Comments

|

E-mail

|

Print

Number of working youth dropped by almost half since 2000;

Nearly 6.5 million U.S. teens and young adults are neither in school nor in the workforce, veering toward chronic underemployment as adults and failing to gain the skills employers need in the 21st century, according to a new KIDS COUNT® report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Many of these young people, ranging from ages 16 to 24, face numerous obstacles, according to the report, Youth and Work: Restoring Teen and Young Adult Connections to Opportunity. Often described as disconnected youth, they are encountering greater competition from older workers for increasingly scarce entry-level jobs, especially in light of the recession. Many lack the higher skill set required for the well-paying jobs that are available. They often don’t graduate from high school on time or prepared for college, further decreasing their employment options. And a number of them contend with hurdles beyond their control, such as growing up in poverty, having few working adults as role models, attending low-performing schools and living with a single parent.

The lack of education, opportunity and connection to school or work has long-term implications, the report shows. Disconnected youth may become adults unable to achieve financial stability and without employment prospects. They also can present a significant cost to taxpayers, as government spends more to support them. In addition, the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey shows about 20 percent, or 1.4 million of these youths, have children of their own, which means their inability to find work and build careers can perpetuate an intergenerational cycle of poverty.

“All young people need opportunities to gain work experience and build the skills that are essential to being successful as an adult,” said Patrick McCarthy, president and CEO of the Foundation. “Ensuring youth are prepared for the high-skilled jobs available in today’s economy must be a national priority, for the sake of their future roles as citizens and parents, the future of our workforce and the strength of our nation as a whole.”

Youth and Work presents state-by-state data and highlights how these issues are exacerbated among youth from low-income families and among minority populations. Among black and Hispanic teens (ages 16 to 19), 16 percent are out of school and work, compared to the national average of 13 percent. Similarly, 29 percent of black young adults (ages 20-24) and 23 percent of their Hispanic peers are disconnected, exceeding the nation’s 20 percent average. Teen employment also varies widely among states, from 18 percent in California and Florida to 46 percent in North Dakota in 2011.

The report emphasizes the need to provide multiple, flexible pathways to success for disconnected young people and to find ways to reengage high school dropouts. Youth and Work also advocates creating opportunities for youth in school or other public systems that allow them to gain early job experience through such avenues as community service, internships and summer and part-time work. Its major recommendations include:

• A national youth employment strategy that streamlines systems and makes financial aid, funding and other support services more accessible and flexible; encourages more businesses to hire young people; and focuses on results, not process.
• Aligning resources within communities and among public and private funders to create collaborative efforts to support youth.
• Exploring new ways to create jobs through social enterprises such as Goodwill and microenterprises, with the support of public and private investors.
• Employer-sponsored earn-and-learn programs that foster the talent and skills that businesses require — and develop the types of employees they need.

“No one sector or system can solve this problem alone — it demands a collective and collaborative effort,” said Patrice Cromwell, director of economic development at the Casey Foundation. “Businesses, government, philanthropy and communities must work together with young people to help them develop the skills and experience they need to achieve long-term success and financial stability as adults.”

Youth and Work includes the latest youth employment data for every state, the District of Columbia and the nation. Additional information on disconnected youth and young adults is available in the KIDS COUNT Data Center, which also contains the most recent national, state and local data on hundreds of indicators of child well-being

Comments

|

E-mail

|

Print

Consumers saw nearly $1.5 billion in insurer rebates and overhead cost savings in 2011, due to the Affordable Care Act’s medical loss ratio provision requiring health insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health care or quality improvement activities or pay a rebate to their customers, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. Consumers with individual policies saw substantially reduced premiums when insurers reduced both administrative costs and profits to meet the new standards. While insurers in the small- and large-group markets achieved lower administrative costs, not all of these savings were passed on to employers and consumers, as many insurers increased profits in these markets.

“The medical loss ratio requirements are intended to give insurers an incentive to be more efficient and use most of their premium dollars for patient care,” said Sara Collins, Commonwealth Fund Vice President for Affordable Health Insurance. “This report is encouraging, as it demonstrates that these new rules are improving value for people buying health insurance on their own, which has traditionally been very challenging. However, it will be crucial to monitor insurers’ responses to this regulation over time to ensure that all purchasers and consumers benefit from the savings the law is designed to encourage.”

