IWPR Analysis Informs Historic Sick Days Ordinance in Austin
In February, the Austin City Council passed an ordinance to require the city’s employers to provide paid sick days. The ordinance’s historic passage makes Austin, Texas, the first city in the South to guarantee paid sick days to workers. IWPR’s research on access to paid sick days in Austin and the costs and benefits of implementing the proposed ordinance informed city policymakers and coalitions, led by Work Strong Austin. IWPR study director Jessica Milli testified before the council on IWPR’s analysis, which found that implementing paid sick days in Austin would save the city’s businesses $4.5 million per year. Read coverage of this exciting development in The Texas Observer, Next City, the Austin American-Statesman, KUT, The Austin Chronicle, ThinkProgress, and CityLab.
>>Read the briefing paper, Valuing Good Health in Austin, Texas: The Costs and Benefits of Earned Sick Days
Proposed Trump Budget Includes Modest Increase in CCAMPIS Funding
The Trump Administration’s recently released proposed budget for fiscal year 2019 includes a modest increase in funding for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program—an important program that helps provide access to affordable child care for student parents—a reversal from last year’s budget proposal, which removed funding for the program altogether.
The Department of Education cited IWPR’s research on single mothers in college in the supporting documents justifying the department’s budget request, noting that, “One significant barrier to completion for low-income students and single parents is the lack of convenient and affordable quality child care services. In 2017, the Institute of Women’s Policy Research published a briefing paper concluding that single student mothers had, on average, over $6,600 in unmet need each year, more than $1,700 higher than the average need of non-parenting women in college, and $2,000 more than married mothers’ unmet need in 2012.
Read more about the Administration’s reversal on CCAMPIS in Refinery29, “Trump Reverses Plans To Cut Student Parent Support Program”
