REPORT: In This Together

Published on February 6, 2024

“The Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families met regularly throughout 2023. We are a cross-partisan, cross-sector group of leaders who have dedicated our careers to improving the lives of children and families in America. To our knowledge, we are the most ideologically and sectorally diverse group to address family policy that has convened in recent decades. We came together against a backdrop of historic polarization and political divides. This report is our action plan to help low-to-moderate income families with young children flourish.”

PRESS RELEASE: Convergence launches a cross-partisan action plan to support families with young children in America

Bringing together 32 diverse leaders in family policy, the Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families released recommendations for federal policymakers, states, employers, and philanthropy to support families across party lines.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Convergence Center for Policy Resolution released a new Blueprint for Action with consensus solutions for tackling deep challenges facing American families with young children. The Blueprint release will be accompanied by a public reception on Capitol Hill tonight featuring remarks from Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). The process of this Collaborative was featured in The New York Times article, by Jessica Grose, 'Couples Therapy', but for Politics.

Forged by more than 30 leaders spanning the political spectrum and from very different professional domains and life experiences, the recommendations aim to change the story around parenting in the US, rethink cash support, ensure a wider variety of high-quality care options, and better support families with new children.

"Leading the most ideologically and sectorally diverse group dedicated to addressing family policy in recent decades has been an immense honor," said Abby McCloskey, Director of the Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families and Founder of McCloskey Policy LLC. "Recent events, such as the expiration of pandemic-era support for families, the setback in passing the Biden Administration's Build Back Better proposal, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade — with states adopting radically different approaches in the aftermath — made it challenging to anticipate the outcomes of this diverse collaboration. I take great pride in the remarkable work the Collaborative has accomplished."

Convergence served as a neutral convenor for the Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families. Convergence Collaboratives are inclusive and cooperative processes, informed by social science, in which diverse groups of leaders come together to build trust, forge higher-ground consensus solutions, and move forward in unlikely alliances to achieve constructive change on seemingly intractable issues.

"Parenthood in America is increasingly challenging, and the urgency to support our nation's working families cannot be overstated," said Convergence Interim CEO and seasoned consensus-builder, Mariah Levison. "As the consensus among our participants illustrates, there is a clear pathway for a diverse group of changemakers to strengthen support systems in America, ensuring the needs of both children and parents are met. These solutions will not only make it easier to raise our children well but also foster economic opportunity and community connectedness, which are both key to reducing our division."

This project was made possible thanks to the generous support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

About Convergence Center for Policy Resolution 

Convergence is the leading organization bridging divides to solve critical issues. Through our time-tested collaborative problem-solving methodology, we bring people together across ideological, political, and identity lines to improve the lives of Americans and strengthen democracy. For more information, visit convergencepolicy.org.

SOURCE Convergence Center for Policy Resolution

Biden should take border deal

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, February 1, 2024

Immigration is 2024′s biggest issue. Except for potential world war, but that’s for another day. What a win a deal on the southern border would be. Let’s start with what it means for the presidential election and then move closer to home.

With abortion off the table after the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, immigration has become the biggest visceral issue for the GOP in 2024. Donald Trump is building his campaign around it. We can’t have a secure country without a secure border. Republicans are right about that.

Immigration denial could cost Biden re-election. Fortunately, Americans love a good conversion story. “I was lost and now I’m found.” And a bipartisan Congressional deal has come knocking on Biden’s door, combining aid for the Ukrainians in their defense against the Russian invasion and money for border security.

Biden should take the deal and pronounce, over the progressive howls, that securing the border will be the focus of his domestic attention for the rest of 2024. In fact, he should ask for Democrats to strengthen the deal. The current negotiated threshold is that it would only kick in if 5,000 migrants crossed illegally in a day.

For a re-election campaign still searching for its message, voila: “I kept a demagogue out of the White House, fought Putin from invading the West, oversaw a soft landing for the economy (despite my role in the inflationary part), and finally shut down the southern border.” Close your eyes and it’s practically conservative.

Is Life More Precious After Roe?

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, January 29, 2024

“The dust is settling. The new order is taking shape, and the extremes are winning. In the last two years, blue states have ramped up their abortion access, purple states too. Red states have favored strict abortion limits or total bans without rape or incest exceptions. That’s where we find ourselves in Texas, with unclear exceptions for maternal health that are being played out in courtrooms instead of in medical settings.

Will my daughter, when she’s grown, see a more humane and compassionate policy landscape for women and children now that Roe is gone? I’m not so sure.”

Texas is acting like California

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, January 21, 2024

I recently had coffee with a colleague. He said he was concerned about what’s happening in Austin. I didn’t know him well, but having lived in Texas for a decade, I immediately translated his comment to mean the problem with “the blueberry in the tomato soup” and the progressive ways of our wayward little sister who we love to rag on but may be secretly jealous of her ability to hike and chill.

