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Welcome to our Public Policy Center

As a leading community impact organization, United Way knows that real and sustained change in community conditions requires more than money. United Way engages decision-makers and policy leaders at the local, state and national levels to help address the most important community needs.

Show your support for healthy aging for seniors...Support Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 245

United Way and other agencies that support healthy aging for seniors urge you to show your support for Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 245.

It is imperative that our state senators pass HB 45 before they recess for summer vacation and we urgently need your help.

HB 245 will expand the current limitations of the Pennsylvania Family Caregiver Support Program by bringing our Commonwealth’s eligibility requirements in line with Federal guidelines, allowing non-related or live-in caregivers of older adults with dementia to be reimbursed -- and at higher level – for care-related expenses.

This bill is not asking for additional appropriations. We are simply asking to amend HB 245 to adjust the limits on the current bill so our local area agencies on aging can have the flexibility needed to effectively target state funding they receive, and in turn help caregivers provide a safe and healthy home environment for older adults with dementia. Passage of this bill not only allows more seniors to maintain a quality of life they deserve, but ensures greater fiscal responsibility for taxpayers.

House passes important early learning bill

The US House of Representatives has passed the Student Aid & Fiscal Responsibility Act (HR 3221), which seeks to dramatically transform early learning settings for low-income children to ensure they arrive at school with the skills they need to succeed.

The legislation would establish an Early Learning Challenge Fund to award competitive grants to states that implement comprehensive standards-based reforms to their early learning systems. The fund would provide $1 billion in grants over eight years. The goals would be to:

Help transform early education standards and practices.
Build an effective early childhood workforce.
Improve the school readiness outcomes of young children.

"Investing in our earliest learners is an investment in our future; it's a smart and strategic investment that will help us regain our global competitiveness and our economy recover," said Rep. George Miller, who as chair of the House Education and Labor Committee spearheaded the effort.

"The first five years of life are critical to laying the foundation for a lifetime of success and achievement which means we need to start giving these children the attention and resources they deserve well before they enter the doors of kindergarten."

In order to qualify for a grant, states would have to demonstrate progress in improving early learning standards reform, evidence-based program quality standards, enhanced program review and monitoring of program quality, comprehensive professional development, coordinated system for facilitating screenings for disability, health, and mental health needs, improved support to parents, a process for assessing children's school readiness, and Improved data systems to improve child outcomes.

The bill also converts all new federal student lending to the Direct Loan program, increases the maximum annual Pell Grant scholarship to $5,550 in 2010 and to $6,900 by 2019, increases funding to bolster college access and completion support programs for students, including increasing funds for the College Access Challenge Grant program and efforts to increase financial literacy and help retain and graduate students.

The measure now goes to the Senate.

For more information, click here.

House bill adds billions to early childhood education, college prep

The US House Education and Labor Committee approves by a 30-17 margin a bill that would provide billions of dollars for early education and college efforts.

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (HR 3221) allocates $10 billion for a new competitive grants program to help states build comprehensive, high-quality early learning systems for children from birth through age five as well as $3 billion to bolster college access and completion support programs for students.

The bill also provided $1.2 billion for historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions to provide students with the support they need to stay in school and graduate.

Sponsors say that the bill will pay for itself by making changes to the nation's federal student loan program that will generate $87 billion in savings over 10 years.

For more on the legislation, click here

President Obama signs State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) Reauthorization Act on February 4, 2009

Congratulations and thank you for your hard work on behalf of America’s children. We are pleased to report that, as a result of the dedication and persistence of children’s health advocates such as yourself, on February 4, 2009, the House of Representatives voted in a bi-partisan manner (290-135) to approve the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (H.R. 2) as passed by the Senate last week. To view how your Representative voted please click here.

Passage of this bill couldn’t have been done without you and you are commended for your steadfast commitment to ensuring that this nation’s children grow up healthy. Below we have provided for your review an outline of various key provisions of the SCHIP Reauthorization bill.

Overview of Key Provisions Included in H.R. 2 as Provided by the Speaker’s Office

