Economic Opportunity Agenda

Creating Opportunities for Low-Income Families to Achieve Self-Sufficiency

We all want Nebraska to be a place with strong communities, healthy families, and citizens that are invested in their neighborhoods, their state, and each other. Our “Good Life” is strengthened when Nebraskans have the opportunity to become productive citizens and fully participate in our democracy. Opportunity means having a fair chance to achieve one’s full potential and to participate fully in community life. Creating that opportunity for all Nebraskans requires that we make choices based on our shared values of:

Stability: Our society thrives when all of its members have the support they need to build and sustain stable lives. All Nebraskans should have meaningful access to a basic level of education, health care, and economic well being.

Economic Mobility: Our country is built on the idea that where you start out should not determine where you end up. People should have the opportunity to advance in the workforce and to pursue education and training in order to improve their lives.

Community: Our state is a place where caring for our neighbors is a way of life. Strong communities are built by investing in one another and assuring that prosperity is shared.

Nebraska’s Economic Opportunity Agenda promotes targeted public policy that invests in our shared values and creates opportunities for those who need them most - low-income Nebraskans. Currently, one in four families in our state are considered “working poor” - meaning that at least one person in the household is working but total household income is not enough for the family to be self-sufficient. It is these kinds of barriers to opportunity that we have a responsibility, and the power, to remove. Policies that create new opportunities for success include:

1.  Improving economic security through increased access to support:

• Simplify, expand eligibility for, and increase enrollment in public programs that expand opportunity such as child care assistance, which helps to ensure that working families can both earn a living wage and know that their children are safe.

2. Promoting economic mobility through education and training:

• Help low-wage workers access career advancement opportunities through tuition assistance, campus-based child care assistance, and training and placement services to help workers transition into stable careers.
• Develop incentives for employers that encourage the hiring and training of low-wage workers.

3. Investing in communities by making commitments to quality jobs:

• Require businesses receiving state incentives to provide benefits, pay living wages, and target economically disadvantaged communities.
• Improve wages.
• Increase tax credits for working people.

4. Providing access to quality health care so citizens can pursue these opportunities:

• Increase enrollment and expand eligibility for public health care programs
• Create and invest in new public-private partnerships to provide affordable health care options

Together, we can create opportunity for all Nebraskans.

Economic Opportunity Week 2008

The need to create opportunities for low-income Nebraskans was brought to the attention of State Senators March 3-7, 2008 in a number of surprising ways as the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest held “Economic Opportunity Week”. This educational event included deliveries each day of the week – such as an “EKG” report about health care - and will culminate in a breakfast event for Senators and staff members entitled “Economic Opportunity in Nebraska: Past, Present, and Future” hosted in partnership with the Center for People in Need. Read More...