But my colleague was not talking about city politics. He was talking about our state government. And I couldn’t agree more.

Let me back up. In my experience, Texas can get an unfair rap from the coastal types. When my husband and I left Washington, D.C., for Dallas in 2014, we were given a nice bottle of red wine and forlorn claps on the back, as if we were on our way to big box housing, strip malls, and megachurches, leaving the finer life behind. When I tell my Washington colleagues that our house is more than 50 years old, we are within walking distance from Whole Foods and a lake, we go to a tiny Anglican church downtown, and that at least one of my children is more fluent in Spanish than English according to state testing, they are, in a word, dumbfounded.

This perception isn’t just on the American coasts. Just days after I filed the first draft of this story, I jetted off to London for my husband to launch his newest spy novel. Nearly every day of the week we were there, the Financial Times included some mention of Texas Republicans, always about red meat issues like abortion or immigration. Never about our state’s highly diverse, growth-oriented, pro-family constituency, which provides unmatched opportunity and a model for economies worldwide. . . .

Our culture is confused over the most basic things about mothers, fathers and children

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, Janjuary 13, 2024

I am not a royal watcher. I admired Queen Elizabeth II from a distance, I occasionally watch The Crown and I remember when Princess Diana died and my parents’ TV played nonstop. But that’s about it. Harry happenings and palace intrigue, no thanks.

Which is why I am late in applauding Kate Middleton’s public campaign to raise awareness of the importance of early childhood. The campaign is called “Shaping Us.” Kate gave a knockout speech at the launch. But it is the short, charming clay animation video accompanying the campaign that has captured my attention.

It is a beautiful short. But after more than a decade professionally immersed in family policy, studying topics such as paid leave, child care, and maternal health — and in particular, in settings across political and ideological differences — I cannot help but think that such a video would not fly in America.

Waiting for normal politics? Go ahead, pull up a chair

Abby McCloskey, Dallas News, December 17, 2023

When will politics return to normal? If you’re like me, you’ve asked this a lot. Take a swig of your eggnog because you might not like what’s coming next. What we are living through is normal, at least when it comes to the Republican Party and our country’s history of polarization.

Couples Therapy, But for Politics

Jess Grose, New York Times, December 13, 2023

A sneak peak of my most recent project with Convergence. Our report comes out in Q1 2024!

The Women Shaking Up Economics

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, December 10, 2023

“Economics is male-dominated and colloquially known as the dismal science, which is why it’s delightful that two women — both quick to smile — made the biggest splash in the discipline in 2023.

Even better, they’ve applied their academic prowess to the taboos of marriage, work and gender. Why women study “women’s issues” is a question for the ages. But there’s certainly been a vacuum of information that these economists have begun to fill, to the benefit of all of us.”

VIDEO: Spotlight on Poverty Event in the Senate

December 5, 2023

Sens. Maggie Hassan and Bill Cassidy captivated a Capitol Hill audience on Tuesday and reassured them that bipartisan cooperation is alive and well in Congress when it comes to issues impacting the lives of working families. Hassan (D-N.H.) and Cassidy (R-LA) took part in an event hosted by Spotlight and American Policy Ventures, with support from the Doris Duke Foundation, that explored bipartisan pathways to support pro-family policies.

The give-and-take between the two senators was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Adrienne Schweer of the Bipartisan Policy Center and featuring Luke Shaefer of the University of Michigan; Ja’Ron Smith, former senior domestic policy advisor during the Trump administration; conservative consultant and policy analyst Abby McCloskey, and Indivar Dutta-Gupta, president, and executive director at CLASP.

All the panelists agreed that finding a path to re-instituting some kind of additional child tax credit is a key discussion at the moment. McCloskey said that “an additional wrinkle or opportunity in there that I would add is increasing the flexibility of the existing credit. That if a family can claim the full credit, which is a subject of good debate, that’s $34,000 when their child is between the ages of zero and 17. That’s a lot of money.”

Full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeeLMkFTG2o

War Disillusions with Israel and Hamas

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, November 20, 2023

“I’ve been thinking more about wartime and life therein. News of the attack, concurrent with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the looming threat of increased Chinese aggression against Taiwan, suggest to even the casual news reader that we are entering a period of significant global instability. What do wise people have to say about living in such periods?

On that question, there are few better places to begin than with C.S. Lewis’ addresses “Learning in War-Time.” This is a lecture he gave in 1939 to university students who were questioning why they should go about studying science or history or art in the midst of a looming world war.

Lewis began by channeling the students: “What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing? How can we continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?”

What if Biden Chose a New Running Mate?