Ensures health care coverage for 11 million American children. The bill renews and improves the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), reauthorizing it for four and a half years – through FY 2013. The bill ensures that the roughly 7 million children who currently participate in SCHIP continue to receive coverage. It also extends coverage to 4.1 million uninsured children, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Improves care and strengthens funding. The bill invests in new funding over the next four and a half years in SCHIP in order to strengthen SCHIP’s financing; increase health care coverage for low-income, uninsured children; and improve the quality of health care children receive.
Provides resources for states to reach uninsured children who are today eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid but not yet enrolled. Two-thirds of uninsured children are currently eligible for coverage through SCHIP or Medicaid – but better outreach and adequate funding are needed to identify and enroll them. This bill gives states the resources and incentives, such as certain bonus payments and a new option for “Express Lane” enrollment, necessary to reach and cover millions of uninsured children who are eligible for, but not enrolled in, SCHIP and Medicaid.
Improves SCHIP benefits – ensuring dental coverage and mental health parity. Under the bill, quality dental coverage will now be provided to all children enrolled in SCHIP. The bill also ensures that children receive mental health services on par with the medical and surgical benefits covered under SCHIP.
Provides a new “dental wrap” benefit under SCHIP. As amended by the Senate, because private insurance coverage of dental care is often limited, states will have a new option to provide dental-only coverage to children who are otherwise insured to ensure access to dental services.
Prioritizes children’s coverage and phases out coverage of childless adults and parents. The bill phases out the coverage of childless adults and parents in SCHIP. (While the bill phases out the coverage of these adults, it also gives states a new option to cover pregnant women under SCHIP to ensure that babies get a healthy start.)
Improves the quality of care for low-income children. The bill establishes a new initiative to develop and implement pediatric health quality measures and improve state reporting of quality data.
Improves outreach tools to streamline enrollment of eligible children. The bill provides $100 million in grants for new outreach activities to states, local governments, schools, community-based organizations, safety-net providers and others.
Targets efforts on enrolling the lowest-income children. Under the bill, bonus payments to states that enroll eligible but uninsured children are only paid for children who are newly enrolled in Medicaid, not SCHIP. Medicaid-eligible children are the lowest-income children in a state. The bill also ensures states focus on the lowest-income children by prohibiting states from receiving the higher SCHIP matching rate for any children covered in families with annual incomes above $54,930 for a family of three.
Improves access to private coverage options. The bill contains provisions designed to minimize children moving from private insurance to SCHIP. For example, it creates new options for states to develop and expand premium assistance programs, which allow states to use SCHIP and Medicaid funds to help subsidize employer-sponsored health care coverage for a child (thereby keeping a child in their parents’ employer-sponsored health plan.)
Ensures illegal immigrants do not receive coverage under SCHIP. The bill includes a provision explicitly reaffirming that nothing in the act allows for payments for individuals who are not legal residents. In addition, under current law, there is no citizenship documentation requirement for SCHIP. The bill requires, for the first time, that SCHIP programs comply with the citizenship and identity documentation requirements in Medicaid. To ensure that the citizenship documentation requirements are met, without discouraging enrollment of eligible citizen children, the legislation allows states the option to electronically verify citizenship and identity through the Social Security Administration. That provision includes all the modifications negotiated with House and Senate Republicans in 2007.
Gives states the option of ensuring certain legal immigrant children and pregnant women can access health coverage without delay. The bill gives states the option of covering legal immigrant children and pregnant women who have been here less than five years under SCHIP and Medicaid. The current five-year wait period can mean the difference between preventing or treating health conditions that can affect a child’s prospects for a healthy and productive life – or leaving those conditions undetected and not prevented, costing taxpayers much more in the long run. Similarly, a pregnant woman cannot wait five years for pre-natal care that will help her have a healthy baby.
Is fully paid-for – with an increase in the tobacco tax. The bill increases the federal excise tax on cigarettes by 62 cents a pack – from 39 cents to $1.01 – and also increases taxes on other tobacco products. Raising the tobacco tax discourages children from smoking – and polls show the public supports it as a way to pay for health care. According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an increase of 62-cents-a-pack in the cigarette tax means that nearly 1.9 million fewer children will take up smoking.

UWSEPA Joins Governor to Help Kindergarten Kids Get the Right Start

Educators and policymakers have learned that getting children ready for school includes building a strong pathway between preschool and grade school that will guide the youngest students as they transition into kindergarten. That’s why United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania brought together an innovative Community Engagement Team that is building and strengthening this pathway for at-risk children in Philadelphia.

On December 4th and 5th, Governor Ed Rendell’s Linking Ready Kids to Ready Schools forum kicks off a statewide effort to establish and improve kindergarten transition initiatives across the Commonwealth. United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania and its Community Engagement Team partners is there to share what they’ve learned through their successful kindergarten transition work and to participate in shaping the state’s plans for making such support available to more Pennsylvania children in the future.

To learn more about Pennsylvania’s Early Childhood Initiatives and declare your support for our young children, visit www.papromiseforchildren.com.

Bailout Uninsured Children

Nine million uninsured children in American need a health coverage "bailout."

Inflation adjustments, bailout bill expand tax benefits

For 2009, personal exemptions and standard deductions will rise and tax brackets will widen because of inflation adjustments announced by the Internal Revenue Service.

