2009 Family Impact Seminar: Helping Illinois' Families In Economic Crisis

Helping Illinois’ Families in Economic Crisis
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Hilton Springfield, 700 E. Adams Street, Springfield

Program

• “Inequalities: Old and New” -- Michael B. Katz, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and Research Associate, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania.
• “Making Work Pay in Illinois: Current Policies and Recommendations for Reform” -- Sarah Fass, Policy Associate, Family Economic Security, National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University,
• “Opportunities under the Recovery Act for Income Support for Low-Income Families”  -- Elizabeth Lower-Basch, Senior Policy Analyst, Workforce Development, Center for Law and Social Policy.

Michael B. Katz is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and a Research Associate in the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Educated at Harvard, he has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a resident fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies (Princeton), the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; he also has held a fellowship from the Open Society Institute.

Professor Katz is a fellow of the National Academy of Education, National Academy of Social Insurance, and the Society of American Historians. In 1999, he received a Senior Scholar Award - a lifetime achievement award - from the Spencer Foundation. From 1989-1995, he served as archivist to the Social Science Research Council's Committee for Research on the Urban Underclass and in 1992 was a member of the Task Force to Reduce Welfare Dependency appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania.

From 1991-1995, Professor Katz was Chair of the History Department at the University of Pennsylvania; from 1983-1996 he directed or co-directed the University’s undergraduate Urban Studies Program; in 1994, he founded the graduate certificate program in Urban Studies, which he co-directs. He is a past-president of the History of Education Society and of the Urban History Association. In 2007, he was given the Provost’s Award for Distinguished Graduate Student Teaching and Mentoring.

Sarah Fass researches child poverty and policies that promote the economic security and well-being of low-income families, including federal and state family leave policies, at the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. She plays a leading role in NCCP's Making Work Supports Work project, which analyzes federal and state work-support policies -- such as tax credits, public health insurance, and child care subsidies -- and explores policy reforms. the project builds on NCCP's innovative policy analysis tools, the Family Resource Simulator and the Basic Needs Budget Calculator. Ms. Fass has also written about cross-state policy variation and measures of poverty and income adequacy.

Ms. Fass holds a Master of Public Health degree from the Mailman School, and a Bachelor's degree in American Studies and French from Georgetown University.

View Ms. Fass's PowerPoint presentation (PDF)

Elizabeth Lower-Basch is a Senior Policy Analyst with the workforce team at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). Her areas of focus include welfare policy, job quality, and supports for low-income working families. Prior to joining CLASP, Ms. Lower-Basch worked from 1996 to 2006 for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Ms. Lower-Basch received a Masters of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

CLASP is a national nonprofit that works to improve the lives of low-income people. CLASP’s mission is to improve the economic security, educational and workforce prospects, and family stability of low-income parents, children, and youth and to secure equal justice for all.

View Ms. Lower-Basch's PowerPoint presentation (PDF)

Additional Material

• Making Work Supports Work project description (NCCP)
• Supporting Work in Illinois: The Challenges Ahead (NCCP)
• Staying Afloat in Tough Times: What State Are and Aren't Doing to Promote Family Economic Security (NCCP)
   
• Modernizing Unemployment Insurance -- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (National Employment Law Project)
• Questions and Answers about the TANF Emergency Fund-PDF (Center for Law and Social Policy)
• Preliminary Summary of Key Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Aimed at Improving the Lives of Low-Income Americans-PDF (CLASP)
   
• Child Care Quality in Illinois (The Illinois Report 2009)
• Poverty and Inequality in Illinois-PDF(The Illinois Report 2008)
• Policy Forum: Illinois Families Under Stress-PDF (June 2008)
• Policy Forum: After School Programs That Work-PDF (May 2007)