Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Federal-State Partnership: How The Federal Government Should Better Support Its State Unemployment Insurance Offices In Times Of Crisis, Maddie Mcfee

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused millions of people to lose their jobs and become dependent on unemployment benefits. State unemployment offices were not prepared for this sudden onslaught of claims. Offices could not increase staffing levels because they were not given money by the federal government to do so. As offices were overwhelmed, a scammer group named Scattered Canary took this opportunity to fraudulently claim millions of dollars from several states. Because the federal government supplies administrative funds to states based on average previous need, the system is not designed to support states’ increased needs during sudden economic …

Territorial Exceptionalism And The Americanwelfare State, Andrew Hammond

Michigan Law Review

Federal law excludes millions of American citizens from crucial public benefits simply because they live in the United States territories. If the Social Security Administration determines a low-income individual has a disability, that person can move to another state and continue to receive benefits. But if that person moves to, say, Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands, that person loses their right to federal aid. Similarly with SNAP (food stamps), federal spending rises with increased demand—whether because of a recession, a pandemic, or a climate disaster. But unlike the rest of the United States, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, …

The Rental Crisis Will Not Be Televised: The Case For Protecting Tenants Under Consumer Protection Regimes, Eric Sirota

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Foreclosure Crisis of the 2000s has likely hurt renters more than homeowners. Incongruously, however, consumer enforcement agencies have been far more zealous in protecting mortgagors than tenants. This Article explores the under-protection of tenants as a class of consumers, particularly in a “commoditized” rental market, and examines how consumer enforcement agencies can more zealously incorporate tenant-protection into their mandates.

Much of the prior literature on the legal protections afforded tenants was published in the wake of the consumer rights revolution of the 1970s. This Article is the first to carefully reexamine, in the context of the modern rental market, …

The Ragged Edge Of Rugged Individualism: Wage Theft And The Personalization Of Social Harm, Matthew Fritz-Mauer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Every year, millions of low-wage workers suffer wage theft when their employers refuse to pay them what they have earned. Wage theft is both prevalent and highly impactful. It costs individuals thousands each year in unpaid earnings, siphons tens of billions of dollars from low-income communities, depletes the government of necessary resources, distorts the competitive labor market, and causes significant personal harm to its victims. In recent years, states and cities have passed new laws to attack the problem. These legal changes are important. They are also, broadly speaking, failing the people they are supposed to protect.

This Article fills …

Conflict Preemption: A Remedy For The Disparate Impact Of Crime-Free Nuisance Ordinances, Meredith Joseph

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Thousands of municipalities across the country have adopted crime-free nuisance ordinances—laws that sanction landlords for their tenants’ behaviors, coercing them to evict tenants for actions as innocuous as calling 9-1-1 in an emergency. These facially neutral ordinances give wide discretion to municipal officials, leading to discriminatory enforcement of evictions. As a result, these ordinances have a devastating impact on victims of domestic violence and are used as a tool to inhibit integration in majority-white municipalities. Many plaintiffs have brought lawsuits alleging violations of the U.S. Constitution and the Fair Housing Act. However, bringing lawsuits under various anti-discrimination protections presents many …

The Market Cannot Be Your Mother, Meghan Boone

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Free-Market Family: How the Market Crushed the American Dream (and How It Can Be Restored). by Maxine Eichner.

Bankruptcy & The Underwater Home: A Case For Real Property Redemption, David Sheinfeld

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code exists to satisfy the claims of creditors and preserve an economic “fresh start” for the debtor after bankruptcy. In exchange for surrendering her property to the trustee to have it monetized (i.e., sold), the debtor receives a discharge of her debts and an injunction against future creditor in personam actions to recover them. However, the in personam injunction is insufficient to protect consumer debtors who are in default on mortgages encumbering underwater homes because the creditor’s in rem rights remain; after the conclusion of the case, the creditor can continue foreclosure proceedings, which …

Making The Case For A Right To A Healthy Environment For The Protection Of Vulnerable Communities: A Case Of Coal-Ash Disaster In Puerto Rico, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The connection between the environment and human rights is not a surprising one. The enjoyment of human rights depends on a person’s ability to live free from interference and to have his or her rights protected. The interdependence of human rights and the protection of the environment is manifested in the full and effective enjoyment of the right to a healthy environment. This article argues that in order to protect vulnerable persons and communities facing environmental harm, a human rights framework—specifically the right to a healthy environment—must be applied. A human rights approach complements environmental justice work, recognizing that individuals …

