Beneficiary Work: The Hidden Labor of Medicaid Users Pursuing Cross-State Moves

For users of Medicaid personal care assistance (PCA) services and their families, interstate variation in eligibility and service availability act as structural barriers to cross-state movement. However, program users desire and pursue cross-state moves. In this article, we provide a grounded theory analysis of 18 interviews with Medicaid PCA users with physical disabilities who expressed desire for or pursued cross-state moves. Our analysis identified six forms of previously unnamed and unrecognized work. As PCA users plan or pursue cross-state moves, they are also (1) assessing service ecosystems, (2) finding the right door, (3) persisting through the bureaucratic gauntlet, (4) advocating for systems cooperation, (5) reestablishing networks of support, and (6) responding to service gaps/lapses. Collectively, we describe this hidden labor as beneficiary work, the unremunerated work that program users must do in order to retain access to benefits for which they qualify. Beneficiary work, while hidden, is not optional; it is necessary for continued access to community and broadly, for survival. Identifying and describing beneficiary work expands on Feminist and interactionist perspectives on disability, poverty, and work, and highlights the need for changes to Medicaid policy that address PCA users as mobile citizens.     

USING BASEBALL CARD PRICES TO MEASURE STAR QUALITY AND MONOPSONY

Baseball card prices are used to capture star quality in a new measure of productivity in Major League Baseball. Star quality, which impacts revenues, is determined from a player's baseball card price as the residual in a fit of card prices to performance statistics. This measure is entered into the computation of individual player marginal revenue product and compared to players' salaries using data from the four years leading up to the 1994 MLB strike. Results are examined for monopsonistic exploitation by market size, free agency status, type of player, and other relevant categories. Underpaid and overpaid players are identified.     

Educating the adult minority professional: a case study of the national rural fellows program

The authors describe the critical issues that emerged during the first years of the National Rural Fellows Program at its academic base, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, and how these issues were subsequently addressed.The Program is designed to provide intensive training leading to a Master's degree for adult minority professionals from rural backgrounds throughout the United States. As a case study, the paper has implications for other departments considering innovations of this sort. It particularly describes the pedagogical and socio-cultural issues regarding the education of adult minority professionals, the potential for new faculty perspectives to be gained from such interaction, and the challenge to traditional regional planning curricula for rural planning across the United States.     

New business development in mature firms

New business development (NBD) is one of the main strategic options for the ‘mature’ company. The authors discuss the reasons why NBD should be considered and suggest a framework for developing new businesses. The results of a two year investigation of a sample of 14 UK companies' NBD initiatives are presented. Half of the sample have either abandoned or are reducing their new business activities. The reasons are manifold and relate to a failure to define specifically the role of the NBD initiatives; a lack of appreciation of the risks, long time spans for development and the high financial commitment associated with NBD; a weakening of the mainstream business (this in itself suggesting that companies often leave NBD ‘too late’); and a naive approach toward marketing. Some lessons for mature companies' future involvement in NBD are drawn.