The new report, Insurers’ Responses to Regulation of Medical Loss Ratios, by Michael McCue of Virginia Commonwealth University and Mark Hall of Wake Forest University, looks at how insurers selling policies for individuals, small-employer groups (up to 100 workers), and large-employer groups (more than 50 or 100 workers, depending on the state) in every state reacted to the Affordable Care Act’s medical loss ratio requirement between 2010, the year just before the new rule took effect, and 2011, the first year the rule was in place. The authors find that in the individual insurance market, improvements were widespread: 39 states saw administrative costs drop, 37 states saw medical loss ratios improve, and 34 states saw reductions in operating profits. Some states stood out for significant improvements. In New Mexico, Missouri, West Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina, medical loss ratios improved 10 percentage points or more, while administrative costs dropped $99 or more per member in Delaware, Ohio, Louisiana, South Carolina, and New York.

However, the report finds that in small- and large-group markets, medical loss ratios were largely unchanged, and while spending on administrative costs dropped, profits increased. For example, in the small-group market, administrative costs were reduced by $190 million, profits increased by $226 million, and the medical loss ratio remained at 83 percent, unchanged from 2010. In the large-group market, insurers reduced administrative costs by $785 million, increased profits by $959 million, and kept their medical loss ratio at 89 percent, also unchanged from 2010.

The authors note that while insurers in the individual market have a less stringent medical loss ratio requirement—80 percent, as opposed to 85 percent in the large-group market—their traditionally higher overhead costs and lower medical loss ratios mean they have to work harder to reach the new standard. As a result, these insurers lowered both administrative costs and profit margins, therefore reducing growth in premiums.

Conversely, insurers in the small- and large-group markets generally already have medical loss ratios in the range of the required 85 percent, so while they reduced administrative costs, they had the option of turning those cost savings into profits instead of passing them along to consumers. In light of rising profits and falling administrative costs, the authors suggest it is possible insurers took profit increases in the small- and large-group markets to offset the reduced profits in the individual market. And because many insurers sell policies in all three markets, any reduction in administrative costs could have been spread across all of a given insurer’s lines of business.

Comments

|

E-mail

|

Print

Art History News

(all include lots of gorgeous art)

Mark Cohen: Strange Evidence

Working primarily in and around the small Pennsylvania cities of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, American street photographer Mark Cohen (b. 1943) photographs people and places encountered at random. In the 1970s he distinguished himself from older peers such as Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander by pushing aspects of street photography to extremes, producing pictures with little evident meaning and jarring compositions, such as faces or bodies only partly included in the picture frame. This exhibition of nearly 70 black-and-white and color photographs made during the past 40 years rev… more »

Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris

*Charles Marville, French, 1813 – 1879 Hôtel de la Marine, c. 1872-1876 albumen print National Gallery of Art, Washington Diana and Mallory Walker Fund * The first exhibition in the United States and the very first scholarly catalogue on the renowned 19th-century French photographer Charles Marville will present recently discovered, groundbreaking scholarship informing his art, including his identity, background, and family life. On view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington in October 2013, *Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris* will include some 100 photographs that repre… more »

American Art – New Auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s: Nov. 2012

American art auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s during the last week of November had generally outstanding results, albeit not without some disappointments. The top lot at Christie’s was Edward Hopper’s *October on Cape Cod* (1946), which went for $9.6 million; Martin John Heade’s *Hummingbird Perched on the Orchid Plant *(1901), brought $1,802,500; Charles Burchfield’s *Golden Dream *(1959), brought $1,202,500; and Stuart Davis’ *City Snow Scene *(1911), also went for $1,202,500. Georgia O’Keeffe had the top two lots at Sotheby’s; both plant paintings, *Autumn … more »

