Second keynote speaker, were going to have our first keynote speaker, right . Yeah. I learned to count. Our format is that each keynote speaker will be introduced and then they give a talk and then they sit down and we quiz them a little bit. I think my quizzing may be a little more aggressive than jareds but maybe not. Then we open it up to the audience and youll get a chance to ask questions. So we have robert duerr. We invited approximately 100 republicans and none were willing to come. Members of congress and house and senate. So we decided to go with a brilliant genius who is not a member of congress, so i hope youll forgive us for that. Robert is here. Robert is a mortgage what is he exactly fellow in poverty at American Enterprise institute. Ive known him for 25 years at least starting when he was the head of the Child SupportEnforcement Program in new york which was an Amazing Program and did a lot for kids because they really collected a lot of money in new york. Then he went on to run virtually all Welfare Programs in new york city under mayor bloomberg and the last seven years. The last seven years, okay. So robert, lets hear what you have to say. Sure. Thank you, ron. I really appreciate being given this opportunity. Its nice to be here and as someone who spent almost 20 years working in new york city and state to make our programs work to reduce Child Poverty, im glad were having this discussion. But having said that, let me start out by saying that the universal child allowance seems to me to be another step to make the federal government the source of all things. It would, as its authors contend, quote establish the principle that all children are entitled to public support. Sounds nice, i think. But to me and im sure to other conservatives there has been some damage done by this widespread belief that all things come from the government, especially the federal government. What about the principle that all children are entitled to the support of their parents, their neighbors and communities. A universal child allowance paid through a monthly cash payment loaded on a ubiquitous federally issued benefit card would c establish a financial relationship between the federal government and every citizen and in the process will undermine the role of the individual, the parent, the extended family, and the neighbor. Point two, there is very little in the two papers on the impact on work earnings and Labor Force Participation in the united states. Despite the grudging and i might say very grudging recognition that our work and work support system has significantly reduced Child Poverty. I got into the social services in new york in the mid 1990s when Child Poverty as measured by the supplemental measure produced by chris was 28 . Its now 16. 7 . Thats a big drop. Why not focus on extending those gains through greater attention to increasing work and earnings. Given that i believe that expansions of nonwork tested components of the safety net, snap, immediate aid amedicaid a to reductions in work and earnings, im pretty sure that adding this new benefit without a work test will increase the work disincentives in our program. Its important to remember that the way work disincentives work is not through one individual program but through the combination of several programs. And those of us who want to reduce Child Poverty should be concerned about that. For a household with a single parent and two children, a child allowance plus snap and medicaid and without any earnings is still going to be poor. In fact, their income is still going to be below 50 of the poverty measure. But they may be well enough off so as to not work even though work is available. So it is possible that we may get more poverty by providing a benefit and encouraging less work. My point is that for low skilled parents to escape poverty, you need both earnings and support. I think the balance has already tilted too much away from work and this will take it still further which will make poverty reductions harder to achieve. I guess here i should say that i am not persuaded and i think other fair experts are also not convinced that the main argument for why we should consider this, that deep poverty for children is grown because of the too rigorous requirement of tanidentitanichlt f holds up. I think Research Shows that that doesnt hold up at all. Deep poverty has not gotten worse because of tanif. Deep poverty among children is still a problem. I have said for some time that government caseworkers in programs such as snap and medicaid, when presented with parents who say they have no earnings but all they want is snap and medicaid, should not say as they have been saying, thats okay, let me get you food stamps and medicaid and see you in a year. Instead, they should say, how can i help you get a job because you and your children cannot escape poverty on food stamps and medicaid alone. Point three, the proposals being discussed here could be seen by some as another maybe final step in our federal government saying that fathers are unnecessary. Not even worth engaging. Im sorry to say that. But i checked and theres only one word about the absent parent in these papers and that was in this paper. There is also too little recognition that poverty among children is most often related to singleparent households. Im not going to go into all the arguments of why we should talk about that except to say that if you want conservatives to support greater efforts to help poor children, and i want them to do that as well, one place to start is to acknowledge forcefully and without having to be asked the role of the family, two parents and marriage. Think of it as a credibility check. You want them to believe your models predicting future poverty reductions if only they go along with one more transfer payment. Well, at least you could start out by showing that you will talk about this issue of family formation in a way that makes