Dismantling The Master’S House: Toward A Justice-Based Theory Of Community Economic Development, Etienne C. Toussaint

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Since the end of the American Civil War, scholars have debated the efficacy of various models of community economic development, or CED. Historically, this debate has tracked one of two approaches: place-based models of CED, seeking to stimulate community development through market-driven economic growth programs, and people-based models of CED, focused on the removal of structural barriers to social and economic mobility that prevent human flourishing. More recently, scholars and policymakers have turned to a third model from the impact investing community—the social impact bond, or SIB. The SIB model of CED ostensibly finds a middle ground by leveraging funding …

The Urbanization Of International Law And International Relations: The Rising Soft Power Of Cities In Global Governance, Chrystie Swiney

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article examines the rising influence of cities in global governance and on international law, despite the existing international legal and political framework, which is designed to exclude them. It explores the various strategies and tools utilized by city leaders to leapfrog over their national counterparts in order to autonomously access the international policymaking and law-making world. These include (1) coalescing together to form large networks, which engage in city or “glocal” diplomacy; (2) allying with well-connected and well-resourced international organizations; (3) gaining inclusion in UN multilateral agendas; (4) mirroring state-based coalitions and their high-profile events; (5) harnessing the language …

Tell Me How It Ends: The Path To Nationalizing The U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry, Fran Quigley

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The U.S. medicines system is broken. Millions of Americans suffer and some even die because they cannot afford medicines discovered by government-funded research. At the same time, corporations holding monopoly patent rights to those medicines collect some of the largest profits in modern capitalist history.

It does not have to be this way. The global legacy of treating essential medicines as a public good and the robust U.S. history of government seizure of private property for the public interest reveals a better path: the United States should nationalize its pharmaceutical industry.

U.S. statutory law already provides broad powers for the …

Be Careful What You Wish For? Reducing Inequality In The Twenty-First Century, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Orli K. Avi-Yonah

Michigan Law Review

A review of Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.

Nudge-Proof: Distributive Justice And The Ethics Of Nudging, Jessica L. Roberts

Michigan Law Review

A review of Cass R. Sunstein, The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science.

It Takes A Village: Designating "Tiny House" Villages As Transitional Housing Campgrounds, Ciara Turner

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A relatively new proposal to reduce homelessness in the United States involves extraordinarily small dwellings. While the “tiny house” movement is intuitively appealing and has found sporadic success, strict housing codes, building codes, and zoning laws often destroy the movement before it can get off the ground. One possibility for getting around these zoning and building code challenges, without drastic overhauls to health and safety codes, is to create a new state-level zoning classification of “transitional campgrounds.” A new zoning classification would alleviate the issue because campgrounds are consistently subject to less strict building codes, which could permit tiny houses …

Overtaxing The Working Family: Uncle Sam And The Childcare Squeeze, Shannon Weeks Mccormack

Michigan Law Review

Today, many working parents are caught in a “childcare squeeze”: while they require two incomes just to make ends meet, they end up spending a strikingly large percentage of their income on childcare so that they can work outside the home. Worse still, some parents find themselves “squeezed out” of the market entirely, unable to earn the additional income their families require because they cannot find jobs that pay enough to offset soaring childcare expenses. This Article argues that the tax laws have played an important role in aggravating these hardships. Currently, the Internal Revenue Code treats the childcare costs …

How The E-Government Can Save Money By Building Bridges Across The Digital Divide, Alison Rogers

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

As government agencies and federal aid recipients begin to build a presence online, they must recognize that language accessibility is morally required, fiscally responsible, and compulsory under federal civil rights law. This Note explores statutes, federal policies, and case law that purport to protect the rights of limited English proficient (“LEP”) individuals in cyberspace. The Note suggests reforms, policies, and programs that should be adopted by federal aid recipients to ensure that LEP individuals have meaningful access to online services.

