Hillary Clinton Takes a Step to the Left on Health Care

For months during the Democratic presidential nominating contest, Hillary Clinton has resisted calls from Senator Bernie Sanders to back a single-payer health system, arguing that the fight for government-run health care was a wrenching legislative battle that had already been lost.

But as she tries to clinch the nomination, Mrs. Clinton is moving to the left on health care and this week took a significant step in her opponent’s direction, suggesting she would like to give people the option to buy intoMedicare.

“I’m also in favor of what’s called the public option, so that people can buy into Medicare at a certain age,” Mrs. Clinton said on Monday at a campaign event in Virginia.

Mr. Sanders calls his single-payer health care plan “Medicare for all.” What Mrs. Clinton proposed was a sort of Medicare for more.

The Medicare program covers Americans once they reach 65. Beneficiaries pay premiums to help cover the cost of their coverage, but the government pays the bulk of the bill. Mrs. Clinton’s suggestion was that perhaps younger Americans, “people 55 or 50 and up,” could voluntarily pay to join the program.

She made the remarks as she continues to face a determined challenge on the left from Mr. Sanders, forcing her to essentially fight a two-front war as she seeks to turn her attention to Donald J. Trump and the general election. While Mr. Sanders trails by a substantial number of delegates, his effect continues to be felt in the race as he pressures Mrs. Clinton to adopt more progressive positions.

“Bernie Sanders’s campaign is having an effect on Hillary Clinton’s policies,” said Steve McMahon, a Democratic political consultant from Purple Strategies. “From a progressive point of view, that’s exactly what was hoped for and that is exactly what is happening.”

The idea of allowing people to buy in to Medicare has been discussed in policy circles and in Congress for decades. Mrs. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, floated a similar proposal in 1998, including it in hisState of the Union address that year. The strategy has been embraced by many advocates of single-payer health care as a way to move more Americans into the existing government system. An incremental expansion of Medicare was the hoped-for strategy of Medicare’s original authors.

But it is a new idea in Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. She has called for a range of health policy overhauls to preserve and expand the Affordable Care Act. She has proposed expanding financial protections for people with high health care costs and expanding subsidies to help middle-income people buy their own insurance. She also has proposed a package of policiesto lower the price of prescription drugs.

But more recently, she has moved further. In February, she began discussing the possibility of a “public option,” a government-run insurance plan available to people shopping on the existing marketplaces. That idea was considered when the Affordable Care Act was being debated in Congress, but it was ultimately removed from the law.

“The politics in the short term are good,” said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Medicare is a popular program — people don’t know too much about health reform, but people know about Medicare.”Mrs. Clinton’s latest suggestion regarding Medicare, first reported by Bloomberg News, takes another step by proposing that Americans still in their prime working years be given the opportunity to obtain the same government insurance that is provided on a universal basis to their older peers.

Before the Affordable Care Act, people older than 55 tended to have difficulty buying their own insurance, because insurance companies saw them as bigger risks. Since the health law passed, insurance plans have been banned from discriminating against people based on health history, but they can charge premiums that are three times as much as younger adults are charged.

Moving more older adults into the Medicare program could have the effect of lowering insurance costs for younger people, as Mrs. Clinton suggested. But the exact dynamics would depend on how the program was structured.

Mrs. Clinton did not say, for example, whether lower-income Americans choosing Medicare would receive help paying their premiums, as they do when they buy private plans on the new marketplaces in the Affordable Care Act. Without such subsidies, Medicare might be an affordable option only for wealthy or very sick customers. In 2008, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a Medicare buy-in program for 62- to 64-year-olds would cost about $7,600 a person.

Medicare tends to cover a wider range of doctors and services than commercial plans, but it also has more holes — it has no limit on how much patients can be asked to spend out of their own pockets, for example. That means conventional Medicare would have different benefits and financial protections than private plans that are available to the 50-to-65 population.

“It’s not a bad concept to be playing with and thinking about,” said Linda J. Blumberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a left-leaning policy research group. “But there are some complexities that need to be ironed out.”

Taking a more progressive stance on health care could serve Mrs. Clinton in a general election matchup against Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. He has offered a range of views on the subject. While he says that he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he also has called for a system that would ensure that all Americans have health coverage.

