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The Justice Reinvestment Initiative: Experiences from the States (Research Report)
Nancy G. La Vigne, Julie Samuels, Samuel Bieler, Debbie Mayer, Laura Pacifici, Lindsey Cramer, Bryce Peterson, Cybele Kotonias, Dave McClure, Helen Ho

This brief summarizes the efforts of states involved in the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), a program designed to identify and implement cost-efficient, evidence-based criminal justice reforms. To do so, jurisdictions use data analysis to identify criminal justice population and cost drivers and then develop policy options to reduce those drivers. The 17 states that have adopted the JRI model are projected to save $3.3 billion over 10 years. States plan to reinvest a share of these savings into high-performing public safety strategies.

Posted to Web: August 01, 2013Publication Date: August 01, 2013

Nonstandard Work Schedules and the Well-being of Low-Income Families (Press Release)
Urban Institute

Forty percent of full-time workers toiling outside the traditional daytime weekday schedule bring home paychecks that put them in the lowest wage quartile, an Urban Institute analysis shows. Among all full-time employees with very low wages, 25 percent work most of their hours on a nonstandard schedule.

Posted to Web: July 31, 2013Publication Date: July 31, 2013

Nonstandard Work Schedules and the Well-being of Low-Income Families (Discussion Papers/Low Income Working Families)
Maria E. Enchautegui

In 2010–11, 28 percent of lower-income workers, and 20 percent of all workers, worked most of their hours between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. or on weekends. The occupations and industries with the most nonstandard-schedule workers are among the lowest paid and among those with the most expected employment growth by 2020. These workers have to arrange child care when most centers are closed, commute when public transportation is less available, and carve out time with family, while often working irregular schedules with no paid time off. Work support strategies, workplace development, and schools can help work-family balance.

Posted to Web: July 31, 2013Publication Date: July 31, 2013

Labor Force Statistics on Older Americans, Second Quarter 2013 (Policy Briefs/Retirement Project Brief Series)
Richard W. Johnson, Benjamin G. Southgate

This data brief reports quarterly labor force statistics for older Americans, a growing segment of the workforce. It reports labor force participation rates, unemployment rates, employment-to-population ratios, and the share of unemployed workers who have been out of work for more than six months, and compares outcomes to earlier years. Labor market outcomes did not improve much for older or younger workers in the second quarter of 2013. Older workers continue to fare better than their younger counterparts, although older unemployed adults take longer to find work.

Posted to Web: July 30, 2013Publication Date: July 30, 2013

Counting Homeless Youth (Research Report)
Mike Pergamit, Mary K. Cunningham, Martha R. Burt, Pamela Lee, Brent Howell, Kassie Dumlao Bertumen

Knowing how many youth are homeless is a critical first step in helping them, but it's not easy to count a hidden population. Nine communities across the United States set out to improve their counts through the Youth Count! Initiative. The Urban Institute observed their work and drew out promising practices and lessons for improvement.

Posted to Web: July 30, 2013Publication Date: July 30, 2013

Youth Count! Process Study (Research Report)
Mike Pergamit, Mary K. Cunningham, Martha R. Burt, Pamela Lee, Brent Howell, Kassie Dumlao Bertumen

Homelessness among unaccompanied youth is a hidden problem: the number of young people who experience homelessness each year is largely unknown. To improve the national response to youth homelessness, policymakers need better data on the magnitude of the problem. Youth Count! is a Federal interagency initiative that aims to improve counts of unaccompanied homeless youth. Nine communities participated in the initiative by expanding their annual homeless point-in-time efforts to increase coverage of homeless youth. Urban Institute conducted a process study of the initiative to identify promising practices that could be adapted and taken to scale to produce credible and useful data nationwide.

Posted to Web: July 30, 2013Publication Date: July 30, 2013

How Did the Great Recession Affect Social Security Claiming? (Policy Briefs/Retirement Project Brief Series)
Richard W. Johnson, Karen E. Smith, Owen Haaga

Social Security retirement claiming grew in 2009 as unemployment soared. The increase was modest, however, because unemployment growth at older ages was largely offset by growth in the number of older adults choosing to work longer. Half of women and more than half of men now wait until after age 62 to claim their retirement benefits, the largest proportions in decades. The recent increase in Social Security's full retirement age has prompted many retirees to wait at least until they turn 66 years old to begin collecting benefits, as a quarter of men now claim at that age or later.

Posted to Web: July 29, 2013Publication Date: July 29, 2013

How Do the Changing Labor Supply Behavior and Marriage Patterns of Women Affect Social Security Replacement Rates? (Series/The Retirement Project Discussion Papers)
April Yanyuan Wu, Nadia Karamcheva, Alicia H. Munnell, Patrick Purcell

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study and Modeling Income in the Near Term, this paper examines the impact of the changing lives of women on Social Security replacement rates. Replacement rates have dropped sharply at both the household- and individual-level, and the decline will continue for future retirees. Decomposing the reasons for the overall decline shows that increases in the labor supply and earnings of women explain more than one-third of the change. In contrast, the impact of changing marital patterns is relatively small. Much of the remaining explanation rests with the increased Full Retirement Age and changing claiming behaviors.

Posted to Web: July 29, 2013Publication Date: July 29, 2013

Race, Justifiable Homicide, and Stand Your Ground Laws (Research Report)
John Roman

This study finds that homicides with a white perpetrator and a black victim are ten times more likely to be ruled justified than cases with a black perpetrator and a white victim, and the gap is larger in states with Stand Your Ground laws. After accounting for a variety of factors, such as whether the victim and perpetrator were strangers, the gap is smaller, but still significant. Cases with a white perpetrator and a black victim are 281 percent more likely to be ruled justified than cases with a white perpetrator and white victim.

Posted to Web: July 26, 2013Publication Date: July 26, 2013

Measuring Income for Distributional Analysis (Research Report)
Joseph Rosenberg

This document describes the income measure the Tax Policy Center (TPC) uses to analyze the distribution of federal taxes. TPC's income measure, which we call "expanded cash income" (ECI), is a broad measure of pre-tax income. We use it both to rank tax units in distribution tables and to calculate effective tax rates. Compared to narrower measures of income—such as AGI or cash income (the income measure used previously by TPC)—ECI provides a more accurate ranking of taxpayers and better estimates of the overall burden of the federal tax system and the effect of tax policy changes.

Posted to Web: July 25, 2013Publication Date: July 25, 2013

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