Access To Justice For Asylum Seekers: Developing An Effective Model Of Holistic Asylum Representation, Sabrineh Ardalan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Abducted, beaten, and tortured by government forces that accused him of supporting an opposition group, Matthew fled to the United States with the help of his church pastor.1 The pastor lent Matthew money and helped him obtain a passport and a visa. The pastor also put Matthew in touch with an acquaintance in Boston, who gave him a place to stay for a short time and encouraged him to apply for asylum. The acquaintance sat down with Matthew and helped him fill out the asylum application form. He told Matthew to be as specific and detailed as possible since that …

Flourishing Rights, Wendy A. Bach

Michigan Law Review

There is something audacious at the heart of Clare Huntington’s Failure to Flourish. She insists that the state exists to ensure that families flourish. Not just that they survive, or not starve, or be able, somehow, to make ends meet—but that they flourish. She demands this not just for some families but, importantly, for all families. This simple, bold, and profoundly countercultural demand allows Huntington to make a tremendously convincing case that the state can begin to do precisely that. Failure to Flourish is a brave, rigorously produced, carefully researched, and politically astute book. Huntington seeks to persuade a wide …

The Compliance Case For Social Enterprise, Joseph W. Yockey

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Social enterprises generate revenue to solve social, humanitarian, and ecological problems. Their products are not a means to the end of profits, but rather profits are a means to the end of their production. This dynamic presents many of the same corporate governance issues facing other forprofit firms, including legal compliance. The author contends, however, that traditional strategies for corporate compliance are incongruent to the social enterprise’s unique normative framework. Specifically, traditional compliance theory, with its prioritization of shareholder interests, stands at odds with the social enterprise’s mission-driven purpose. Attention to this distinction is essential for developing effective compliance and …

Paternalistic Interventions In Civil Rights And Poverty Law: A Case Study Of Environmental Justice, Anthony V. Alfieri

Michigan Law Review

Low-income communities of color in Miami and in cities across the nation both share aspirations of equal justice and democratic participation and suffer the burdens of legal underrepresentation and political disenfranchisement. Such burdens become crippling when, as in Miami, local legal aid offices, public interest organizations, and bar associations lack the resources to provide meaningful private access to justice or to muster significant public engagement in the political process. These burdens become especially crippling when, again as in Miami, local and state governments adopt policies that engender inner-city neglect, economic displacement, and racial exclusion. In these circumstances, volunteer lawyers from …

Neither Sad Nor Strange: Recovering The Logic Of Anticruelty Organizations In Gilded Age America, Bryn Resser Pallesen

Michigan Law Review

In 1877, the American Humane Association ("AHA") incorporated as one of the first national organizations dedicated to the protection of animals. Nine years later, it amended its constitution to include the protection of children in its chartered mission. By 1908, there were 354 anticruelty organizations in the United States, 185 of which were, like the AHA, humane societies invested in the welfare of both animals and children (pp. 2-3). As primary source documents reveal, Gilded Age humanitarians viewed the joint pursuit of child and animal protection as entirely sensible (p. 5). One of the Illinois Humane Society's founding directors, for …

Employment Law And Social Equality, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Michigan Law Review

What is the normative justification for individual employment law? For a number of legal scholars, the answer is economic efficiency. Other scholars argue, to the contrary, that employment law protects against (vaguely defined) imbalances of bargaining power and exploitation. Against both of these positions, this Article argues that individual employment law is best understood as advancing a particular conception of equality. That conception, which many legal and political theorists have called social equality, focuses on eliminating hierarchies of social status. This Article argues that individual employment law, like employment discrimination law, is justified as preventing employers from contributing to or …

Renegotiating The Social Contract, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Michigan Law Review

Despite an economic recession and record levels of personal bankruptcy filings due to healthcare costs, President Obama's healthcare reform initiative sparked a season of protests. A "public option"-not to mention a single-payer system-was off the table even before the discussion began. As the question of the reform package's constitutionality wound its way to the Supreme Court, it became clear that a substantial number of American people do not want their government helping them stay alive. In this climate, it is difficult to imagine an America in which the state is an accepted partner in meeting the challenges and responsibilities of …