them believe you. I dont have time to talk very much about Child Support enforcement except to say that the papers say nothing about that program. This once broadly bipartisan supported Program Still brings more than 1 million children out of poverty every year, and yet one reason we are considering a universal child allowance is because absent parents are not providing enough. Why not at least address ways to ensure, especially if youre going to provide a new cash benefit, that the absent parents at least provide something. Finally, cost. We are already overcommitted in our government, but i would say that more spending for children if the pay for was a true facing up to our longterm fiscal problem. I would prefer to see reforms with reduced or expected spending for retirees or Senior Citizens in order to investment in programs for children. This is a place where leadership p from progressives would be especially helpful in striking a grand bargain for children. I know there may not be a lot of hope for a grand bargain for children, but ive had this hope for a long time and im not going to stop hoping now. Finally, if we are all going to do one thing, just one thing, is this it . What about training and education, subsidized jobs programs, reentry assistance for people coming home from prison and employment for disconnected men. We could do a lot more there with less money than what these proposals cost. Thank you. Lets begin with this. I think some of you thought some of it was a little hesitant. But there does seem to be enhanced for at least a decade now that we have done a lot to reduce poverty by encouraging people to work and subsidizing work. So we have the most successful antipoverty strategy the nations ever had. Its to encourage work and subsidize the work. Its worked very well as several people here have shown and i dont think anybody said anything negative about that. Thats a victory. Thats good. It happens. It represents a huge change on the left because the left was really seriously in opposition to this measure back in 1996. And we argued about low income women and whether they really could work. A lot of democrats were worried about that. I think it was a legitimate concern. It turned out most of them could work and did work. Now because of the characteristics of some single women, some men as well, many men as well, its much more difficult for a fairly substantial fraction to hold down a job with economic changes or changes in the job market. So a big argument on behalf of this kind of benefit is that it would be the opposite of work plus work support. We wouldnt expect there would be a group of people that wouldnt work and we would give them a free and clear benefit. Thats the idea. It costs quite a bit, well come back to that in just a minute. Whats your problem with that . Diagnosis was the problem. Well, the basis of it is that we had this argument about whether moms could work and those who thought they could and they could be the true heros of welfare reform as president clinton used to say turned out to be correct. Based on jobs and Labor Force Participation by never married mothers in a way thats no one ever expected, they showed that once asked they could do it. But there is a group that right now appears to be on snap and medicaid and is not working. We want to know whats going on with them. My view is is that they are not they have stepped away from work requirements and are not being engaged significantly. The other thing i want to point out i i just want to say one thing about si. Through most of the conversation today we have not said anything about ssi or disability. In the Welfare Programs i ran in new york city, one component of our approach was when people said they could not work due to a health or physical impairment, there was a path toward ssi that allowed them to have support. I sometimes think in the rhetoric up here when people say there is no floor for people who cant work, there may be some misperception that it doesnt. So im not and thats where i am. I think that and i would also say that if it wasnt correct but the sprob not worse, id be more concerned about it. But i dont see it. I dont even see it in the security numbers which should come up in the wake of a recession. Im not sure they had to do with, you know its a matter of principle. It doesnt make a difference. If it is the case that theres a group at the bottom that does not qualify for ssi or ssci and they cannot work consistently because of where they live, because of their personal habits, whatever it ought to be and we have a desire to protect their children, there is some rational for a benefit. And there is not dependent on that. There is some rational on the effort at some level, community, state, town, village, to assist those families, i dont know that rational is for federal universal benefit that may have unintended consequences for the families that went to work. Remember, whenever you want to adjust when youre providing, youre going to have the adjustment that will benefit that person youre trying to help but it also will send a message or provide assistance to a group that may not have needed that. And thats what i worry about. If you have an entitlement system that allows more people to work, not work, more people will not work. I dont think thats good. The issue is society is that we have a zillion literature reviews including the person i think is most confident which is Robert Moffit and the effects are almost most inevitably smal. There is a large impact on those that are going to stop working in droves because they can get this 250 a month benefit. Here i am informed by my experience in new york city. We have strong work requirements. We have a modest recession in 2001. The Bush Administration and others expanded access to snap and changed the rules there. President obama continued that. And increased access to Public Health insurance, reduced application