Becky Blank Fills in the Time

“Out of the Spotlight” Postings for December 1, 2008

Becky Blank Fills in the Time. With all the talk about a new official poverty measure, including Congressional hearings, newspaper editorials and articles, you may be wondering why we۪re still living with Molly Orshansky۪s four-decade old back-of-the-envelope and it۪s-all-about- the-groceries methodology. Well, this just in from Becky Blank

As the expert in a November 26 Brookings web chat, “Decrease Poverty and Increase Opportunity,” Blank suggests a new official poverty measure would take just a year to implement. And, she notes, a target to decrease poverty that is set when poverty is high (like around a year or so from now) is good timing

“I’d really like to create a new and more accurate poverty measure, and when that is released, announce a national poverty reduction effort from this new baseline. It’ll take about a year to release a new poverty measure…this will be just about the time that the recession is ending and poverty will have gone up significantly. That’s a good time to focus the nation’s attention on trying to reduce this number. There’s a Half in Ten campaign to cut poverty in half in 10 years…I’d even take Half in Twenty!”

In case you are in a need-to-know mode: Blank calls the Brookings Institution home after stints as dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and co-director of the National Poverty Center, not to mention her service over at the Council of Economic Advisors and the National Academy of Sciences. We are certain, of course, that Becky should be best known as a member of Spotlight۪s Council of Advisors.

Posted by Jodie, December 1, 2008