Latest Urban Institute Reports

Urban Institute Affiliated Scholar Len Burman explains why our spending and borrowing policies are leading the country toward catastrophic budget failure. Burman argues that the Congressional Budget Office’s bleak economic forecasts are too optimistic, so we must act quickly to reduce our deficits. Len Burman is the Daniel Patrick Moynihan professor of public policy at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.

The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program is the nation's largest employer-sponsored health plan, offering enrollees numerous options for health insurance. The program has long kept participation high, administrative costs low, and premiums affordable-making it an enticing model for health reformers of all political stripes. Most curent federal reform proposals include a similar insurance "exchange" to offer a range of private-market insurance choices to a broader population. While opening the FEHBP to non-federal employees or replicating its features nationally is not feasible, program experience suggests lessons about benefits design, relations with participating health plans, and avoiding adverse selection in enrollment.

Many taxpayers must calculate their federal income tax liability under two sets of rules: those applying to the regular income tax and those of the alternative minimum tax. If a taxpayer owes more tax under the alternative rules, then the difference is paid as AMT. The AMT hits people in some states harder than it does in others because state and local income and property taxes are not allowed as itemized deductions against the AMT and because income varies across states. This column discusses AMT participation rates by state.

Policymakers are considering modifications to the tax treatment of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) as a way to raise revenue to help pay for health reform and provide incentives to reduce health care costs. Understanding how current subsidies work is important to assessing health reform proposals. This brief presents essential information about the structure and distribution of existing tax subsidies for ESI and the implications for policy options.

This series of fact sheets provides a quick overview of the nonprofit sector in each of the nine parishes that comprise Central Louisiana – Allen, Avoyelles, Catahoula, Grant, LaSalle, Natchitoches, Rapides, Vernon, and Winn. Each fact sheet provides information on the number of nonprofits and congregations found in the parish; the types of services offered; basic financial measures, such as total revenues, expenses, assets, and liabilities; sources of revenue; and a measure of fiscal health. The fact sheets also include basic demographic information for the parish, such as total population, median age, race-ethnic composition and median household income. A companion report, A Profile of Nonprofit Organizations in Central Louisiana, provides a detailed analysis of the size, scope, fiscal health, and other dimensions of the sector.

Nonprofit organizations in Central Louisiana are an integral part of community life, helping people in need and providing cultural and civic opportunities to local residents. Yet most people have only a vague idea of the number and types of nonprofits in the region or the financial resources needed to support and sustain this work. This report is a comprehensive study of Central Louisiana's nonprofit sector. It examines the size, scope, and financial underpinning of the sector, and explores the extent to which nonprofits and religious congregations collaborate with each other and with other groups. It also reports the challenges that nonprofit and faith-based leaders see as critical to the region. A companion report, Central Louisiana in Focus, provides a statistical fact sheet for each of the nine parishes in the region.

Timothy Ross identifies the obstacles frustrating service coordination and details ways to strengthen the fragile web connecting the many systems involved in protecting foster youth. Child welfare agencies often have responsibility for a child when a family crisis arises, but not the authority or capacity to resolve it without cooperation from other government divisions. When complex systems and bureaucracies have overlapping jurisdiction, fine-tuned coordination is the exception and not the rule.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides essential help in purchasing food for most low-income Americans. Most families can qualify for benefits if their assets and income fall below minimum levels. SNAP caseloads are at an all-time high due to the recession and to program changes making it easier to receive benefits. The majority of working families that receive assistance are headed by single parents that work part time. SNAP benefits substantially reduce poverty, especially deep poverty, when benefits are added to cash income.

Low-income status in the United States varies significantly by race and ethnicity. Of the more than 13.4 million families with children living on incomes less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, 30 percent are Hispanic, 22 percent are black or African American, and 6 percent are other nonwhites. This fact sheet provides statistics on racial and ethnic differences in family structure, work effort, nativity or immigration status, earnings, and education.

Cities around the world are building urban cultural life as a way to develop local economies and revitalize urban centers. But they have done less to recognize and systematically promote the cultural lives of urban neighborhoods and their residents. This brief examines four characteristics of city cultural policy that affect cultural development and cultural life in neighborhoods. The brief is informed by policy forums held by The Living Cultures Project in New Orleans in 2008-2009 to address key policy issues confronting neighborhood and cultural life.