processes. There is no asset test. And our aim at reducing poverty stops in that period between the recession in 2001 and the grae recession in 2007. And i believe that happened because there was an ability for folks to knit together a variety of things that made them work less. I think thats unfortunate. Went through what about single mothers that starts increasing . It had. I think that is partly because the economy is finally come back and partly because people have begun to wonder about that a little bit. Even the Obama Administration began to send messages to the snap program. Hey, you know, we really should talk about work related help. I agree with you. It has come back. I think it is mostly due to the economy. No. But if they have insentive not to work and then jobs are more available and they go to work well, thats true. I should also point out. And this is long, long battle. And really taken way too long. But some wages have risen a little bit too. I think the work the fact that labor force is finally coming back is due to a variety of factors and i like it that way. I want that to continue. I dont want to stop it by providing another benefit that has no work. So responsive to your concerns about nonworkers, what do you think of a compromise that would include some benefit at the bottom . But would also greatly strengthen the Food Stamp Program and Medicaid Program . You might want to leave medica medicaid out. Thats a hard one. One of the problems that i have is that i relate to my experience in new york and we had some protections with people at the very bottom. We didnt have a firm time limit. The transition people were in the program. We didnt have a full family sanction. And we had this sort of effort on people with disabilities who said they couldnt work. So i could id be interested in that. I mean, i dont want to be associated with people with anyone who wants me to say that the Current Program now as it is in the state is perfect. Its not. And that may be contributing to the fact that some families are being left behind. But again, i keep coming back to where is it in the big data . This is in the big data in a significant way. What is in the big data is that in 1993, Child Poverty measured by chris was 28 . And it really, really did feel like this is a problem that could not be solved. And now it is 16. 7 . And thats a pretty big drop that we need to be careful about going backwards on. You were involved in it. You said you were yeah, i got it. We agreed thats because more people work and they get Better Benefits when they work. My position is if a social work kerr say if you work even at 9 an hour, youll be better off. One one more thing, i very little discussion in these papers about the implications of a federal limit. You know, i think chris said that ssa administration would run it. In new york city in terms of sort of client relationships or dealing with people. Its not one of the great programs of all time. I mean, im not comfortable with that. Social security . Im not comfortable with saying were going to address this program entirely through the federal government. There ought to be some recognition that we have this apparatus in the state that isnt purchase pr but maybe a better way to address the situation. Okay. I would like to see an alternative to hsa, too. It gives them another enormous job like this. The point is about im not sure hsa is the greatest answer although it may be the best. Okay. Lets talk about fathers now. We want fathers to play a role in this. Ironic will in the same reform bill, it is really tough requirements on fathers. And they by and large work pretty well, especially if you look at the first eight to ten years the Child Support payments did increase quite a bit. What would you do now to increase Child Support payments . They seem to have been theyre flat now. A lot of fathers, especially the probability that you have a father who pays Child Support for this group that were concerned about is very low. Relative to other fathers. I think the progress was very solid in the late 90s and early 2000s. And then it in a reaction to a problem which was that the program could be excessively harsh on a poor and struggling group. It adjusted. And in addition, single moms decided not to apply where there was a clear requirement that they cooperate. And i actually think that were not doing as much as we could to draw in these nonresident parents who could pay something. But i talk to somebody in a major city and they in an effort to be careful about getting, you know, overly harsh orders, 50 of the new orders were for zero dollars tlachlt is not hemmihel money in households. That is going through a bureaucratic process that meets a performance standard. Its not really helping. So my view, what i said is that for single parent households who are applying for snap, we ought to have a required referral for Child Support when he or she says, no, i have no agreement and im get nothing Child Support. We ought to ask them to go and work with the Child Support program to help get them something. And i associate myself with those who said earlier when you pay Child Support, youre more likely to be positively engaged with your child and motional and parental attention is important, too. I want that. I dont think you get that. When you can get Child Support as another mechanism to fill that problem at the bottom, youre going to get fathers for not cooperating. I was hoping you could say we could have a much stronger work program for fathers. We could work much harder on. That we have ten states or eight now, if you want to response yort university of wisconsin, it is one big study, to figure out if there are ways to get the fathers to work. They were very encouraging. A significant portion of income that comes into poor single parent households come in the form of Child Support when they get it. We should help that happen more often. One way we should have