Mr. Sanders is pressing on in his campaign and hopes to influence the party’s platform at the July convention even if, as expected, he does not become the nominee. He has already pulled Mrs. Clinton to take more progressive stances on several issues, including supporting a higher minimum wage and opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and the Keystone XL pipeline.

Although Mr. Sanders viewed Mrs. Clinton’s latest health care proposal as progress, he said on Tuesday that it was not sufficient.

“Secretary Clinton’s proposal to let the American people buy into Medicare is a step in the right direction, but just like her support for a $12 minimum wage, it is not good enough,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement that described her idea as “Medicare for some.”

National Technology Day: Scientists discuss futuristic agri technologies

Students and science enthusiasts visited laboratories at Central Scientific Instruments Organisation on National Technology Day on Wednesday to interact with the scientists about various technologies. H K Sinha, director, Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO), spoke about technologically- advanced instruments like digital green moisture analyser, air assisted eletrostatic sprayer for crops, electrostatic telescope, diffraction lloyd mirror interferometer, myo-meter, postural stability system that have been developed since 2015 

Talking about the developments in the field of agricultural technology, Dr Amol P Bhondekar told the Chandigarh Newsline: “Our general perception towards science is limited to weapons and automobiles. However, with the increasing population and urbanisation, food and agriculture are becoming an alarming issue, which must be looked at to make the population survive. Recently, we have developed precision agricultural technologies that increase the agriculural yield and production of crops, analyse soil and seed quality. We have developed the electrostatic sprayer that charges the molecules and enables the farmers to spray pesticides judiciously and not letting it seep into groundwater or cause cancer owing to overuse.” 

With 30 per cent of the agricultural produce going to waste owing to poor storage facilities, CSIO has developed technologies for increasing shelf life of crops. “We are looking at futuristic technologies like plasma technology to enhance efficacy of germination of seeds and early warning systems for plant health to save crops from certain infestations. Since the last eight months, we are testing the same in Shimla on apple crop. 

The results have made us focus on other cash crops as well. We have also developed mobile apps for measuring accurate pH value of food materials recently,” Bhondekar said. CSIO plans to develop a technology based on the sense of smell and taste. “We are in the process of developing electronic nose and tongue to determine quality of crops like tea and cashews. At present, the testing is done by a human panel, but their judgement is subjective to moods and preferences. Hence the electronic nose and tongue will provide objective results with least crop wastage,” Bhondekar said. Shedding light on the importance of technological awareness among public, Dr H K Sardana said: “Over the last year, we have developed a lot of technological instruments focusing on the field of agriculture, medicine, automobiles, aviation and physical security that have been discussed at length by our scientists. We live in a technologically-advanced age and such events let us disseminate that knowledge to the youth. Realisation of true science lies inside a laboratory and through such events, people can experience it.”

This is how to fix the economy’s biggest problems

You may have heard – the U.S. economy has problems. It’s growing too slowly. Wages are stagnant. Employers want to split for competing countries with better taxes. And too many Americans have failed to benefit from free trade or the digital revolution.

Anybody following the 2016 presidential campaign knows angry voters are fed up and they want something better. But who has solutions? The presidential front-runners, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, are great at ticking off what’s wrong with each other and the shortcomings of the opposing party. But cheery optimism is rare among the candidates.

Some people, however, see a way out of the doldrums. Mark Weinberger, CEO of consulting firm EY, sees a handful of ways Washington could turbocharge the economy once this year’s elections are over. CEOs have been pressing these ideas for years, but a new administration and intensified demand for change might finally crack the logjam inside the Beltway. The highlights:

Corporate tax reform. Both Democrats and Republicans agree on the need to lower the corporate tax rate, eliminate a Chinese menu of deductions and make the U.S. tax code more competitive with those in other countries. “It’ll be huge,” Weinberger says in the video above. “It could add 2 or 3 or 4 points to GDP growth.” The biggest boost would come if Uncle Sam gave big companies an incentive to repatriate roughly $2 billion in profits being held overseas, in lower-tax jurisdictions. If even a portion of that money came back to America, companies would need to find ways to spend or invest it, supplying a very quick boost to the economy. “It’s going to happen,” Weinberger insists. “You can’t be uncompetitive for so long.”

