Making Work Supports Work Publications

To help inform the national debate on how to improve the health care system, this fact sheet examines current gaps in parents’ access to health coverage, looks at the patchwork of policies that exists across the states, and argues that a national approach is needed.

Through the Making Work Supports Work project, NCCP aims to promote policies that make work pay—with the goal that all full-time workers should be able to provide for their families and that earning more should always improve a family’s financial bottom line. This project description highlights key findings and points the way toward policy reforms.

This brief discusses the benefits of paid family leave, examines existing state-level policies, and provides recommendations for how state policies could be crafted to best serve the needs of low-wage workers and their families.

The Basic Needs Budgets developed by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) show the cost of basic day-to-day necessities for families with children. Using examples from these bare-bones budgets, this brief examines the question of how much families need to get by and provides insight into the struggles that working families face. Examples are drawn from 12 localities and are based on families with two children; budgets for other family types and localities are available through NCCP’s Basic Needs Budget Calculator.

Child care is one of the largest expenses working families face in Houston. Using results from NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator, this fact sheet finds that unless families receive help with the cost of care, low-wage working parents are unable to make ends meet.

This report analyzes the effectiveness of Iowa’s “work supports” – such as earned income tax credits, public health insurance, and child care assistance. Work supports can close the gap between low earnings and basic expenses, but working more does not always pay as families lose eligibility for critical supports.

Child care is one of the largest expenses working families face in San Antonio. Using results from NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator, this fact sheet finds that unless families receive help with the cost of care, low-wage working parents are unable to make ends meet.

This report tracks state-level policies that help families both avoid and cope with economic hardship. Three categories of policies are examined: work attachment and advancement, income adequacy, and asset development and protection.

Using results from NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator, this report illustrates Child Care policy challenges and discusses possible solutions that would better help Colorado’s low- to moderate-income workers meet their child care needs.

Commissioned by the Economic Policy Institute for its Agenda for Shared Prosperity, this report describes why work support benefits are critical for low-wage workers. It explains the current state of work supports in the U.S., highlighting the need to address benefit "cliffs" and high marginal tax rates; funding constraints; and participation barriers. The report concludes with a concrete set of proposals for reform at the national level.

Many of Detroit’s parents struggle to support their children, despite full-time work. This fact sheet shows that work supports—such as the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and child care subsidies—can help. But reforms are needed to ensure that these policies effectively support workers in the transition from low-wage work to economic self-sufficiency.

More than a third of Illinois' children live in low-income families. This fact sheet shows that although most of these children have employed parents, many families do not receive the work supports that can close the gap between resources and expenses.

Using the Family Resource Simulator, Supporting Work in Illinois shows how benefit losses can outweigh increases in earnings. In all localities discussed, and in both single- and two-parent families, workers face similar challenges as they try to get ahead. The report offers policy strategies that better reward work.

More than a third of Michigan’s children live in low-income families. This fact sheet looks at employment and the use of work support benefits among low-income families in Michigan as a whole and also in Detroit. It finds that most low-income children have employed parents, but many families do not receive the work supports that can close the gap between resources and expenses.

This brief informs policymakers and others about the difficulties faced by low-income working parents as they strive to make progress in the workforce. Based on results from NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator, When Work Doesn’t Pay highlights ways in which the current structure of work support policies often leads to unintended consequences.

This fact sheet shows that families in New York are struggling despite small family sizes and high rates of parental employment. More than two out of every five children in New York State live in low-income families. Low-income rates are even higher in New York City, where more than half of the children live in low-income families.

Federal budget proposals put forth by President Bush and the U.S. Congress call for dramatic cuts to programs that assist low-income families and their children. The majority of these families have at least one parent who works full time, yet they still struggle to make ends meet. This brief uses NCCP’s Family Resource Simulator to illustrate how proposed cuts in vital work supports—Medicaid, food stamps, housing assistance, and child care—will affect these families.