Anupama Jacob is an assistant professor in the Bachelor of Social Work program. She received her Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests center on issues related to poverty and inequality, particularly in the United States. 

I appreciate the Center’s unique position to contribute to effective change in the design and implementation of poverty alleviation strategies by disseminating poverty-relevant knowledge to policymakers and stakeholders across the political spectrum.

Using secondary data analysis, her research seeks to explore how uni-dimensional measures (such as the official measure and the Supplemental Poverty Measure) and multi-dimensional measures (that include indicators for areas such as health, education, and housing conditions) change the profile of the poor, and how this has been impacted by the recession.

Anupama analyzes variations in poverty rates at the national level and then compares state-level differences between California, a state with one of the nation’s most youthful populations, and Florida, the state with the highest proportion of elderly. This research will influence not only the understanding of poverty, but the resulting policy implications, particularly when limited funds have to be allocated to often competing poverty alleviation programs.