On November 14, the Brookings Center on Children and Families held a forum, “Paycheck Plus: A New Antipoverty Strategy for Single Adults in New York City,” focusing on a path-breaking demonstration by New York City’s Center for Economic Opportunity and MDRC that is rigorously testing a new earnings supplement for low-income single adults — mostly men — with the goal of promoting work and reducing poverty. A direct response to the downward trend in employment, wages, and earnings among the least skilled, the project will simulate an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income single workers without dependent children.

The event’s agenda:

Introduction: Isabel V. Sawhill, Co-Director of the Brookings Center on Children and Families

Overview: Gordon L. Berlin, President, MDRC

Keynote: The Honorable Sander Levin (D-Michigan)

Panel

• Moderator: Ron Haskins, Co-Director of the Brookings Center on Children and Families
• Linda Gibbs, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, City of New York
• Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum
• Harry J. Holzer, Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University, and Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
• Joseph Jones, Jr., Founder, President, and CEO, Center for Urban Families
• Vicki Turetsky, Commissioner, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services