Poverty Research & Policy

In his new book, Dr. Zachary Parolin explores three perspectives on poverty—poverty as a risk factor, poverty as an expression of access to current resources, and poverty as a stratifying factor—and how they affected people during the COVID-19 pandemic. He advocates for policy approaches that will both prepare us for the next large-scale economic disruption and provide timely assistance when upheaval occurs, and makes the case for more frequent, and more nuanced poverty measures. Zach Parolin is an Assistant Professor of Social Policy at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, and a Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy. His new book, “Poverty in the Pandemic: Policy Lessons from COVID-19,” was published by the Russell Sage Foundation.

The federal government established a temporary water assistance program to alleviate the burden of water costs on households during the COVID-19 pandemic. Establishing a permanent water assistance program can increase long-term water affordability for households. In this episode, Dr. Manny Teodoro discusses the report he co-authored for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies that assessed options for a permanent federal water assistance program and shares how extending SNAP benefits would help increase water affordability.   Manny Teodoro is the Robert and Sylvia Wagner Professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focuses on U.S. environmental policy and implementation, as well as utility management, policy, and finance. 

There are known protective factors that can help young people exiting foster care to thrive by reducing or eliminating the challenges that they often face. By measuring resilience over time, and viewing it as “a state, not a trait,” there is more opportunity to create networks and systems to support these young people as they transition to adulthood. In this episode, Dr. Svetlana Shpiegel discusses her co-authored paper, “Resilient Outcomes among Youth Aging-Out of Foster Care: Findings from the National Youth in Transition Database,” and shares how she and her colleagues assessed sustained resilience, periodic resilience, and sustained non-resilience among young adults exiting care, and why policies like Extended Foster Care are vital. Svetlana Shpiegel is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy at Montclair State University. Her research interests include adolescents transitioning from foster care, child abuse and neglect, risk and resilience among vulnerable populations, and early pregnancy and parenthood among child-welfare involved youth.

While non-standard work is not a new concept, technology has fueled a recent rise in independent contracting, freelancing, temporary, on-call, and “gig" work. Much of the research on non-standard work has focused on its precarious nature and lower economic security for active workers. In her recent paper, "The Retirement Implications of Non-Standard Work," Dr. Mina Addo turns her attention to the impacts on retirement security for the large numbers of U.S. workers are participating in non-standard work alone or in addition to traditional employment.  Dr. Addo is an IRP National Poverty Fellow in residence at the Office of Planning Research and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She completed her Ph.D. in social welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice and is a qualitative researcher with experience with mixed methods studies. This paper was funded through a 2022 Junior Scholars and Training Research Award from the Retirement and Disability Research Center of the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Probation is often considered to be a kinder, gentler alternative to incarceration. But there are significant financial and emotional costs associated with home confinement that affect not just the person who is under supervision, but their families and communities as well. In this episode, we hear from Dr. Brittany Battle. She is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University and is also the co-founder of Triad Abolition Project, a grassroots organization based in Winston-Salem, NC. Dr. Battle is also an IRP Emerging Poverty Scholar, and her project during that fellowship is to examine the experiences of low-income people and communities in diverse judicial settings and forms of community supervision and confinement.

Self-employment can be a choice, or undertaken by necessity. In the United States, on average, 10 to 12% of the labor force is engaged in some form of self-employment. That proportion can be higher in times of economic downturns, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. But low- and middle-income workers face many obstacles to being successful in their entrepreneurial activities. In this episode, Dr. Daniel Auguste joins us to discuss the paper that he co-authored with Stephen Roll and Mathieu Despard, titled “The Precarity of Self-Employment among Low- and Moderate-Income Households.” Dr. Auguste explains how self-employment can bring rewards, but also entails assuming significant risks. And for low- and middle-income entrepreneurs, professional networks and access to financing and other necessary supportive services may be difficult to attain.   Dr. Daniel Auguste is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Florida Atlantic University and is currently an MLK Visiting Assistant Professor in the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is also currently an IRP Emerging Poverty Scholar. His research interests include inequality, stratification, economic and organizational sociology, and entrepreneurship. More specifically, his research agenda seeks to understand the structural forces determining who gets what, who participates and to what level they participate in the capitalist production process.

Estimates are that 20–50% of people eligible for social safety net programs don’t access them. While there may be many factors contributing to that gap, recent research has focused on the role that stigma plays. In this episode, Dr. Elizabeth Linos joins us to discuss the paper she co-authored with Jessica Lasky-Fink, titled “It's Not Your Fault: Reducing Stigma Increases Take Up of Government Programs.” Stigma can be direct or anticipated from the wider society, including from agency workers with whom people would need to interact in order to access services. Stigmatizing messages can be internalized as shame or guilt for simply needing services. Through research with municipalities doing outreach for housing assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Linos and her colleagues found that small changes can significantly increase uptake of services simply by destigmatizing the language. Dr. Elizabeth Linos is the Emma Bloomberg Associate Professor for Public Policy and Management, and Faculty Director of The People Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The majority of her research focuses on how to improve government by focusing on its people and the services they deliver. Specifically, she uses insights from behavioral science and evidence from public management to consider how to recruit, retain, and support the government workforce, how to reduce administrative burdens that low-income households face when they interact with their government, and how to better integrate evidence-based policymaking into government.

Official measures of homelessness seem to indicate that the Latinx community is less affected than most other minoritized racial groups. But this aspect of what is called “The Latinx Paradox” might in fact be due to the extent of homelessness in Latinx communities being obscured by other factors. In this episode, Dr. Deyanira Nevarez Martinez shares her research into the nuances of Latinx housing precarity, and why understanding the Latinx experience of homelessness is vital for effective public policy and human services provision. Dr. Nevarez Martinez is an Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Michigan State University and a core faculty member in Chicano Latino studies. She is also an IRP Emerging Poverty Scholar. Professor Nevarez Martinez's December 2022 IRP seminar presentation.

In this episode, we hear from Hope Harvey about doubled-up households in the United States and why she thinks we should be paying more attention to the situations of people who are living in shared households. Professor Harvey is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Kentucky, where she is a research affiliate at the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research. She's also a 2022-2023 IRP Visiting Poverty Scholar. In the episode, Professor Harvey discusses two papers: Hope Harvey, Rachel Dunifon, and Natasha Pilkauskas. Under whose roof? Understanding the living arrangements of children in doubled-up households. Demography. 2021; 58(3): 821-846. Hope Harvey. When Mothers Can’t "Pay the Cost to Be the Boss": Roles and Identity within Doubled-up Households. Social Problems. 2020

High levels of segregation can have significant impacts on communities and the individuals living in them. New research uses railroad tracks as a measure of segregation and overlays data on homicide deaths to determine if people of color living in highly segregated communities are more at risk. In this episode, Dr. Jamein Cunningham shares the findings in the paper he co-authored with Robynn Cox, Alberto Ortega and Kenneth D. Whaley titled "Black Lives: The High Cost of Segregation." Cunningham is an assistant professor in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University and an IRP Emerging Poverty Scholar Fellow.