Kids to Receive Declining Share of Federal Spending (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteChildren are a diminishing priority in the federal budget, a study from the Urban Institute and New America Foundation shows. If current spending and revenue policies continue, the children’s share of domestic federal spending-which excludes defense, non-defense homeland security, and international affairs-will be 13.8 percent in 2018, down from 16.2 percent in 2007 and 20.2 percent in 1960.
| Posted: June 24, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
Tax Policy Center Establishes "Opportunity Fund" to Support Tax System Research and Analysis (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteThe Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center launches a new intellectual venture capital fund to help policymakers, the public and the media better understand the U.S. tax system and the policy challenges facing the nation over the next decade. The $10 million Opportunity Fund will include a $2.5 million challenge grant from the Gates Foundation.
| Posted: June 18, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
DNA More Effective Than Fingerprints in Solving Property Crimes (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteDNA evidence isn't a typical tool for investigating property crimes like burglary, but a new Urban Institute report reveals that biological evidence can be remarkably effective in solving and prosecuting such crimes.
| Posted: June 16, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
Urban Institute's Summer Academy Welcomes Its First Class of Undergraduate Scholars (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteTen budding undergraduate researchers have been selected for the debut class of the Urban Institute Summer Academy for Public Policy Analysis and Research. The Summer Academy, established with support from the Ford Foundation, addresses the underrepresentation of minorities and people from distressed communities in public policy research. Academy students will take part in an intensive eight-week program that will help hone their analytical and research skills.
| Posted: June 04, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
Increased Collaboration Between Jails and Communities Can Improve the Return of Inmates to Society (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban Institute"Life after Lockup: Improving Reentry from Jail to the Community" is the first national resource focusing on jail inmates' transition from incarceration to society. It presents an overview of U.S. jails and their population and how reentry from jail differs markedly from reentry from state and federal prisons. The report examines concrete reentry steps, profiles 42 reentry programs around the country, and explores probation's role in the process. A companion report, "The Jail Administrators' Toolkit for Reentry," is a handbook on assessment of inmates' needs, identifying community resources, educating the public, and measuring success.
| Posted: May 15, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
Book Probes Tax issues Facing the Next President and Congress, Offers Policy Lessons (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteEugene Steuerle's Contemporary U.S. Tax Policy, second edition, details how federal tax policy since the 1950s has evolved and trains an expert's eye on its considerable successes, shortfalls, and problems. He prefaces his account with an explanation of important tax policy principles and an overview of the main actors and their changing roles. Steuerle closes his engaging narrative with a perceptive analysis of President George Bush's unsuccessful second-term efforts to use commissions to reform Social Security and to rewrite the tax code.
| Posted: May 14, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
"Disturbing Levels of CEO Dissatisfaction With Board Performance" at Midsize Nonprofits, Study Finds (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteMost heads of midsize nonprofits give their trustees low marks for fundraising and monitoring board performance, an Urban Institute study of nonprofits with annual expenses between $500,000 and $5 million has found.
| Posted: May 08, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
New Edition of Nonprofit Almanac Offers Detailed Portrait of an Expanding Sector (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteThe Nonprofit Almanac 2008, from the Urban Institute Press, offers data and facts charting the sector’s recent evolution. The statistics-packed volume can help nonprofit managers, researchers, the press, and the public better understand changes in the sector and its economic role.
| Posted: May 02, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
Bush-Era Tax Cuts Depart From History of America War Finance (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteWar and Taxes, to be released May 6 by the Urban Institute Press, chronicles the political arguments, economic conditions, and public opinions that made it possible for previous presidents and Congresses to raise taxes, sell bonds, and cut domestic spending to pay for wars. The authors contrast the tax hikes enacted to support previous military operations with the extraordinary tax cuts Americans have enjoyed during the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—all without overstating previous generations' enthusiasm for wartime sacrifice.
| Posted: April 30, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
Massachusetts Inmates Report High Use of Prison Program, But Face Postrelease Challenges With Substance Abuse and Limited Employment (Press Release)Author(s): The Urban InstituteFormer prisoners in Massachusetts are back behind bars at a significantly lower rate than the national average, new research from the Urban Institute and the Massachusetts Department of Correction finds. Thirty-nine percent of the 1,786 male inmates released in 2002 by the Department of Correction (DOC) were in prison again within three years, compared with the national average of 53 percent. Interviews with 178 men who returned to prison show that substance use and employment instability ranked among their greatest challenges while in the community.
| Posted: April 30, 2008 | Availability: HTML |