Passing the Trans Pacific Partnership. This is a tough sell, given the headway Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders have made with angry voters, highlighting the people who lose from trade deals. But many analysts think Congress may pass the TPP during the lame duck session after the November elections. If passed, the TPP could enlarge overseas markets for American producers and boost exports.

More infrastructure spending. Congress already passed a $305 billion highway bill late last year, which ought to be a job creator for the next several years. If U.S. multinationals get a tax break on profits overseas, some of the repatriated money could end up in public-private infrastructure programs that will help rebuild roads, bridges, tunnels and telecom networks. And if Democrats win the White House and at least one branch of Congress, additional infrastructure spending will probably be more likely. This is one of the best ways to directly create jobs while investing in something that will pay off in the future.

Immigration reform. It may be too controversial to pull off, but letting in more skilled workers while coming to terms with 12 million illegals would be a big source of predictability for some companies dependent upon foreign workers. Those 12 million illegals might also be a meaningful source of entrepreneurship if allowed to stay here permanently.

Boosting U.S. growth would obviously help American companies, while also attracting more foreign ones – improving growth even more. “You want to have companies come here,” says Weinberger. “It will bring a lot of jobs and good wages.” Candidates, take note.

Abused may get new self-defence law

A new law recommended by the Law Commission would recognise family violence victims who kill are usually reacting to years of mounting abuse.

Photo: RNZ

Under the current law, a person must be facing an immediate threat to use self-defence - but in a report released today, the commission proposes widening the defence in family violence cases.

Daryl Kirk, who shot dead her mother's abusive partner in Lower Hutt last year, is awaiting sentencing next month after being convicted of manslaughter.

Her lawyer unsuccessfully argued self-defence, saying she was confronted by a drug-crazed Adam Watkins, armed with a machete.

Law Commissioner Wayne Mapp said under the proposed change to New Zealand's self-defence law, someone like Kirk could have been acquitted.

The current law failed to recognise that family violence victims who killed, were usually reacting to years of mounting abuse and often didn't see any other way to stop it, he said.

Self-defence could even be argued in cases of pre-meditated killing, such as a woman killing her abusive partner while he slept.

"Such a claim would only be successful if existing in the context of a sustained long period of family violence, and that if you didn't do that, then the next thing that was going to happen to you was that you were going to be killed instead."

A small subset of family violence homicides - less than 10 percent, or less than 5 percent of all homicides in New Zealand - happen when a victim of family violence kills their abuser.

Of 24 cases examined by the Law Commission in which victims of family violence killed their abusers from 2001 to 2015, self-defence was claimed in 10 of the 16 cases that went to trial.

It was successful in three cases, and failed in seven.

Women's Refuge said New Zealand lagged behind Britain and many Australian states, which have amended their self-defence laws to recognise the situation of battered women and other victims of family violence.

Women's Refuge chief executive Ang Jury Photo: RNZ / Philippa Tolley

Its chief executive, Ang Jury, said the Commission's most important recommendation was continued education for judges, lawyers and police about family violence.

"Domestic violence can be likened to a kind of domestic terrorism lasting for years and a woman who has been controlled and violated over a long period of time will sometimes react in a way very different from that of someone not experiencing the same sort of routine violence and cruelty," she said.

"Having these circumstances better understood by judges, lawyers, police and the wider public could, if combined with these types of legislative reforms, go a long way to helping prevent future injustices."

Justice Minister Amy Adams Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

Justice Minister Amy Adams said the Law Commission had rightly identified that many family violence victims felt trapped.

But it would be a significant change to make self-defence available almost at any time in certain situations, she said.

"In Australia they have said that the threat to a person's life does not have to be imminent, but it does have to be inevitable.

"And I personally think that that provides some stronger safe-guards than the way the Law Commission has phrased it, which is simply that it doesn't have to be imminent. I think you do need some significant checks and balances in place."

However, the Law Commission maintains its recommendation would remove current inconsistencies.

