The Center for Poverty & Inequality Research Conferences convene
scholars and policy experts to discuss pressing issues in poverty
and poverty research.
In October 2015, the Center hosted the conference “Employment,
Earnings and Inequality: Realities and Opportunities in Low Wage
Labor Markets.” This conference presented both quantitative and
qualitative research on questions related to low wage labor
markets, covering topics that include wage trends and shifts in
occupations, policies that enhance wages, issues related to
immigration, mobility, stigma and identity among low-skilled
workers.
In this Keynote presentation, Paul Osterman discusses the
low-wage labor market and policies that affect low-wage workers.
Osterman is the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Professor
of Human Resources and Management at the M.I.T. Sloan School of
Management as well as a member of the Department of Urban
Planning at M.I.T.
In this presentation, Jeffrey Clemens discusses his work on how
the Great Recession affected employment and income for
low-skilled workers. Clemens is an assistant professor in
the Department of Economics at UC San Diego.
In this presentation, David Pedulla discusses his work on the
stigma of low-wage work based experimental field and survey
evidence. Pedulla is an Assistant Professor in the Department of
Sociology and a Faculty Research Associate of the Population
Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
In March 2015, the Center hosted the conference “Increasing
College Access and Success for Low Income Students: Building on
New Research Domains.” This conference brought a unique mix of
researchers, policy professionals and leaders in education to
discuss new opportunities in education for low-income students.
In this presentation, Greg Walton presents his research on
interventions that improve the transition to college for
disadvantaged students. Walton is an Assistant Professor of
Psychology at Stanford University.
In this presentation, Alexander Mayer presents her work on
community college developmental education. Mayer is a
Research Associate at MDRC, a nonprofit, non-partisan
education and social policy research organization dedicated
to learning what works to improve programs and policies that
affect the poor.
In this presentation Jessica Howell and Jonathan Smith discuss
how to ensure that low-income students have access to the
opportunities they have earned.
Jessica Howell is the executive director of policy
research and the co-director of the College Board’s Advocacy
& Policy Center, and Jonathan Smith is an
Associate Policy Research Scientist at the College Board
Advocacy & Policy Center. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and
conducts research on student-college match.
In November 2014, the Center hosted the conference “Poverty and
Place,” which focused on the implications of geography and
population density have for poverty. This conference brought
together a unique mix of researchers, policy professionals and
industry leaders to discuss their work studying the people,
geography, and the safety net as it relates to persistent
poverty.
Ann Stevens is Director of the Center for Poverty Research
at UC Davis, Economics Professor and Interim Dean at the Graduate
School of Management. She studies low income workers and labor
markets, the incidence and effects of job loss, connections
between economic shocks and health, and poverty and safety-net
dynamics. Stevens previously served on the faculty at Rutgers and
Yale Universities and is a faculty research associate with the
National Bureau of Economic Research.
Scott W. Allard is a Professor at the Daniel J. Evans School
of Public Affairs at the University of Washington with expertise
in social welfare policy, federalism and intergovernmental
relationships, and urban policy. Allard is a nonresidential
senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy
Program and co-director of the Family Self-Sufficiency Data
Center at the University of Chicago Review.
Jennifer Sherman is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at
Washington State University. Her research looks at the
interactions of economic conditions, cultural norms, and family
outcomes, particularly in rural areas. Sherman focuses on
families experiencing poverty and low incomes in order to
understand the ways in which their choices and decisions are
impacted by economic constraints and community contexts.
In November 2013, the Center hosted the conference “The
Affordable Care Act & Low Income Populations: Lessons from and
Challenges for Research.” This conference brought together a
unique mix of researchers, policy professionals and industry
leaders to discuss what the new law means for health care in this
country, as well as its possible impacts on domestic poverty.
Ann Huff Stevens is the Director of the UC Davis Center for
Poverty Research, and Professor of Economics at UC Davis. She has
served as an investigator on several grants from the National
Science Foundation, including a study currently underway to
better understand the relationship between cyclical movements in
unemployment and mortality. Stevens is also a faculty research
associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In his keynote presentation, Mitchell Katz talks about the
challenges of providing health care to poor and uninsured
populations, and the changes required of county hospitals by the
Affordable Care Act.
Katz is the director of Los Angeles County Department of Health
Services, which serves more than ten million residents, about one
million of whom have no medical insurance.
In this presentation, Tom DeLeire discusses his research on how
the Affordable Care Act might affect how much childless adults
use health care. DeLeire is a Professor of Public Policy at
Georgetown University.
In January, 2014, the Center hosted the “War on Poverty
Conference” fifty years after the passage of President
Lyndon Johnson’s Economic Opportunity Act in 1964. Johnson’s
legislation was the start of many anti-poverty programs that
provided access to health care, nutritional assistance and
educational support that continue today. This conference hosted
top poverty scholars who look closely at its legacy.
In this presentation, Kent Germany discusses the War on Poverty,
the United States budget, and president Lyndon Johnson’s economic
vision.
Germany is an Assistant Professor of History and African American
Studies at the University of South Carolina and co-host of
For The Record, a PBS interview program on politics and
history.
In this presentation, Martha Bailey discusses a quantitative
history of the War on Poverty.
Bailey is an Associate Professor of Economics and a Research
Associate Professor at the Population Studies Center at the
University of Michigan. She is also a Research Associate with the
National Bureau of Economic Research.
In this presentation, Gavin Wright discusses Martha Bailey’s
paper, “How We Fought the War on Poverty: A Quantitative
History.”
Wright is the William Robertson Coe Professor of American
Economic History at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at
the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
