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\nBy\u00a0David Riemer<\/p>\n
\nBy\u00a0David Riemer<\/p>\n
These are the components of the work-based policy package that I designed to greatly increase employment and\u00a0earnings, dramatically reduce poverty, and expand the middle-class:<\/p>\n
The choice of these policies is not random. In combination, they would dramatically reduce US poverty and greatly improve workers\u2019 economic security.<\/p>\n
A recent\u00a0report<\/a>*\u00a0by the Urban Institute (UI) that analyzed this 7-part, work-based, policy package\u00a0found that it would\u00a0bring about large increases in employment and earnings, unprecedented reductions in poverty, and huge\u00a0growth in the US middle class.<\/p>\n According to the UI Report, this policy package in 2018 would have:<\/p>\n The following chart shows how dramatically the policy package would decrease poverty and shrink “near poverty,”\u00a0while greatly expanding the middle class.<\/p>\n COMMENT: In a musical chairs economy (not enough jobs to go around) joblessness (both full and partial) is inevitable. Skill deficits, the job-seeking effort of jobless individuals, employment discrimination, family privilege, and other such factors determines who will suffer joblessness, but it is the size of the job gap and its geographic distribution that determines how much unemployment must be suffered and where it will be suffered. — Philip Harvey, Legislative Policy Advisor and Counsel, NJFAN<\/p>\n * Kevin Werner and Linda Gianarelli, “How a Work-Based Policy Package Can Reduce US Poverty<\/a>,” The Urban Institute, August 2025<\/p>\n David Riemer, a member of the NJFAN\u2019s Board of Directors and Chair of its Program Committee.\u00a0Riemer\u00a0is a Senior Fellow at the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he led the effort to design a Work-based Policy package to ensure US workers economic security and enlarge America\u2019s middle class that is featured in this issue of the\u00a0NJFAN Newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n During his career, Riemer played a major role in enacting Wisconsin\u2019s Transitional Jobs program, supplemental Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and its BadgerCare health insurance program.\u00a0 <\/em>Riemer\u00a0directed the Wisconsin Health Project (2004-2007 and served as Wisconsin\u2019s Budget Director (2003). From 1988-2001, he worked for Milwaukee Mayor Norquist as Budget Director, Administration Director, and Chief of Staff.\u00a0Riemer\u00a0previously served as legal advisor to Wisconsin Governor Patrick Lucey and counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy\u2019s health subcommittee.<\/em><\/p>\n David Riemer\u00a0is the author of\u00a0The Prisoners of Welfare\u00a0(Prager, 1988) and\u00a0Putting Government In Its Place: The Case for a New Deal\u00a03.0\u00a0 (HenschelHAUS, 2019). He is a graduate of Harvard College (1970) and Harvard Law School (1975).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By\u00a0David Riemer These are the components of the work-based policy package that I designed to greatly increase employment and\u00a0earnings, dramatically reduce poverty, and expand the middle-class: A national Transitional Jobs program…like the New Deal\u2019s Works Progress Administration (WPA) A much higher federal minimum wage…roughly $17.50\/hour A restructured and bigger Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) Renewal… Read More A Work-Based Policy Package That Would\u00a0Dramatically Reduce Poverty<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[143,201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-job-guarantee","category-poverty"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14957"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14959,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14957\/revisions\/14959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njfac.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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