Sectors and Clusters - Sector and cluster strategies are two distinct but complementary approaches that attempt to align -business and workforce development at the state and regional levels and address the problem of high-quality job creation, utilitizing many of the same policy tools.
 

Minimum Wage - Many minimum wage employees who work full-time and year-round end up below the official federal poverty line. States can raise the low-wage floor high enough to keep all full-time workers, regardless of their position in the labor market, above the poverty line, while not suffering job losses.
 

State Earned Income Tax Credit -  A state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) can help remedy poverty by supplementing the earnings of lower-wage employees, typically “piggy-backing” on the uniform federal EITC.  
 

Adequacy Based School Funding - An adequacy based school financing system that allocates each school enough funding to meet state defined educational standards is the best means of providing a high performance education system for children across the socio-economic spectrum.
 

Universal Pre-K - Pre-K initiatives are a proven alternative whose long-term benefits-- financial and social -- far exceed the costs of implementation.
 
Dean Baker – UVA’s
The retirement system in the United States is badly tattered. Companies cannot fulfill their pension obligations, Americans are no longer saving, and Social Security no longer pays enough to secure a middle class lifestyle.  
 

Dean Baker – Subprime Borrower Protection Plan
This proposal would temporarily alter the rules on foreclosure to give homeowners facing foreclosure the option of renting their home for a long period of time (e.g. 10-20 years) at the market rate. This rate would be determined by an independent appraiser in the same way that an appraiser determines the market value of a home when a bank issues a mortgage.
 

Matt Fellowes – Bank On Campaign
Nearly all American households lose hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars in potential income, savings, or wealth every year because of their difficulty using financial services. This is evidenced by problems as small as difficulties choosing between basic checking accounts to those as large as properly diversifying investments and wisely choosing between different assets.
 

Mark Greenberg – Poverty Reduction
The new Census data tells us that one in eight Americans --- 37.3 million people --- had incomes below the official federal poverty line in 2007. Because the official poverty line is inadequate in many ways, that number does not reflect the far greater number of Americans struggling to make ends meet. 

 

Combined Reporting - Tax codes in some states allow corporations to avoid their full tax burden. Combined reporting is a way to prevent corporate tax avoidance and collect that state’s fair share of taxes from multi-state corporations.
  

Simplifying Public Benefits - The complexity involved in applying for public benefits such as Medicaid, Food Stamps and TANF, stops numerous Americans from receiving the services they need. States can improve access to services by aligning eligibility standards, using a single application, and implementing a “no wrong door” application process.
 

Labor Standards through State Procurement - States should use their purchasing power to leverage other important state goals—such as promoting a fair workplace, creating high-wage jobs with good benefits, and curbing energy consumption and pollution.
 

Election Day Registration - Many people who are eligible to vote are not registered for many reasons, but states can easily remove one obstacle to registration by allowing Election Day registration (EDR).
 

Public Financing of Elections - Election outcomes are increasingly determined by which candidate is able to raise the most money. One solution to this problem is to even the political playing field through publicly financed elections.
 
Eric Schnurer – Performance Reviews
Progressive public leaders can demonstrate executive excellence by aggressively implementing better, smarter ways to deliver services, and by using innovative regulatory approaches focused on compliance.

Sustainable Economy 

Appliance Efficiency Standards
A modest reduction in energy consumption by appliances —from computers to toasters—could significantly reduce a household's energy cost. 
 

Net Metering
States can promote energy generation and lower energy consumption by allowing homes and businesses to capture the full benefit of the electricity they generate through wind turbines or solar panels, and sell surplus energy back to the grid.
 

Utility Revenue Decoupling
Lowering energy consumption saves consumers money, conserves resources for future use, and reduces pollution, but contrary to these benefits, utility companies often have a financial incentive to increase consumption. Utility revenue decoupling is a way to eliminates the systemic bias that encourages higher consumption.
 

Transit Oriented Development
Affordable, accessible, sustainable communities are essential to a healthy urban environment, but development on the edges of existing cities has become a common form of urban growth. Transit oriented development, or TOD, is one way to achieve smart growth and re-direct urban development towards a more sustainable model.
 

Brownfield Development
The greatest challenge to pursuing smart growth through the revitalization of brownfield sites is the need to level the playing field between greenfield and brownfield development.  By creating voluntary cleanup programs (VCPs) states can begin to rectify this imbalance.

 

Bill Prindle – Energy Efficiency
By focusing on energy efficiency a governor can reduce costs to consumers, businesses, and government and create a more robust, reliable, and sustainable economy.
 

Rob Puentes – Infrastructure
There is not enough money to build and maintain our nation’s transportation network from today’s taxes. Instead of raising fuel taxes or introducing new forms of user fees, state lawmakers are responding to demand by allowing local governments to raise funds locally and are changing the basis of transportation finance.
 

Dean Baker – Pay As You Drive
People can be given a substantial incentive to reduce driving simply by changing the way insurance is billed. Switching from the current system of insurance pricing to a pay-by-the-mile system would give people a strong incentive to drive less and increase their use of public transportation.
 
 

The Broken Health Care System - The Obama Administration has made fixing the healthcare system the domestic priority of his first term, and this reform cannot come a minute too soon. Forty-six million Americans currently live without health insurance and 25 million have insurance that does not meet the scope of their health care needs.  This crisis has only intensified in the wake of the ongoing economic crisis.

Health Information Technology - Studies show that medical error kills between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans each year, the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. Researchers believe that a robust health information technology system would decrease deaths, increase quality, and improve efficiency.   
 

High-Risk Pools - Studies show that medical error kills between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans each year, the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. Researchers believe that a robust health information technology system would decrease deaths, increase quality, and improve efficiency.
 

Prescription Drug Costs - Prescription drugs are one of the fastest growing pieces of overall health care costs. Effective management of state pharmaceutical benefits and regulation of pharmaceutical marketing practices can lead to higher quality care, greater use of generic drugs and lower state health care costs.
 

Paid Family and Medical Leave - Many workers are often forced to choose between going to work and staying home to take care of their children or aging parents. A paid leave program guarantees workers days off to stay home with a new child or sick family member, and makes leave feasible by allowing workers to continue to collect a portion of their wages while away from the workplace.

Melanie Bella – Medicaid Reform
Medicaid is one of the best opportunities for innovative leadership in the state policy arena. Improving the way care is delivered in Medicaid will not only target scarce public resources more effectively, it can also spill over to improve health care delivery as a whole, for state employees, retirees, and commercially insured populations.
 

Rachna Choudhry – Paid Sick Day
Every day, millions of workers lose pay or put their jobs at risk because they need to recover from illness or to care for a sick child. By offering guaranteed sick days states can promote public health, support low-income workers, and improve workforce productivity.