Tortious Interference With The Expectancy Of Entitlement Benefits, Paul Caritj

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note proposes a new tort to address employers' and their agents' increasing abuse of the Unemployment Insurance appeals process, which interferes with employees' expectancy of entitlement benefits. Though existing state Unemployment Compensation statutes sanction both unemployed workers claiming benefits and employers for making fraudulent statements, these provisions approach the issue of fraud too narrowly to combat this growing problem. Meanwhile, no existing remedy properly compensates victims of this sort of abuse, adequately deters abusive behavior by scaling the penalty to the harm, and is accessible to economically disadvantaged plaintiffs. As well as providing an analysis of the specific problem …

The Future Of School Integration: Socioeconomic Diversity As An Education Reform Strategy, Edited By Richard D. Kahlenberg (Century Foundation 2012), 397 Pages, Eloise Pasachoff

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

The last decade has seen a quiet but steady expansion of interest in using socioeconomic diversity in schools to improve educational outcomes. Ten years ago, only a few school districts around the country used formal strategies to integrate their schools along class lines. Today, over eighty school districts around the United States, together educating around four million students, ensure that poor children are taught alongside middle-class and wealthier children through a variety of voluntary integration programs. The message of The Future of School Integration: Socioeconomic Diversity as an Education Reform Strategy, the important new book edited by Richard Kahlenberg, is …

Unclaimed Financial Assets And The Promotion Of Microfinance, Andrew W. Hartlage

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

State governments can effectively promote domestic entrepreneurship in low-income communities and simultaneously fulfill their duties as conservator s of unclaimed property, by lending unclai med financial assets-in-trust at preferential interest rates to in-state microfinance providers. This plan presents an alternative to charitable contributions, though it does not resolve the tension between for-profit and not-for-profit microfinance providers. Such a scheme could be a significant funding source for many microfinance operations in the United States today. Even a small portion of the yearly intake of unclaimed assets would be substantial enough to support fully most microfinance loan portfolios. Also, reinvestment of unclaimed …

Encouraging Savings Under The Earned Income Tax Credit: A Nudge In The Right Direction, Vada Waters Lindsey

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

During 2007, 3.6 million or 9.7% of people in the United States age 65 or older were below the poverty level. In light of the number of elderly people living below the poverty level, it is important that everyone, including low-income workers, have the opportunity to save for retirement. Low-income workers face many challenges to saving for retirement. The barriers to saving include the lack of access to retirement plans and lack of investment savvy. For example, only 42 % of workers employed in service occupations in the private industry have access to employer retirement plans. The percentage drops to …

Charity And Information: Correcting The Failure Of A Disjunctive Social Norm, Brian Broughman, Robert Cooter

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Charitable donations fund social goods that the state and markets undersupply. Despite widespread belief in the importance of private charity, most Americans donate little or nothing. Experiments in behavioral economics show that anonymity, not human nature, causes low contributions. Anonymity poses a particular challenge for charity because of the special character of the obligation. Charity is a disjunctive social norm, meaning the obligation is owed to "A or B or C or ...". Disclosure of each individual's aggregate conduct is necessary for the effectiveness of any disjunctive social norm. To revitalize charity we propose a public registry where each taxpayer …

Property Rights & The Demands Of Transformation, Bernadette Atuahene

Michigan Journal of International Law

Countries like those in Southern Africa will never emerge from the indomitable shadow of inequity and the serious threat of backlash unless real property is redistributed; but, the conception of property these countries explicitly or implicitly adopt can adversely affect their ability to redistribute. Under the classical conception of real property (the classical conception), redistribution is difficult because title deed holders are a privileged group who are given nearly absolute property protection. Strangely, the classical conception is ascendant in many transitional states where redistribution is essential. The specific question this Article addresses is: for states where past property dispossession has …

Between Starvation And Globalization: Realizing The Right To Food In India, Lauren Birchfield, Jessica Corsi

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article evaluates People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India & Others (PUCL) through multiple lenses, examining: (1) the necessary factors that contributed to the success of the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and its enforcement and (2) both the implications and limitations of PUCL as it relates to India's larger economic policy framework. We argue that the development and success of the PUCL litigation have depended in part on provisions of the Indian Constitution amenable to the incorporation and promotion of economic and social rights as well as on a unique relationship between civil society and judicial institutions. …