A senior legal and policy adviser, Nichola Lambie, said it would not turn self-defence into a get-out-of-jail free card for pre-meditated murder.

"We're not recommending changing the test for self defence, which is that the response must be reasonable in all circumstances as the defendant saw them. That's a matter for the jury. What we're trying to do is remove the focus on the imminent circumstances."

Other recommendations in the report include:

• A change to the Evidence Act 2006 allowing a broader range of evidence about incidents of family violence to be provided to support a claim of self-defence.
• Continuing education of judges, crown prosecutors and defence lawyers to improve understanding of family violence within the criminal justice system.
• Ministry of Justice to undertake further work to address the three strikes system as this may have unintended consequences for victims of family violence who kill their abusers. The report suggests the Ministry consider how the law could be changed to allow appropriate sentencing in deserving cases.

What The New Trade Secrets Law Means For U.S. Companies

Two weeks ago, Congress passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), all but guaranteeing its passage into law. The legislation allows businesses—for the first time—to file claims under federal law against those who misappropriate their confidential information. Here's what that means for the future of business, and a few steps companies can take right away to prepare.

THE (GROWING) VALUE OF INFORMATION

More and more, information assets are what defines a company's competitive value. Historically, businesses relied on the other forms of intellectual property protection—patent, copyright, and trademark—to safeguard their positions in the marketplace. But those protections have limits. Patents require disclosure of the invention, and the patent system is slow.

In many fast-moving markets, products become obsolete before a patent is awarded. And in the past few years, the courts have narrowed what technologies can be patented, making it much harder to get patents on software and business methods, and invalidating thousands of previously issued patents.

The new law protects any information that derives its value from being secret

Partly as a result of these trends, businesses have come to rely more on confidentiality to protect the value of their innovations. And "trade secrets," as the impending law defines them, encompass a wide range of confidential business information—not just product designs and manufacturing techniques, but also strategic information like client lists and pricing strategies. In general terms, the new law protects any information that derives its value from being secret and is not known to others who might benefit from its use.

But relying on secrecy comes with serious risks—like losing your competitive advantage suddenly and unpredictably. The FBI estimates that U.S. businesses suffer more than $13 billion in trade-secret–related losses every year. That includes when information is deliberately taken, for instance through a malicious system attack, when an employee leaves for a competitor, or when a supplier obtains valuable technology under a confidentiality agreement.

But it's more often lost inadvertently, through employees who share too much with their colleagues—or even simply by logging onto unprotected networks while traveling.

AMP Declines Most in Three Years on Insurance Claims Losses

AMP Ltd., an Australian fund manager and insurer, declined the most in almost three years as it reported higher-than-expected insurance claim losses and said March quarter wealth management cash flows dropped.

Shares in the Sydney-based firm fell 6.8 percent to A$5.44 at 11:59 a.m. in Sydney compared with a 0.5 percent decline for the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index. AMP’s decline is its worst since June 2013 and the stock is trading at its lowest level in a month.

AMP reported wealth management net cashflows of A$209 million ($153 million) in the first quarter, down from A$342 million a year earlier amid weaker investment confidence and market volatility, according to a regulatory statement. The wealth protection business experienced insurance losses of A$18 million, it said.

UBS Group AG analysts led by James Coghill cut the company to neutral from buy and reduced their 12-month share price target to A$5.50 from A$6.30.

While lower cash flows were expected, “the re-emergence of quite significant losses in wealth protection is however a more concerning feature,” the analysts said. “The absence of any meaningful losses from major bank competitors in recent weeks indicates higher incidence levels could be an AMP-specific problem.”

Questions Emerge About The Impact Of State Autism Insurance Mandates

Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books requiring health insurers to cover autism treatments. But new research evaluating the so-called “insurance mandates” suggests these efforts are failing in key ways to help people — especially children — get needed therapy.

These findings, which were to be presented Wednesday at a major conference on autism spectrum disorder and will appear this summer in JAMA Pediatrics, highlight the consequences of this shortfall.

There’s been a push for health insurers to better cover often-pricey autism treatments, especially applied behavioral analysis, a type of behavioral modification therapy.

