love is respect hosts Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month (TDVAM) annually as an effort to focus on advocacy and education to stop dating abuse before it starts. The theme, “Love Like That,” illuminates what ‘that’ means regarding healthy and unhealthy relationships. This webpage offers the 2024 TDVAM materials, including an action guide, a calendar of events, and a social media guide.

The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center is hosting a re-watch of a webinar hosted originally in 2023, on February 21, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. ET. In this live re-watch, participants will hear a discussion on how youth advocates can address teen dating violence in Tribal communities. The webinar will include available tools and resources for Native youth; defining violent versus healthy relationships, and empowering the next generation through Indigenous values.

In 2020, the Urban Institute (UI) published a framework comprising 26 mobility metrics that can help communities understand and track the factors that most influence mobility from poverty. Urban Institute’s framework identifies five pillars that support mobility from poverty and their predictors, which both reflect performance and can be influenced by local leaders to help bolster the conditions that boost upward mobility and narrow racial inequities.

On January 25, 2024, the Center for the Study of Social Policy hosted a webinar where community providers discussed the challenges they face in providing responsive services, including building evidence and operating in the context of restrictive “evidence-based” standards. Panelists provided recommendations for actions that state and federal policymakers can take to ensure all families have the support they need through expanding access and availability of programs that are developed by and for communities of color.

Read the corresponding brief here.

This brief from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation’s Office of Human Services Policy overviews a project that developed a calculator to help people anticipate how a change in earnings from employment would affect their net income, which in turn provided public benefit recipients with their estimated effective marginal tax rate on new earnings. The calculator was designed to support program participants and caseworkers. Demo calculators were developed for New Hampshire, Maine, Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., and were completely customized under their local programs and rules. Local governments and local organizations can download the open-source code to start creating a customized calculator for their families.

The social safety net includes numerous programs that families with lower incomes can access to obtain cash income, resources for food, and help with housing, child care expenses, and energy costs. However, many people who are eligible for these programs do not receive help. This Urban Institute report uses the Analysis of Transfers, Taxes, and Income Security microsimulation model to hypothetically assess the aggregate benefit dollars and reductions in poverty if there was 100% participation in the following means-tested programs:

• Supplemental Security Income;
• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program;
• The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children;
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families;
• Child care subsidies supported by the Child Care and Development Fund;
• The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program; and
• Public and subsidized housing programs.

Results are provided nationally and at the state level, as well as by age group and race and ethnicity.

A benefits cliff may occur when an increase in income pushes a worker above the income eligibility limit for public assistance programs, and the loss of assistance is greater than the value of the increase. This Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta webinar explored the economic challenge of benefit cliffs from the perspective of employers and community leaders who help families navigate public assistance programs and plan for career advancement opportunities. The webinar presented tools that can identify and inform mitigation strategies as well as a discussion of innovation pilots in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington D.C. to develop benefits cliff solutions.

Benefits cliffs refer to the sudden and often unexpected decrease in public benefits that can occur with a small increase in earnings. This happens when families receive benefits through a public assistance program, earn a raise, and then become ineligible to continue receiving benefits despite being unable to sustain their household. This National Conference of State Legislatures report provides an overview on the Federal income eligibility requirements for public assistance programs, including housing assistance, utility assistance, food and nutrition assistance, direct cash assistance, child care, and health insurance. Additionally, it highlights work requirements for these public assistance programs and state policy strategies and legislation related to benefit cliffs.

The Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau is hosting a webinar on February 13, 2024, from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. ET, where an expert panel will discuss the need for structured mentorship for women in the trades. Panelists will focus on best practices for program startup and review successful program structures.

As the United States confronts social, structural, and economic shifts driven by climate change, the need for workers with new skills and capabilities is clear. But not enough workers are trained and prepared for these opportunities. Jobs for the Future (JFF) launched the Quality Green Jobs Regional Challenge to invest nearly $5 million in communities to develop and implement regional strategies to grow quality green jobs. The challenge is part of Climate-Resilient Employees for a Sustainable Tomorrow (CREST), which is a five-year initiative of the Ares Charitable Foundation to prepare and reskill individuals for green jobs to help ensure an equitable and inclusive economy. This JFF resource provides insights on the perceptions, barriers, and solutions in pursuit of green jobs and skills.