publishes Proceedings from 2007 Poverty Center Conference

The prestigious Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy has published the transcript from the Poverty Center's 2007 conference, "Wealth Inequality and the Eroding Middle Class." The lively and conversational transcript engages such topics as the impact of globalization and immigration on wealth inequality in the U.S.; the way policies such as deregulation drive inequality; and what can be done to reduce inequality domestically.

The outstanding collection of presentations includes comments by Joel Handler, Mary Beth Maxwell, Mark Rank, Louis Uchitelle, Fran Ansley, Jonathan Forman, Ana Avendano, Ron Bloom, Judith Scott, keynote speaker, Robert Kuttner and other noted scholars, policymakers, thinkers and doers.

The proceedings are available in the Summer 2008 issue of the journal. Copies of the transcript or the entire journal can be ordered from the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy. Both electronic and print versions are available.

Publications by Center Director, Gene Nichol

Professor Nichol writes and appears widely. In addition to academic pieces in legal journals, his op-ed pieces are published regularly by the Raleigh News and Observer and he is often called to testify on constitutional law and poverty matters.

Please visit Articles and Testimony for a complete list.

Reach Higher, America Report from National Commission on Adult Literacy Released; Former Center Director Marion Crain Served as Commissioner

Reach Higher, America: Overcoming Crisis in the U.S. Workforce focuses on the adult education and skills crisis facing American workers, proposes a fundamentally new approach to adult basic education and workforce skills preparation in America, and lays out the fiscal and social benefits that would result from substantially increased public expenditures for programs and services. It examines the literacy and job-training needs of the low-skilled population, including workers, the unemployed, immigrants with limited or no English, parents and caregivers, incarcerated adults, high-school dropouts, and high school graduates not adequately prepared for college.

Among other things, the Commission recommends transforming the current adult education and literacy system, which reaches about 3 million adults annually, into an adult education and workforce skills system with the capacity to enroll 20 million adults by the year 2020 and a mission of readying adults for postsecondary education and job training. The report offers a "domestic Marshall plan" for meeting workforce education needs -- including recommendations for federal and state government, business and labor, philanthropy, and the general public. A clear message of the report is that unless the nation gives much higher priority to the basic educational needs of the workforce -- adults beyond the reach of the schools -- America's standard of living, its status as a leading world power, and its very social fabric will be further eroded.

Marion Crain, former director of the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity and noted legal scholar on employment law, labor issues and the role of work in the U.S., served as commissioner for the National Commission on Adult Literacy and helped develop Reach Higher, America. The Commission was formed in June 2006 as an independent panel of labor and business leaders, government officials and educators, tasked with examining current adult education and literacy services in America and providing recommendations for changes to meet the needs of the 21st Century workforce. The report was released at a public event in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, June 26, 2008.

Visit the National Commission on Adult Literacy web page for a copy of the report and related materials.

Poverty Center Collaboration Produces Report on Community-Campus Partnerships

Two students in the masters program in public administration at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington consulted with the Poverty Center to conduct a study, summarized in their report, on how community groups can partner with institutions of higher education (community colleges, colleges and universities) to advance their community development work.

Freeman Denton and Kelly McDonald identified and interviewed the heads of Community Development Corporations around North Carolina to assess their interest in working with colleges and universities and to get their input as to the kinds of resources they seek from an academic partner.

The report, Opportunities Explored: Educational Institutions and Community Development, was released in July 2008.

Policy Brief Series - Original Research by UNC Faculty!

In the spring of 2006, the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity hosted a competitive process to support original research by UNC faculty members in the form of policy briefs. Each brief was authored by a UNC faculty member and was reviewed by two experts - an academic and a practitioner in the field that the brief addresses. The authors and reviewers are listed below.

The views expressed in each policy brief are those of the author and should not be attributed to the Center staff or the Center itself.

"A Portrait of Hunger, the Social Safety Net, and the Working Poor"
Maureen Berner, Sharon Paynter and Trina Ozer - School of Government
Reviewed by: Jane Mosley, Research Assistant Professor, University of Missouri
Jane Cox, Executive Director, North Carolina Food Bank

"Not All Boats: Disability and Well-Being Among Single Mothers"
Philip Cohen - Department of Sociology
Reviewed by: Michelle Budig, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Mass. - Amherst
Miriam Ruttenberg, Staff Attorney, Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee

"Expanding the EITC for Workers Without Children"
Dan Gitterman and Lucy Gorham - Department of Public Policy and MDC, Inc.
Reviewed by: Peter Edelman, Professor of Law, Georgetown University
Barbara DelBene, Senior Training Specialist, Center for Economic Progress

"Individual Development Accounts: Participant and Program Characteristics Related to Savings Performance"
Michal Grinstein-Weiss and Kate Irish - School of Social Work
Reviewed by: Bill Rohe, Professor and Director, Center for Urban and Regional Studies, UNC-CH
Karen Edwards, Project Director, Center for Social Development, Washington Univ.