Those efforts come as autism rates have ballooned. In 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 1 in 45 children is on the autism spectrum, with symptoms ranging from communication difficulties to repetitive or obsessive behaviors. In 2000, the rate was 1 in 150.

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Researchers found that the state mandates — which apply to coverage available on the individual market and some group and employer plans — led to about 12 percent more children getting some kind of treatment for autism. But when compared with the number believed to have the condition, it’s not nearly enough, they say.

“These numbers are orders of magnitude below” the CDC’s autism estimates, said David Mandell, one of the researchers and the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research. “It suggests that a lot of commercially insured kids with autism are not being treated through their insurance.”

The shortfall may have significant health consequences, said Daniele Fallin, who chairs the Johns Hopkins University department of mental health and directs Hopkins’ Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities. For children, it’s important to get treatment as soon as possible. If that doesn’t happen, the condition will become more complicated — and more costly — to treat in the long run.

“It’s a big concern any time you see this kind of treatment gap,” said Fallin, who wasn’t affiliated with the study.

The researchers used insurance claims data from 2008 to 2012 compiled by the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit organization that focuses on price transparency. They divided the case files of 154,000 children into four groups. First, they took states with insurance mandates and split the files between children whose coverage was affected and those whose was exempt. Then, in states without insurance mandates, they divided children with commercial insurance — that is, insurance that would have been hit by a mandate if one existed — and those whose policies still wouldn’t have been affected. The study did not include Medicaid plans, and the claims data was pulled from three large insurance companies in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

The researchers then analyzed how many autism-related treatments those patients billed to their insurance, controlling for factors like age, sex, health plan type and calendar month. They found that having a mandate in place increased the level of treatments billed by an average of about 12.2 percent — 9.9 percent during the mandate’s first year, 16.6 percent the second year and 17.2 percent in subsequent years.

But questions persist beyond whether patients got some form of care. The researchers are still teasing out what kinds of treatments children who used their insurance actually received. And, Mandell said, it leaves open how good that care actually was.

The takeaway is that insurance mandates are “necessary but not sufficient” for helping people get needed therapies, he said.

That makes sense, said Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation, which helps fund research. Requiring health plans to cover autism therapies was important as a first step, she argued. But more needs to be done.

“You can’t rely on these mandates alone. You can’t say, ‘OK now, everything’s hunky dory, and everyone’s being served the right way,’” she said.

There are a few possible reasons the coverage requirements aren’t always translating to people getting treatment.

Even if insurers have to cover care, there’s wide variation in how generous the coverage is. Plans can argue that certain services — like speech and occupational therapy as well as applied behavioral therapy — aren’t necessary, or they can require higher cost-sharing from beneficiaries, or reimburse at a low enough rate that doctors don’t participate. Also, not all mandates are equal — some states cap how much spending a plan has to guarantee, allow ceilings to the number of doctors’ visits or limit the age range of beneficiaries.

Even when a mandate is in place, it’s often unclear what insurance plans are actually required to pay for, said Halladay. Plus, parents of autistic children may not realize what services are covered, she added.

Then there’s also the fact that, compared to the need, not enough doctors are familiar with autism treatments, noted Mandell, who coauthored a qualitative study published last November in the journal Autism.

“There are long waiting lists for people to get medical referrals for their autism-related problems. There are wait-lists all over the place. And that’s because there aren’t enough people trained,” Halladay said. “It’s not an easy problem to solve.”

That could have cost implications, too. Insurance plans have argued that mandates could drive up premiums. So far, they’ve resulted in increases of about 1 percent, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, but those could grow if plans cover more services or autism rates keep climbing. That could also color whether other companies not covered by the mandates choose to cover these services. For instance, the laws don’t affect large companies that are self-insured, though some, like Home Depot and Microsoft, provide autism treatment coverage.

Aetna Not Withdrawing From Any Health-Law Insurance-Exchange States

Aetna Inc. expects to continue selling Affordable Care Act exchange plans in 15 states, and the insurer said it may expand into new areas.

The announcement adds to the mixed picture that the industry has been providing about companies’ willingness to stick it out on the exchanges, which have generated red ink for many insurers.