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, November 9, 2023

“You don’t have to be inside the closed-door Democrat meetings to hear the party leaders’ increasing concern about Biden. A new Times/Siena poll shows Biden trailing former President Donald Trump in five of six battleground states for 2024. This has Biden supporters, like The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, congratulating the president on a successful first term and publicly asking that he step aside lest his biggest legacy of stopping Trump be moot. . . .”

Our Economic Puzzle

Abby McCloskey, Dallas News, October 29, 2023

“There was always going to be significant inflation after COVID-19, but Democrat policies made it worse. The federal government spent nearly $6 trillion on relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the spending took the form of bipartisan bills. That was necessary to prevent further catastrophe; the whole economy had shut down. But after the 2020 election, it was purely Democratic bills pumping more money into an economy that had limits placed on how much it could produce, due to lingering challenges from the pandemic. That’s a textbook recipe for inflation, which hit a 40-year high last summer.

The 18% rise in prices during the Biden administration (from 2021 to 2023) is the equivalent to consumers losing nearly one-fifth of their purchasing power; unacceptable outside of banana republics. The Federal Reserve started to pull money out by raising interest rates. Normally, this might trigger a recession, but the savings accumulated during the pandemic kept consumers spending more or less like normal. This, along with other factors, allowed the Federal Reserve to execute what for all practical purposes is a “soft landing.” Thank goodness.

This is how inflation has been reduced on the Biden administration’s watch, while it still gets the lion’s share of public blame for it being high in the first place. Importantly, a Democrat by the name of Joe Manchin is to thank for blocking expensive bills that would have made inflation even worse.”

DISD should leave politics out of schools

Abby McCloskey, October 18, 2023

I love politics. I’ve devoted my career to public policy change, especially changes to benefit children and families (and yes, I believe this requires more public funding for kids, full stop). But this note made me sad and, as a parent, yet again frustrated.

Here’s why: DISD is the second-largest school district in Texas. The families it serves are an incredibly diverse population, ethnically, racially, financially and, one presumes, politically. I disagree with many things Gov. Greg Abbott does and says. But the partisan undertones in this email are alienating to families who aren’t lockstep progressives. So too is the tone. “They’ve scheduled this special session during the school year in hopes that we’ll be too busy teaching children to speak up for them.”

Math is hard; let’s not make it harder

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, September 28, 2023

“I’ve learned that this is part of a new districtwide curriculum called Eureka. It was built off multiple pilot programs in nearby schools and in other states. In the news stories I’ve read about it, teachers from the pilot programs are on the record that it has helped their kids learn math. Some teachers qualify their support, saying there’s a learning curve, but they get the hang of it. But that’s not how it’s been working around here.

At least in this household dataset of one, but also in colorful school mom text threads, this new approach has hampered parents’ ability to support their kids, and it has teachers confused. That, at least on its face, would seem to make later forms of math more challenging and kids more frustrated.”

What Republicans’ ‘Family Feud’ Gets Wrong About Parenting in America

Abby McCloskey, Politico Magazine, September 5, 2023

“One year ago, I wrote in these pages about how as a millennial mother of three I don’t have a home in either political party. I wrote that the Republican Party — where I’ve spent most of my political life — had been particularly disappointing given its “pro-family” and “pro-life” rhetoric and yet failing to support vulnerable mothers and children. That, unfortunately, hasn’t changed much, even in the contentious and politically challenging aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

But over the past year, schisms have emerged within the GOP about family policy, including a debate over problem itself. That gives me some hope that the party is — finally — grappling with this problem. Sometimes this discussion is framed in terms of economics and family affordability, other times as a cultural phenomenon of declining marriage and birthrates, or something more amorphous but arguably more on point — declining hope and generalized anxiety among parents with young children.

These debates represent progress, however incremental, that family policy has gone from something that the GOP doesn’t really focus on to something that party leaders are beginning to chew on and test out various approaches.

To get there, Republicans will have to start asking the right questions, and that will be harder to do if more people like me leave the party. But that’s not happening yet. Here’s what they’re getting wrong.”

Finally, we're protecting our kids

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, September 25

“It's a bit early for end-of-year reflections, but everything seems to happen earlier these days, so here I go: We'll remember 2023 as a gangbuster year for protecting kids from tech, in Texas and across the country . . . .

Cultural change is hard. It’s uphill. Sometimes it takes a long time to see things that retroactively are quite simple and obvious. That was the case with child labor laws, and it’s the case now with Big Tech.”

Too Close for Comfort

Abby McCloskey, September 3, 2023, Dallas Morning News

How the church interacts with the state says a lot about how both value power

“How should Christians engage in modern American politics? This is not a question that I’d recommend opening a cocktail hour with. It’s a subject likely to call forward radically diverse and hotly held opinions even from among otherwise like-minded folk…"