ind

Closing Critical Gaps that Hinder Homeland Security Technology Innovation

Rapid technological advances are making nonstate actors much more capable than they were even a decade ago. Malicious actors like terrorist groups, criminal organizations, and state proxies are increasingly able to threaten American civilians and their interests around the world. At the same time, we are increasingly vulnerable to the emergence of new disease and natural disasters, as vividly shown by the hurricanes of 2017 (Harvey, Irma, and Maria) and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effectively countering these threats, including by developing and supporting private sector-generated new technological solutions, is a core government responsibility. DHS is the U.S. government’s primary civilian public safety agency and the main source of government funding for nonmilitary development of public safety technologies. Unfortunately, DHS has a poor record of developing new technological solutions to advance its mission and address emerging threats. This article assesses the current situation, identifies lines of research that are urgently needed, and makes recommendations on how DHS can more effectively partner with industry and how new technologies can be quickly seeded.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Closing Critical Gaps that Hinder Homeland Security Technology Innovation

Rapid technological advances are making nonstate actors much more capable than they were even a decade ago. Malicious actors like terrorist groups, criminal organizations, and state proxies are increasingly able to threaten American civilians and their interests around the world. At the same time, we are increasingly vulnerable to the emergence of new disease and natural disasters, as vividly shown by the hurricanes of 2017 (Harvey, Irma, and Maria) and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effectively countering these threats, including by developing and supporting private sector-generated new technological solutions, is a core government responsibility. DHS is the U.S. government’s primary civilian public safety agency and the main source of government funding for nonmilitary development of public safety technologies. Unfortunately, DHS has a poor record of developing new technological solutions to advance its mission and address emerging threats. This article assesses the current situation, identifies lines of research that are urgently needed, and makes recommendations on how DHS can more effectively partner with industry and how new technologies can be quickly seeded.








ind

Fatal gas leak hits India's LG Polymers plant








ind

How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Low Prices, Full Storage Tanks: What's Next for the Oil Industry

When the economy slows, so does the demand for oil. Prices have plummeted and storage tanks are filled to capacity. We look at the future of the oil industry.




ind

Force India happy with ongoing improvements

Force India's improvement continued at Spa where the team picked had both drivers finish in the top ten for only the third time this season




ind

Lindenberger: Trump’s Critics Should Be Slow To Make Bolton Out To Be A Hero

John Bolton is no hero. He has just been playing the part lately, given that he’s all but unique among top Republicans in his willingness to tell the truth about President Donald Trump. That’s admirable.




ind

Is Trump Risking the Bedrock Principle of the U.S.-India Partnership?

Trump must balance the critical military and economic ties the United States is building with India against the repudiation by the Modi government of the very principles that are at the foundation of the friendship itself.




ind

Force India draws a line under Hockenheim

Force India is ready to "draw a line" under its disastrous German Grand Prix after a pit stop mix up saw its drivers finish 16th and 17th




ind

How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Low Prices, Full Storage Tanks: What's Next for the Oil Industry

When the economy slows, so does the demand for oil. Prices have plummeted and storage tanks are filled to capacity. We look at the future of the oil industry.




ind

Challenges Facing Low-Income Individuals and Families


Thanks for inviting me to testify on the important topic of challenges facing low-income families. It is an honor to testify before the Human Resources Subcommittee. I applaud your purposes and hope that I can help the Subcommittee members understand our current circumstances regarding work, benefits, and poverty by single mothers a little better.

For well over a decade, my Brookings colleague Isabel Sawhill, a Democrat and former member of the Clinton administration, and I have been analyzing data and writing about the factors that influence both poverty rates and economic mobility.[i] We long ago concluded that education, work, and marriage are major keys to reducing poverty and increasing economic opportunity. We also emphasize the role of personal responsibility in all three of these vital components of building a path to the American Dream. But government programs to help low-income American parents escape poverty and build opportunity for themselves and their children are also important.

In today’s hearing, the Subcommittee is taking testimony about marriage and work, two of these three keys to reducing poverty and increasing opportunity. Brad Wilcox from the University of Virginia will discuss the decline of married-couple families, the explosion of births outside marriage, and the consequent increase in the number of the nation’s children being reared by single (and often never-married) mothers. The increase in the proportion of children in female-headed families contributes to substantial increases in poverty by virtue of the fact that poverty rates in female-headed families are four to five times as great as poverty rates in married-couple families.[ii] If the share of the nation’s children in female-headed families continues to increase as it has been doing for four decades, policies to reduce poverty will be fighting an uphill battle because the rising rates of single-parent families will exert strong upward pressure on the poverty rate.[iii] But perhaps of even greater consequence, children reared in single-parent families are more likely to drop out of school, more likely to be arrested, less likely to go to college, more likely to be involved in a nonmarital birth, and more likely to be idle (not in school, not employed) than children from married-couple families.[iv] In this way, a disproportionate number of children from single-parent families carry poverty into the next generation and thereby minimize intergenerational mobility.

So far public and nongovernmental programs have not been able to reverse falling marriage rates or rising nonmarital birth rates, but there is a lot we have done and can do to increase work rates, especially the work rates of low-income mothers. The goal of my testimony today is to explain the government policies that have been adopted in recent decades to increase work rates and subsidize earnings, which in turn have led to substantial declines in poverty.

I make two points and a small number of recommendations. The first point is that the employment of low-income single mothers has increased over the two decades, in large part because of work requirements in federal programs, especially Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009 caused the employment rate of single mothers to fall (as well as nearly every other demographic group), but after both recessions work rates began to rise again.