Insurers’ moves on the exchanges are being closely watched after UnitedHealth Group Inc. said last month that it would withdraw from all but a handful of the 34 states where it is offering the marketplace plans, amid continued losses. Humana Inc., which is also expecting losses this year on its exchange business, has said it would likely withdrawfrom some exchanges.

But other big insurers have struck a guardedly optimistic tone. Anthem Inc. expects to make a narrow profit on ACA marketplace plans this year, though short of its target margins, and Aetna itself earlier said it continues to expect to break even on the exchanges in 2016.

Aetna Chief Executive Mark T. Bertolini told analysts during the company’s first-quarter earnings call that Aetna still saw its position in the ACA marketplaces as a “good investment.” But he also made pointed comments about the need for changes to the law to ensure a sustainable business. Aetna is currently seeking to acquire Humana, a deal that is under review by Justice Department antitrust regulators.

Some Medicaid-focused insurers, such as Centene Corp., have been profitable on the exchanges, and analysts think they could expand their presence. Cigna Corp. has said it plans to expand to a few more states from the seven where it currently sells exchange plans.

However, many insurers that are sticking with the exchanges are expected to seek significant rate increases for next year as they try to boost lagging results.

Aetna spokesman T.J. Crawford said the company has submitted proposed rates to regulators in all of its existing exchange states for plans to be offered next year. The insurer has “no plans at this point to withdraw from any of those states,” he said. In making its regulatory filings, he said, the insurer has also “preserved our options to enter certain new geographies pending careful evaluation of marketplace conditions.”

At least one state regulator, in Oklahoma, said it already had been informed that Aetna planned to begin selling exchange plans there in 2017.

However, Aetna emphasized that its exchange footprint wouldn’t be finalized until September, when insurers sign binding agreements to offer plans. Mr. Crawford said the company has “not made any final decisions on where we might enter new Affordable Care Act states.”

Aetna said on its first-quarter earnings call that enrollment in its individual plans grew more than it expected, to about 1.2 million, an increase of about 200,000 from the end of last year. The company said 911,000 of those people signed up through the ACA marketplaces.

Aetna had previously said it aimed to break even on ACA plans this year, while targeting profits in future years. The company said during the first-quarter call that it thought it was on a path to achieve its 2016 goal, but warned that it had “low visibility” at this point in the year.

Zurich Insurance Net Beats Estimates as Overhaul Continues

Zurich Insurance Group AG, Switzerland’s biggest insurer, posted a first-quarter profit that beat analysts expectations as Chief Executive Officer Mario Greco continues the overhaul of its biggest unit.

Net income fell 28 percent to $875 million from 1.22 billion a year earlier, the Zurich-based company said in a statement on Thursday. That beat the $745 million estimate by 6 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

“The measures we put in place to improve the performance of our general insurance business are taking effect,” Chief Financial Officer George Quinn said in the statement. “Even adjusting for a benign catastrophe claims environment, there has been an underlying improvement and we expect to see this trend continue throughout the year.”

Zurich announced cost cutting measures, promising to make a stronger use of
reinsurance to insulate itself from risks and exit portfolios that don’t
deliver returns, after reporting consecutive operating losses for its general
insurance unit in the third and fourth quarters. Greco joined from Italian
insurer Assicurazioni Generali SpA, after Zurich CEO Martin Senn and general
insurance head Mike Kerner stepped down from their positions last year.

The general insurance unit posted a first-quarter operating profit of $542 million, down 23 percent from a year earlier. Farmers was down 12 percent at $343 million as its reinsurance unit, Farmers Re, reported a “small loss” due to catastrophe losses at the Farmers Exchanges.

The losses in general insurance led the company to abandon a takeover bid for
the U.K.’s RSA Insurance Group Plc.

U.S. Urges Colleges to Rethink Questions About Criminal Records

The Obama administration is urging universities and colleges to re-evaluate how questions about an applicant’s criminal history are used in the admissions process, part of an effort to remove barriers to education, employment and housing for those with past convictions, in many cases for minor crimes.

Education Secretary John B. King Jr. released a “Dear Colleague” letter to universities and colleges on Monday along with a guide, “Beyond the Box: Increasing Access to Higher Education for Justice Involved Individuals.” Among the guide’s recommendations is a suggestion that colleges consider delaying questions about criminal records until after admissions decisions to avoid a “chilling effect” on potential applicants.