"The High Road for the Big Box: A New Community-Based Approach to Responsible Retail Development"
Brian Morton and Nichola Lowe - Center for Urban and Regional Studies
Reviewed by: Rachel Webber, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago
Madeline Janis-Aparicio, Executive Director, LA Alliance for a New Economy

"Poverty and Early Childhood Education Intervention"
Elizabeth Pungello and Frances Campbell - Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute
Reviewed by: Arthur Reynolds, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Karen Ponder, Executive Director, North Carolina Partnership for Children

"Income Poverty and Material Deprivation for U.S. Women with Disabilities"
Susan Parish - School of Social Work
Reviewed by: Glenn Fugiura, Associate Professor, University at Illinois at Chicago
Megan O'Neill, Program Manager, World Institute on Disability

"Keeping Good Job Opportunities in the Community: How and When to Use Public Training Resources to Revitalize Good Manufacturing Jobs in the United States"
Rachel Willis and Rachel Connelly, Economics and American Studies Departments and Bowdoin College
Reviewed by: Ronald Kalafsky, Assistant Professor, University of Tennessee
Larry Keen, Vice President for Economic and Workforce Development,
North Carolina Community College System

"The Promise of Mixed-Income Housing for Poverty Amelioration"
James Fraser - Department of Geography and Center for Urban and Regional Studies
Reviewed by: Spencer Cowan, Senior Research Associate, Center on Urban and Regional
Studies
Tom Davis, Senior Project Manager, The Community Builders, Inc.

The Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity's publication of its book, Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. poverty rate in 2005 was 12.6% or approximately 37 million people. While the percentage of people living in poverty has fluctuated since the Census Bureau started collecting this data, it has never dropped below 11.1%. Can we, the wealthiest nation in the world, do better? Morally, economically and socially can we afford not to?

Through thoughtful analysis and concrete policy suggestions from both liberal and conservative perspectives, the Poverty Center's new book tackles the seemingly intractable problem of poverty in the United States. Divided into five sections, each of which explores a facet of poverty, the book showcases contributions by some of the most distinguished academics and policymakers working in the field today. In addition, it features the advice and wisdom of dedicated community leaders, entrepreneurs and neighborhood organizers, creating a dialogue between anti-poverty theory and practice. Senator John Edwards' stirring conclusion summarizes the book's findings, issues a clarion call for public debate and suggests a bold new direction in combating poverty.

Contributing authors include Jacob Hacker, Secretary Jack Kemp, Katherine S. Newman, Michael Sherraden, David Shipler, Beth Shulman, Elizabeth Warren and William Julius Wilson. View the Table of Contents, including all authors and chapter titles.

Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream is edited by Senator John Edwards, former director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity; Marion Crain, current director and Paul Eaton Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law; and Arne L. Kalleberg, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Senior Associate Dean for Social Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity Advisory Board member.

Read the Publisher's Weekly review from April 9, 2007.

On Thursday, May 17, North Carolina Public Radio's live, call-in program, "The State of Things," featured an hour-long discussion based on Ending Poverty in America. Editors Marion Crain (the Center on Poverty's Director) and Arne Kalleberg, as well as contributors Anita Brown-Graham, Dennis Orthner and David Spickard appeared as guests to talk about the book, the nature of poverty and possible policy solutions. An archive of the show is available online at http://wunc.org/tsot/archive.

Announcement - Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity Summit published in Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal

The Center's Summit on Nov. 9, 2005 was a collection of leading scholars, policymakers, and advocates discussing solutions to poverty. In cooperation with the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal, a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to issues of work and employment, the full transcript from this important event has been published in Volume 10, Issue 1 of the Journal. An introduction and conclusion by Sen. Edwards, as well as an Afterword by Deputy Director Marion Crain, are included in this publication. To order a copy of the journal, please use the link below. All orders will be processed through the Chicago-Kent College of Law, and any questions should be addressed to this institution.

Read the agenda for the Summit. All sessions and speakers on the agenda are included in the journal publication.

To learn more about this collaborative effort with the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal, please visit http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilw/erepj/PovertySummit.html.

Please use the following link to order your copy of the Journal: https://www.kentlaw.edu/ilw/v10i1.html.