By law, the dollar amounts for a variety of tax provisions must be revised each year to keep pace with inflation. As a result, more than three dozen tax benefits, affecting virtually every taxpayer, are being adjusted for 2009. Key changes affecting 2009 returns, filed by most taxpayers in early 2010, include the following:

The maximum earned income tax credit for low and moderate income workers and working families with two or more children is $5,028, up from $4,824. The income limit for the credit for joint return filers with two or more children is $43,415, up from $41,646.
The value of each personal and dependency exemption, available to most taxpayers, is $3,650, up $150 from 2008.
The new standard deduction is $11,400 for married couples filing a joint return (up $500), $5,700 for singles and married individuals filing separately (up $250) and $8,350 for heads of household (up $350). Nearly two out of three taxpayers take the standard deduction, rather than itemizing deductions, such as mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes.
Tax-bracket thresholds increase for each filing status. For a married couple filing a joint return, for example, the taxable-income threshold separating the 15-percent bracket from the 25-percent bracket is $67,900, up from $65,100 in 2008.
Also, a Child Tax Credit expansion passed as part of the bailout legislation will benefit 13 million children — 2.9 million who will become newly eligible for the benefit and 10.1 million who will see their credit increased due to this provision, according to the Tax Policy Center. These 13 million children come from families with parents who work in such jobs as nursing home aides, cook, pre-school teachers, and construction workers.

Families that are “newly eligible” are those with incomes between $8,500 and $12,050. A broader group of low-income families would see their credit increase as a result of this provision, because the size of their credit is based on the amount by which the family’s earnings exceed the threshold. Specifically, the provision would temporarily expand the credit by lowering — for tax year 2008 — the earnings threshold that families must meet to qualify for the refundable portion of the credit. Families would qualify for a refundable credit if their earnings exceeded $8,500; under current law, by contrast, families must have earnings above $12,050 in 2008 to qualify for the refundable child tax credit.

Senior centers condemn state funding problems

The Pennsylvania Senior Support Coalition has challenged state legislators and the Governor for what Philadelphia Senior Center director Bob Groves calls an “outrageous lack of support” for senior centers and other groups.

The Senior Support Coalition includes AARP, the Pennsylvania Association of Senior Centers, the Pennsylvania Homecare Association, CARIE, the Pennsylvania Adult Day Care Association, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the Association of Area Agencies on Aging.

In a letter to state legislators, the group criticized the state’s FY 2009 budget for failing to provide a cost-of-living increase to senior services supported by lottery and Medicaid Waiver funds. Senior centers in particular have received less than 1% per year in cost of living adjustments since 2003.

The group notes that by under-funding community services that seek to identify and support isolated seniors, the state only increased the financial burden on more costly institutional care programs for these seniors.

While the state reported a $66 million surplus in lottery proceeds last fiscal year, most of the money was used to balance the state budget in other areas.

To download an analysis of the funding crisis prepared by the coalition, click here.

Petition supports senior choice

Research shows that Pennsylvania elders would rather stay at home than live in a nursing home. Research also shows that it is significantly cheaper for the state to support elders at home where they'd rather be. In fact, research shows that Pennsylvania taxpayers currently spend approximately $60,000 a year or more to put someone into a nursing home - while it costs $20,000 or less to keep someone in their own home and their community.

My Life, My Choice: PA Seniors for Homecare is a growing movement fighting for the dignity, respect, and rights of all Pennsylvanians to choose to live at home, if they want to. The group is sponsoring a petition drive to let the Governor and legislators know that voters support senior choice and asking them to create a statewide solution for quality home care for Pennsylvania seniors.

By 2020 over 20% of Pennsylvanian will be over 65 years old - and the over-85 population will have increased by 52%.

Click here to sign the petition.

School aid for homeless children declines in Pennsylvania

An analysis by Philadelphia’s People’s Emergency Center indicates that the number of homeless students enrolled in Pennsylvania schools decreased by over 50% between the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school year, from about 25,000 to slightly more than 12,000. About 5,000 of these youth attend Philadelphia public schools.

But PEC says that the numbers don't indicate a real reduction in the number of homeless children, but rather result from regulations that make it harder to count them.

Nationally, the number of enrolled homeless school age students declined from 907,228 to 679,000, according to the PEC report. 264,000 enrolled homeless school age students were supported by their school districts but without support from the Education for Homeless Children and Youth program in FY 2006-07.
PEC says that the dramatic change is due to a number of procedural factors, including changes in federal regulations on counting students, and incomplete reports from large school districts. PEC says that based on its discussions with education officials, the decline is due to federal changes in how it counts students rather than an actual decline in the number of homeless students.