Examining the Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck

*The Ghent Altarpiece (Open), completed 1432. Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Saint Bavo Cathedral © Lukas -Art in Flanders vzw * This year it became possible to zoom into the intricate, breathtaking details of one of the most important works of art in the world, thanks to a newly completed website focused on the Ghent Altarpiece. A stunning and highly complex painting composed of separate oak panels, *The Mystic Lamb *of 1432 by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, known as the *Ghent Altarpiece*, underwent much-needed emergency conservation within the Villa Chapel in St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent… more »

Five Spanish Masterpieces, Goya, El Greco, Dali, Picasso

The Detroit Institute of Arts exhibited *Five Spanish Masterpieces*, on view June 21–August 19 2012, The exhibition comprised *Portrait of the Matador Pedro Romero, by Francisco de Goya, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; The Holy Family with St. Anne and the Infant St. John the Baptist, by El Greco, Museo del Prado, Madrid; Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, by Salvador Dalí, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Portrait of a Man, by Diego Velázquez, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Melancholy Woman, by Pablo Picasso, Detroit Institute of Arts. * *Portrait of the Mata… more »

Paolo Veronese: A Master and His Workshop in Renaissance Venice

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art presents the first comprehensive art exhibition in America in more than two decades devoted to Paolo Veronese (1528–1588), one of the giants of Venetian Renaissance painting. Titled *Paolo Veronese: A Master and His Workshop in Renaissance Venice *the exhibition brings together many of his finest paintings and drawings from North American collections, well as a group of prints after major works. The exhibition runs Dec. 6, 2012 through April 14, 2013 in the Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Wing of the Ringling Museum of Art. Not since the last … more »

The Warren J. and Margot Coville Photography Collection exhibition at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

The Warren J. and Margot Coville Photography Collection exhibition at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art explores iconic moments through the lens of many renowned photographers, including Berenice Abbott, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Barbara Morgan and Andre Kertesz. The show is a continuum of the Ringling’s Art of Our Time which focuses on leading contemporary artists. It comprises more than 75 images spanning the twentieth century and early twenty-first century. Among the stunning imagery on view is the 1888 construction of the Eiffel Tower and the 2001 atta… more »

Paris in Transition: Photographs from the National Gallery of Art

*Charles Nègre (1820 – 1880) Tuileries Statue: Boreas Abducting Orithyia, 1859 albumen print from collodion negative National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons’ Permanent Fund, 1995.36.109* * Paris in Transition: Photographs from the National Gallery of Art* on view in the Washington, DC gallery from February 11 through May 6, 2007, presented 61 of the Gallery’s photographs revealing the transformation of the French capital city and the art of photography from the mid-19th to early 20th century. The exhibition included photographs by Eugène Atget, André Kertész, Brassaï, Alfred… more »

Picasso: Themes and Variations

The Museum of Modern Art presented *Picasso: Themes and Variations*, an exhibition exploring Pablo Picasso’s creative process through the medium of printmaking, from March 28 to August 30, 2010. It featured approximately 100 works from the Museum’s superlative collection of the artist’s prints. The exhibition was organized by Deborah Wye, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art. Pablo Picasso’s insatiable curiosity and tireless urge to create art often led him to mediums beyond painting. He fully explored sculpture and d… more »

Gabriel Orozco

The Museum of Modern Art presented the first major museum retrospective of the artist Gabriel Orozco (Mexican, b. 1962), who since the early 1990s has forged a career marked by continuing innovation and has become one of the leading artists of his generation. On view from December 13, 2009, through March 1, 2010, this midcareer retrospective examined two decades of Orozco’s career in an exhibition of some 80 works, revealing how the artist roams freely and fluently among drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, and painting to create a heterogeneous body of objects that resis… more »

Pieter Claesz: Master of Haarlem Still Life

*Pieter Claesz Tabletop Still Life with Mince Pie and Basket of Grapes, 1625 oil on panel, Private collection * *Pieter Claesz: Master of Haarlem Still Life* was the first international exhibition dedicated to the work of one of the most important 17th-century Dutch still-life painters. The exhibition was on view at the National Gallery of Art—the only U.S. venue— from September 18 through December 31, 2005. Pieter Claesz featured 28 still lifes by Claesz (1596/1597–1660) from all phases of his career. It included more than 20 works by his predecessors and contemporaries, as well… more »