Noting that an estimated 70 million Americans have some form of criminal record, Mr. King said people who have been involved with the criminal justice system “continue to face significant hurdles in obtaining access to higher education or career training.”

Most universities ask questions about an applicant’s criminal record as part of the admissions process. Requests for this information have increased in the past decade or so after several high-profile instances of campus violence.

The Department of Education’s announcement, in a telephone news conference with reporters on Monday, came amid growing concerns that admissions questions marginalize black applicants. A body of statistical evidence has emerged showing that black teenagers are singled out for disciplinary action in school, and stopped and arrested by the police at higher rates than other ethnic groups.

In a separate announcement on Monday, representatives from the Common Application, used by more than 600 colleges, announced that the fall 2016 application would include a revised question about criminal history. Previously, the Common Application asked students whether they had been convicted of a felony, misdemeanor or “other crimes.” The reference to “other crimes,” deemed ambiguous, will be omitted.

The Common Application has also begun a review to determine whether additional revisions of its questions about criminal history and past school discipline questions should be made for the 2017 application, said Aba Blankson, its senior director.

The State University of New York said Monday that its 64-campus system was already reviewing its practice of asking about criminal histories. A resolution by the SUNY student assembly, adopted in March, called for removal of such questions, citing research indicating that they discouraged prospective students from applying, and that there was no evidence that admitting those with criminal histories improves campus safety.

Mr. King also said Monday that there was no evidence that such application questions deterred campus violence.

Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California system, said in the news conference with Mr. King that the university’s 10 campuses did not include such questions because they are “not relevant to the evaluation of an individuals’ qualifications for study.”

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an advocacy group, said this year that it was conducting an inquiry of colleges and universities that asked what it considered particularly intrusive questions on their applications, including questions about arrests without convictions.

The “Beyond the Box” guide also recommends:

• Clearly informing potential students as early as possible in the application process about how to respond to questions about their criminal pasts.

• Ensuring that such questions are narrowly focused, avoiding overly broad requests about criminal history.

• Giving all prospective students an opportunity to explain criminal justice involvement and their preparedness for postsecondary study.

• Providing training for admissions officers and counselors on the effective use of criminal history data.

The Education Department’s initiative follows other Obama administration efforts aimed at reversing policies that limit the opportunities available to people with criminal records. The administration warned landlords this year that they cannot impose blanket bans on tenants with criminal convictions.

t’s a Tough Job Market for the Young Without College Degrees

For seniors graduating from the University of Michigan this month, employers have been lining up since the fall to offer interviews and boast of their companies’ benefits. Recruiters would ask when their competitors were coming, said Geni Harclerode, the university’s assistant director of employer development, and then they’d say: “Well, we want to come the week before.”

“This has been one of our largest seasons of hiring,” she said. “The job market has been very good.”

The outlook for many high school graduates is more challenging, as Vynny Brown can attest. Now 20, he graduated two years ago from Waller High School in Texas, and has been working for nearly a year at Pappasito’sCantina in Houston, part of a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants. He earns $7.25 an hour filling takeout orders or $2.13 an hour plus tips as a server, which rarely adds up to more than the minimum, he said. He would like to apply to be a manager, but those jobs require some college experience.

“That is something I don’t have,” said Mr. Brown, who says he cannot afford to go to college now. “It’s the biggest struggle I’ve had.”

Most young workers have the same problem as Mr. Brown. Only 10 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds have a college or advanced degree, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute, although many more of them will eventually graduate.

And for young high school graduates, the unemployment rate is disturbingly high: 17.8 percent. Add in those who are underemployed, either because they would like a full-time job but can only find part-time work, or they are so discouraged that they’ve given up actively searching, and the share jumps to more than 33 percent.

Younger workers have always had a tougher time finding a job than their older, more experienced counterparts. Even so, the economic recovery has progressed more slowly for young high school graduates than for those coming out of college.

A Struggle to Get Ahead

Among 17- to 24-year-olds, just over 10 percent have completed college or achieved an advanced degree.