Homeless children and youth are defined as enrolled if they are attending classes and participating fully in school activities. In the Federal Data Collection, 679,000 children were enrolled in the 2006-2007 school year, a decrease from the previous year of 907,228. Twenty-nine states reported increases in the total homeless children and youth enrolled, while twenty-four states reported a decrease. The report analyzed by PEC suggests that the numbers are significantly different due to the effects of hurricanes that struck the United States during 2005-06, including hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In Pennsylvania, the decline in the total number of homeless children and youth enrolled in schools is the lowest total in the past four years:

The number of all homeless students proficient in reading in grades 3-8 decreased from 49% in FY 2005-06 to 45% in FY 2006-07. The number proficient in mathematics in grades 3-8 increased from 45% to 46%.

PEC’s report says that Philadelphia’s 5,000 homeless children are among the most at-risk children for academic failure. It said it produced this analysis in the hope that understanding national trends will assist policy and program leaders in their development of sound policies to assist homeless students.

The Education of Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program was added to the McKinney Vento Act Homeless Assistance Act in 1987. In 1990, the McKinney Vento program was amended and the authorized funding level was increased, which enables states to give grants to local education agencies (LEA’s) to provide direct services. EHCY was attached to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) legislation. The new purpose of the EHCY program is to help homeless students succeed in school by providing enrollment assistance, help in obtaining school records and other documentation, providing school supplies, providing transportation assistance, conducting identification and outreach programs, and coordinating referrals for services.

The debate over the numbers of homeless arises because federal agencies do not use a consistent definition of homelessness which lead to the inability of a community to know how many homeless children actually reside within its boundaries. Most notably, according to PEC, the US Department of Education and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have different definitions. HUD does not considered homeless people “doubled up” with others to be homeless, even though the majority of homeless children are believed to reside in such arrangements rather than in public shelters or programs. Thus a doubled up homeless child would receive educational services but the same doubled up family will not receive housing services. Congress is debating this issue as it considers changing the McKinney Vento homeless law.

The full federal report on which PEC based its analysis can be found here.

Action Alerts:

United Way’s Stuff the Bus project will benefit 2,000 children in 40 shelters throughout the region by supplying each of them with everything they need to start school off on the right foot. For more information, visit www.liveunitedphilly.org.

Casey Foundation calls for new poverty guidelines

The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) wants the federal government to adopt a new way to measure poverty that provides a more accurate statistical portrait of economically struggling Americans.

Appearing before a House Ways & Means subcommittee, AECF President and CEO Douglas W. Nelson testified that the time is right to rethink the way data about low-income Americans is collected. To illustrate the need, Nelson cited surveys that show growing public interest in anti-poverty efforts, including a Spotlight on Poverty & Opportunity (SPO) survey showing 56% of respondents do not think the media has devoted an adequate amount of time during the presidential campaign to the issue of poverty.

Nelson says the current poverty measure, which was created in the 1960s, does not accurately portray the real costs of living for low-income families because it does not account for key expenses such as transportation to work, child care, state and local taxes, or the value of benefits such as food stamps, housing assistance, and the earned income and child tax credits.

Saying that other efforts to measure child well-being in the United States also are inadequate and obsolete, Nelson called for the creation of a state-level survey of child well-being that would provide reliable data in a range of areas, including education, social and emotional development, health and safety, and family well-being. Such a survey is currently supported by legislation in both chambers of Congress.

In Pennsylvania, PathwaysPA, with the help of state agencies and United Way, publishes the Pennsylvania Self-Sufficiency Standard, which details how much it costs to meet the cost of living in each of the state’s 67 counties. Pathways also published the Elder Economic Security Standard, which focuses on the special challenges faced by senior citizens in making ends meet. Both documents are available from PathwaysPA on their website.

2-1-1…The Time is Now

What is 2-1-1?

2-1-1 is an easy-to-remember telephone number that can be used to connect people with important community services and volunteer opportunities. While 2-1-1 currently serves approximately 215 million Americans in 43 states, unfortunately, Pennsylvania has not yet adopted it’s own 2-1-1 system.

Why 211?

2-1-1 provides better service and access to human services, creates efficiencies, complements emergency systems, and creates an "information utility" that would provide data on an estimated 1 million calls in Pennsylvania for needed services.

For more information on how you can be a part of bringing 2-1-1 to Pennsylvania, please visit www.PA211.org

Action Alerts:

Support The Calling for 2-1-1 Act [S. 211-H.R.211]

LIVE UNITED. Wear the Shirt.

Wear the shirt and be a part of the LIVE UNITED movement. LIVE UNITED. It's a credo. A mission. A goal. A constant reminder that when we reach out our hand to one, we influence the condition of all. We build the strength of our neighborhoods. We bolster the health of our communities. And we change the lives of those who walk by us everyday.