The second point is that the work-based safety net is an effective way to boost the income of working families with children that would be poor without the work supports. In my view, this combination of work requirements and work supports is the most successful approach the nation has yet developed to fight poverty in single-parent families with children. Here’s the essence of the policy approach: first, encourage or cajole single mothers to work by establishing work requirements in federal welfare programs; second, subsidize the earnings of low-income workers, both to increase their work incentive and to help them escape poverty. The primary work-based safety-net programs are the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the Additional Child Tax Credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), child care, and Medicaid.



[i] Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill, Work and Marriage: The Way to End Poverty and Welfare (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2003); Haskins and Sawhill, Creating an Opportunity Society (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2009)

[ii] Ron Haskins, “The Family is Here to Stay,” Future of Children 25, no. 2 (forthcoming); Kaye Hymowitz, Jason S. Carroll, W. Bradford Wilcox, and Kelleen Kaye, Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America (Charlottesville, VA: The National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and The Relate Institute, 2013). For an explanation of the central role of family structure in the continuing black-white income gap, see Deirdra Bloome, “Racial Inequality Trends and the Intergenerational Persistence of Income and Family Structure,” American Sociological Review 79 (December 2014): 1196-1225.

[iii] Maria Cancian and Ron Haskins, “Changes in Family Composition: Implications for Income, Poverty, and Public Policy,” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 654 (2014): 31-47.

[iv] Sara McLanahan, Laura Tach, and Daniel Schneider, “The Causal Effect of Father Absence,” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2013): 399-427. 

Downloads

Authors

Publication: Subcommittee on Human Resources and Committee on Ways and Means
Image Source: © Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
      
 
 




ind

How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Low Prices, Full Storage Tanks: What's Next for the Oil Industry

When the economy slows, so does the demand for oil. Prices have plummeted and storage tanks are filled to capacity. We look at the future of the oil industry.




ind

Cost Effectiveness Analysis and Finding the Best Policies to Fight COVID-19

Robert Stavins: Cost Effectiveness Analysis and Finding the Best Policies to Fight COVID-19




ind

Force India vows to solve Liuzzi's problems

Force India has vowed to work hard over the next two weeks to solve Tonio Liuzzi's set-up problems, which saw him fail to make the second session of qualifying in Turkey and finish the race a lap behind the leaders




ind

How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Low Prices, Full Storage Tanks: What's Next for the Oil Industry

When the economy slows, so does the demand for oil. Prices have plummeted and storage tanks are filled to capacity. We look at the future of the oil industry.




ind

How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Low Prices, Full Storage Tanks: What's Next for the Oil Industry

When the economy slows, so does the demand for oil. Prices have plummeted and storage tanks are filled to capacity. We look at the future of the oil industry.




ind

Cost Effectiveness Analysis and Finding the Best Policies to Fight COVID-19

Robert Stavins: Cost Effectiveness Analysis and Finding the Best Policies to Fight COVID-19




ind

How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Low Prices, Full Storage Tanks: What's Next for the Oil Industry

When the economy slows, so does the demand for oil. Prices have plummeted and storage tanks are filled to capacity. We look at the future of the oil industry.




ind

Cost Effectiveness Analysis and Finding the Best Policies to Fight COVID-19

Robert Stavins: Cost Effectiveness Analysis and Finding the Best Policies to Fight COVID-19




ind

The constraints that bind (or don’t): Integrating gender into economic constraints analyses

Introduction Around the world, the lives of women and girls have improved dramatically over the past 50 years. Life expectancy has increased, fertility rates have fallen, two-thirds of countries have reached gender parity in primary education, and women now make up over half of all university graduates (UNESCO 2019). Yet despite this progress, some elements…

       




ind

Gender and growth: The constraints that bind (or don’t)

At a time when 95 percent of Americans, and much of the world, is in lockdown, the often invisible and underappreciated work that women do all the time—at home, caring for children and families, caring for others (women make up three-quarters of health care workers), and in the classroom (women are the majority of teachers)—is…

       




ind

How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Low Prices, Full Storage Tanks: What's Next for the Oil Industry

When the economy slows, so does the demand for oil. Prices have plummeted and storage tanks are filled to capacity. We look at the future of the oil industry.




ind

How Clean is the U.S. Steel Industry? An International Benchmarking of Energy and CO2 Intensities

In this report, the authors conduct a benchmarking analysis for energy and CO2 emissions intensity of the steel industry among the largest steel-producing countries.




ind

Illuminating Homes with LEDs in India: Rapid Market Creation Towards Low-carbon Technology Transition in a Developing Country

This paper examines a recent, rapid, and ongoing transition of India's lighting market to light emitting diode (LED) technology, from a negligible market share to LEDs becoming the dominant lighting products within five years, despite the country's otherwise limited visibility in the global solid-state lighting industry.




ind

Low Prices, Full Storage Tanks: What's Next for the Oil Industry

When the economy slows, so does the demand for oil. Prices have plummeted and storage tanks are filled to capacity. We look at the future of the oil industry.




ind

First image of Force India VJM08

Force India has released the first image of its long-awaited 2015 car, the VJM08




ind

Hulkenberg to debut Force India's VJM08 on Friday

Force India plans to debut its 2015 challenger on Friday afternoon in Barcelona, with Nico Hulkenberg scheduled to be behind the wheel




ind

Force India finally debuts 2015 challenger

Force India's 2015 challenger made its long-awaited debut in Barcelona on Friday, only for it to suffer a left rear puncture during Nico Hulkenberg's first lap