J. Michael Collins, director of the Center for Financial Security, explains some of the efforts behind getting more low-income people to save money and talks about the challenges in developing good policy and helpful financial products for the under-banked population.

A Pew Research Center Report issued on November 5, 2012, found that young adults set records for high-school and college degrees. Record shares of young adults ages 25 to 29 in 2012 have completed a high-school education and obtained a four-year college degree, in part as a result of the weak job market during and since the recent recession. College completion rates have also risen to record levels among key demographic groups, including men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, immigrants, and native-born Americans.

The "Annual Statistical Report on Children in Foster Homes and Children in Families Receiving Payments in Excess of the Poverty Income Level from a State Program (Funded Under Part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act)" is now available for fiscal year 2012 through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families' Office of Family Assistance. This information can be identified by State and/or territory. This report is required annually of all State agencies administering or supervising administration of TANF and child welfare programs.

The federal child-care subsidy program represents one of the government’s largest investments in early care and education, but little is known about whether it increases low-income children’s access to higher quality child care. This study used newly available nationally representative data on 4-year-old children (N = 750) to investigate whether subsidy receipt elevates child-care quality. Results indicate that subsidy recipients use higher quality care compared to nonrecipients who use no other publicly funded care, but lower quality care compared to nonrecipients who instead use Head Start or public pre-k. Findings suggest that subsidies may have the potential to enhance care quality but that parents who use subsidies are not accessing the highest quality care available to low-income families. (author abstract)

In this KIDS COUNT policy report, the Casey Foundation finds that nearly 6.5 million U.S. teens and young adults are neither in school nor in the workforce. With employment among young people at its lowest levels since the 1950s, these youth are veering toward chronic unemployment as adults and failing to gain the skills employers need in the 21st century. In addition to new national and state data on the issue, the report offers recommendations to support youth in gaining a stronger foothold in the economy.

The Alliance for Excellent Education recently released a new brief, The Role of Language and Literacy in College- and Career-Ready Standards: Rethinking Policy and Practice in Support of English Language Learners. This brief states that by 2020, more than half of all public school students will likely have a non–English-speaking background. Nevertheless, in all college- and career-ready standards, including the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), English is embedded throughout. Thus, in order to meet these standards, the growing proportion of students who are English language learners (ELLs) must possess and be able to demonstrate an understanding of not only the subject matter being considered but also of the English language. The brief also provides recommendations in four key areas to be implemented at the State level.

Nearly 6.5 million U.S. teens and young adults are neither in school nor in the workforce, veering toward chronic underemployment as adults and failing to gain the skills employers need in the 21st century, according to a new KIDS COUNT® report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The number of working youth dropped by almost half since 2000, while employment among young people is at its lowest level since the 1950s. This article highlights the "Youth and Work: Restoring Teen and Young Adult Connections to Opportunity" report that presents State-by-State data and highlights how issues of teen unemployment are exacerbated among youth from low-income families and among minority populations. It also emphasizes the need to provide multiple, flexible pathways to success for disconnected young people and to find ways to reengage high school dropouts.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research published an issue brief discussing the root cause of unemployment in the United States. Explanations of current levels of unemployment as resulting from structural unemployment, or a mismatch between the skills of the unemployed and the types of jobs available, is discussed. Evidence indicating that unemployment is actually a lack of aggregate demand is confirmed with strong evidence and graphical representations of data collected over the past six years.

This paper is a part of the Urban Institute's Unemployment and Recovery Project, an initiative to assess unemployment's effect on individuals, families, and communities; gauge government policies' effectiveness; and recommend policy changes to boost job creation, improve workers' job prospects, and support out-of-work Americans. This paper discusses the Great Recession and the high unemployment that followed, as well as how the workforce system responded to challenges, its performance over the past five years, and the adequacy of its funding system. It concludes that the American public policy response to the Great Recession was unbalanced and did not fully serve the immediate needs of unemployed workers by adequately funding reemployment and training services.

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) released a report in June 2012 analyzing the dramatic shifts in the global labor markets over the past several decades, causing blatant skill and wage gaps across the world. This report addressed the trends in advanced economies, with the creation of high-paying jobs for those workers who have attained high levels of education, and the stagnant wages and job losses for those workers with low educational attainment. Income trends within the United States are discussed, as well as predictions of labor market dynamics for the next two decades.