Pathways to Ending Poverty
Pathways to Ending Poverty seeks to change the way we think about poverty by creating and testing a specific “policy package” that, if implemented, would reduce poverty in Wisconsin to a residual 2-5%. This new framework, based on the best evidence about which policy changes actually lower poverty, as well as rigorous modeling, aims to shift the debate about poverty to a serious, evidence-based discussion about which combination of policies for ending poverty would actually make the most sense for our state.
Pathways to Ending Poverty will:
- Create a realistic poverty line for Wisconsin and Milwaukee. The current poverty line, dating to the early 1960s, is no longer valid. With the help of Steve Holt, who has written extensively on poverty issues for the Brookings Institution and other groups, we have examined alternative poverty measures developed by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and recommended a preliminary new poverty measure for Milwaukee and Wisconsin. Steve Holt’s final report (PDF) is now available.
In September 2010 the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, under the direction of Professor Tim Smeeding, presented an NAS-based “Wisconsin Measure” of poverty to guide future policymaking.
- Establish a specific goal for reducing poverty in Wisconsin. Our current goal is to reduce poverty from the current level of 11% to a residual 2-5%.
- Determine which “policy packages” of changes to our current systems of need-based or work-based assistance, social insurance, incentives and investments are likely to get Wisconsin to the residual 2% poverty goal. We are looking at what the evidence says as we put together alternative combinations and consult with a number of local advisors such as Julie Kerksick, Sheri Johnson, Tim Smeeding and Don Sykes; and national experts such as Gordon Berlin, Greg Duncan, Peter Edelman, Eboni Howard, Demetra Nightingale and Mark Rank.
- Retain an independent, analytic organization to test alternative “policy packages” to confirm that they reduce poverty to a residual 2-5%; quantify estimated costs; and assess likely positive side-effects (with a particular emphasis on improved health outcomes) and gauge unintended negative consequences. This is the heart of the project.
With support from the Salvation Army, we have completed an initial Health Impact Assessment that estimates the health benefits of reducing poverty to single digits. Download PDFs of the "Health Impact Assessment Debriefing": PowerPoint presentation and full report.
We are now testing several versions of a preferred "policy package" through the Urban Institute's TRIM model.
- Communicate to local and national policymakers the results about which “policy package” does the best job of reducing poverty to a residual level, at the lowest cost and with the best side-effects.
Pathways to Ending Poverty is a unique initiative to reduce poverty to close to zero. We have been directly influenced by work from the Center for American Progress and the “Half in Ten Campaign,” which decided that cutting poverty by 50% within a decade was their goal, producing an Urban Institute report that shows how to reduce poverty by 26%.
