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This paper is a response to New Safety Net Paper 5, "Supporting Work for Low-Income People with Significant Challenges" by Pamela Loprest and Karin Martinson.
Loprest and Martinson provide an overview of the issues related to supporting work and provide relevant background on past research and various strategies that have been employed to address the problem of helping low-income people with significant challenges engage in and sustain employment. They find that there is potential for states to develop strategies for addressing the needs of individuals with significant challenges to work, and based on this assessment they discuss and recommend policy changes on three levels:
- legislative and regulatory changes to existing programs
- new federal support for programs serving people with multiple challenges
- longer-term options
In my comments, I will focus primarily on the ideas for policy reform posed by Loprest and Martinson from the perspective of someone who shares their concern about the need and who views the issues as a state administrator who must also be mindful of feasibility and implementation challenges.
To begin, I applaud the authors for focusing on a policy goal of employment for low-income parents rather than a proposal that opts out of the difficult task of assisting those with significant challenges. It would be tempting to return to past policies that tended to exclude these parents from work expectations or requirements. This approach would exclude some families from the opportunity to gain both the financial and nonfinancial benefits of employment. Loprest and Martinson have taken the more difficult yet more productive path of working toward solutions to the challenges these parents face.
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