Highest degree earned, population ages 17 to 24

12-month moving average as of February 2016

Less than

high school

Bachelor’s

degree

Advanced

degree

High school only

Some college

24.9%

28.5%

36.5%

9.3%

0.8%

ALL

23.2

26.8

37.6

11.5

0.9

WHITE

25.7

33.1

34.9

5.8

0.4

BLACK

29.5

32.6

33.1

4.6

0.3

HISPANIC

Note: Race/ethnicity categories are mutually exclusive (i.e., white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic, and Hispanic any race).

Source: Economic Policy Institute

By The New York Times

“It’s improved since the recession, but it’s still pretty poor,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, who noted the average hourly wage for high school graduates had declined since 2000 despite increases in the minimum wage in some places.

Ms. Gould is part of a growing chorus of economists, employers and educators who argue more effort needs to be put into improving job prospects for people without college degrees.

“Without question we have failed to pay attention to and invest in opportunities for young people who are not on a path to go to four years of college,” said Chauncy Lennon, the head of work force initiatives at JPMorgan Chase, which has started a $75 million program to design and deliver career-focused education in high schools and community colleges.

For high school students, a four-year college education is frequently held out as the only viable option, precisely because job opportunities and wages are so much better upon graduation. But many who sign up never finish. “The most common reason they fail to complete is that they need to start earning a living to support their families,” Mr. Lennon said.

Vocational, career and technical high schools have often been stigmatized as a last resort for underachievers. At the same time, educators and administrators in some places have been criticized for steering minority students toward them in lieu of academic programs.

The initiative sponsored by Chase is aimed at repairing that reputation. Although some traditional middle-skills opportunities for construction and clerical workers are shrinking, Mr. Lennon said, others are growing. In health care, for instance, radiology and phlebotomy technicians are needed; in advanced manufacturing and aviation, mechanical maintenance workers are in demand.

He added that vocational schools should no longer be thought of as dead ends, since they can serve as steppingstones to associate degrees at community colleges or to enrollment at four-year institutions.

Issac Cordoso, who is graduating from Medford Vocational Technical High School in Massachusetts in June, already has a job lined up as an electrical apprentice, earning $12 an hour.

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Issac Cordoso is studying electrical work at Medford Vocational Technical High School in Medford, Mass.CreditScott Eisen for The New York Times

“I went into vocational school with my heart set on the automotive program, but I fell in love with electrical and saw a bigger future for myself,” Mr. Cordoso, 17, said.

He is also applying for a coveted spot as an apprentice with the local electrical union, where the starting pay is $18.25 an hour. As an apprentice, he could work while training to become a journeyman, a position with an hourly wage of $28. Most of Mr. Cordoso’s classmates also have jobs waiting for them, he said.

Stefanie A. DeLuca, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, is the co-author of a study of low-income African-American millennials in Baltimore titled, “Coming of Age in the Other America.” She agrees there is a pressing need for more targeted, streamlined vocational programs in high schools and at community colleges.

“They’re looking for jobs,” Dr. DeLuca said of the youths she interviewed. “They want a quick launch.”

Still, low wages combined with rising housing costs make it tough to get ahead. “They’re juggling a job at Potbelly and a security job and working 60 hours a week and it’s still not enough,” she said.

Despite the improving job market, what particularly troubled Martha Ross, a researcher at the Brookings Institution in Washington, were the 3.2 million disadvantaged youths between 16 and 24 who were not in school and did not have a job.

“The size of that population was bigger than I expected,” said Ms. Ross, who is the co-author of a paper on youth employment across the country. Although metropolitan areas can vary widely, the report found, in some communities, young blacks and Latinos are three to five times more likely than whites to fall into this group.

If things are tough for high school graduates, for those without a high school diploma, the job hunt can be grim. Adam McKinley, 18, said he dropped out of his high school in Baltimore last year because he needed to work full time. He worked briefly at Dunkin’ Donuts and has searched for jobs at coffee bars and restaurants, hotels and warehouses. Because many of the applications were online, Mr. McKinley said he did not know why he never heard back.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” he said. “You have no idea what’s going on.”

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