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Opportunity NYC

Citing Opportunity NYC, UK PM Proposes 'Contract Out of Poverty'
February 22, 2008; various excerpts
UK's Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

Today - for individual families to escape the daily injustices of poverty - I propose new Contracts out of Poverty.

"Matching new opportunities to support their children with new responsibilities to take up work, to acquire new skills, to make the most of their lives. Support for parents who undergo a skills audit and take up training to improve their job prospects.

"Ensuring that work pays and is a route out of poverty for couples and lone parents.

"Individual contracts between families and government showing in this generation the power of opportunity to change lives for good.

From The Times Online:
Cash for families that beat poverty trap
By Philip Webster, Political Editor
Thursday, February 14, 2008

Ministers are examining a scheme introduced in New York by Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor, called Opportunity NYC, which is testing whether temporary cash payments that provide incentives for work, education and health activities can help to combat poverty. This is aimed at specific inner-city areas, with high and persistent poverty. It covers 2,500 families... Participating families receive bimonthly cash payments in return for specified activities, such as staying in full-time work or undertaking training. In the New York scheme, the payments will be available for two to three years, depending on available funding...

© Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.

From The Guardian:
PM launches 'opportunity revolution'
By Will Woodward, chief political correspondent
Friday February 15 2008

Plans for a new "contract" between the government and low-income families designed to reduce child poverty and drive social mobility will be unveiled by Gordon Brown...his "contract out of poverty" requires deprived families to do all they can themselves to lift themselves, adapting schemes in the US and Scandinavia to the British system.

The government is looking at a programme in New York titled Opportunity NYC, which is offering cash payments over two to three years to families who take part in work, education or health activities.

Brown does not want to offer payments for sending children to school, but believes that some of the novel elements of the US scheme, offering more rewards to the families that do the most activities, are worth exploring.

Opportunity NYC covers 2,500 families in the toughest areas of the city. Families benefiting from the scheme earn an average of $4,000 to $6,000 (£2,028 to £3,042) a year from it. It is backed by the New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, but funded by private donors including the Rockefeller Foundation.

Stephen Timms, the employment minister, is shortly due to visit New York to find out more about the scheme.

According to Brown, "Because one talent squandered haunts us with the thoughts of what might have been, we need a new national mission to ensure that there is opportunity for all — a drive that enables us to unlock all of the talents of all of the people."

"We must all play our part in it — unions, charities, community organisations, faith groups and businesses. We must all share responsibility."

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008 top of the page