It’s not just that the data released today by the Census Bureau is bad news, the coverage and analysis by some so-called progressive organizations is also a big disappointment. They mostly buried the fact that income declined for full-time, year around workers. Even our leading “new hope” for progressive thinking decided to link the poverty announcement with the ten year anniversary of Temporary Assistance. (Or as some insist on calling it: “welfare reform”.) Why is this a problem? Let’s start with this – what sense does it make to lead with the fact that “many” parents have neither welfare nor a job? This is a fight that social conservatives would love to have! Don’t voters already think that if you aren’t working you don’t get welfare? Isn’t that exactly what the 1996 reform was proclaimed to be all about? The technical details aren’t going to matter here – public perception does. Leading your defense of the funding with people who aren’t working seems foolhardy. You’ve just confirmed the public perception of the poor, and done nothing to build support for the dwindling block grant. Any argument that follows about the quality of jobs or our economy may well be ignored by the public – because they’ve stopped paying attention while you were focusing on the people who aren’t “playing by the rules”. And why are so many progressive analysts focusing on the recent change in federal regulations that makes it harder to use Temporary Assistance to pay for college? It’s inconceivable that we will – anytime soon – win an argument about whether tax dollars should provide college scholarships to people who aren’t working. Even in the days when it was NOT discouraged by the federal government, state officials did not generally choose to spend public dollars this way. Again, social conservatives will be happy to engage in this fight. Instead, why aren’t we pointing to the success of the block grant from our perspective, and working to change the public perception about who benefits? Aren’t we more likely to get public and elected official support for the block grant (and maybe more investment in education and training) if everyone understands that the funds are used to provide employment benefits to working people? Social conservatives are trying their best to avoid a fight over the need to create funding and incentives for better low-wage employment benefits. That’s why they are demonizing low-wage workers now. We should be angling for a fight about the quality of low-wage jobs and corporate responsibility. Meanwhile we should be more strategic in our effort to preserve the largest block grant available for low-wage employment benefits and insurance for those temporarily between jobs (but ineligible for traditional Unemployment Insurance). I’m no longer surprised when some of the “leading” anti-poverty organizations in DC get sucked into a fight the right manufactures, an argument designed to undermine government and low-wage work supports. But it is a huge disappointment to see that the newest think tank on the progressive block is singing the same old tune.