Policy Topics

Poverty and social policy

Showing 751 - 780 of 1235 results

Dean Yang’s research featured in HuffPo story about increased access to banking in developing economies

Apr 15, 2015

Dean Yang’s research is featured in “More people in the developing world are getting bank accounts, but there’s an asterisk on that progress,” an article by Jonathan Cohn in today’s Huffington Post. Cohn is referring to a new report from the World...

Preventing vote-selling in the Philippines image

Inside Philanthropy profiles Russell Sage Foundation’s crucial role in "moving inequality to the center of politics and policy”

Apr 15, 2015

“The [Russell Sage Foundation’s] research has played a crucial, if subtle role in moving inequality to the center of politics and policy in recent years” writes David Callahan for Inside Philanthropy. The article, “Inside the Russell Sage...

New York Review of Books features Sheldon Danziger’s Legacies of the War on Poverty

Apr 7, 2015

This April, Christopher Jencks reviews Sheldon Danziger’s Legacies of the War on Poverty (Russell Sage, 2013) in a two-part series for The New York Review of Books. Jencks says Legacies’ chapters are “packed with evidence, make judicious judgments,...

Wolfers takes aim at recent study claiming parenting time doesn’t matter

Apr 2, 2015

In his latest New York Times Upshot editorial, Justin Wolfers took aim at a recent study on parenting time by mothers that has garnered widespread national media coverage. The study, “Does the Amount of Time Mothers Spend With Children or...

Ford School students host annual US-Canada conference

Mar 31, 2015

The 6th annual Ford+SPPG Conference took place earlier this month at Joan and Sanford Weill Hall in Ann Arbor. The event brings together MPP candidates from the Ford School and the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance...

Shaefer cited in New York Times op-ed exploring severity of poverty in U.S.

Mar 27, 2015

Luke Shaefer was among a handful of national experts cited in a New York Times online op-ed exploring the current state of poverty and inequality in the United States. In “How Poor Are the Poor?,” published Wednesday, columnist Thomas B. Edsall...

Microfinance study: Yang finds people may give more generously when they can choose what their dollars purchase

Mar 17, 2015

At a microfinance bank in Maputo, Mozambique, Dean Yang and colleagues engaged clients in a lab-in-the-field experiment with interesting implications for those who care about increasing the number and level of remittances, the financial...

Dynarski argues for better educational attainment data in Brookings report

Mar 13, 2015

Susan Dynarski recently co-authored “How can we track trends in educational attainment by parental income? Hint: not with the Current Population Study,” posted March 12 by the Brookings Institution.With Matthew M. Chingos of Brookings, Dynarski...

Dean Yang publishes findings from randomized study of microsavings’ impact on agriculture, poverty

Mar 5, 2015

“Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa employs two-thirds of the labor force and generates about one-third of GDP growth,” writes Dean Yang in the introduction to “Facilitating savings from agriculture: field experimental evidence from Malawi,” a...

Improving health in developing countries, Erin Zaikis’ (BA ’10) social enterprise

Feb 24, 2015

By Mandira BanerjeeCleaning upAs Erin Zaikis lay sick with dengue fever in a Thailand hospital in 2013, she had an epiphany. She wanted to dedicate her life to helping others.Confined to her hospital bed with little to do, she ran through images of...

Elisabeth Gerber’s Community Ventures analysis featured in Detroit Free Press

Feb 17, 2015

Could Detroit’s renaissance begin to extend past the downtown and Midtown areas? Community Ventures, a new worker retraining program, is trying to make that happen, and Elisabeth Gerber, who analyzed the program with a group of four Ford...

Do placement exams bar students from higher ed? McFarlin says no. Read Education Week story

Feb 5, 2015

Education Week highlights Isaac McFarlin Jr.’s latest study in “Failing a Placement Exam Does Not Discourage College Enrollment,” posted by Caralee Adams on January 15.“State test cited in lower college enrollments,” a 1995 Dallas Morning News...

saac McFarlin discusses his research on Texas Top 10 Percent Plan with NPR image

Coates talks race and reparations during U-M's 2015 MLK Symposium

Jan 22, 2015

Ta-Nehisi Coates had one simple goal for his recent talk at U-M. “I hope to provoke people; I hope to give them what they brought me here to do,” he told Allana Akhtar of The Michigan Daily. “I hope to leave people talking.”Mission...

News

Sound policy decisions, real-world time constraints and pressures, the Integrated Policy Exercise

Jan 14, 2015

Prior to taking part in the Ford School’s annual Integrated Policy Exercise (IPE) last week, Andrew Floyd (MPP ‘16) had a relatively vague notion of the part lobbyists played in the legislative process. After being cast as a lobbyist during the...

Justin Wolfers on the research, how pay increases influence and increase productivity

Jan 14, 2015

“Economists have long argued that increases in worker pay can lead to improvements in productivity—indeed, that it can actually be profitable to pay workers higher wages,” write Justin Wolfers and Jan Zilinsky in “Higher wages for low-income workers...

State & Hill

Policy analysis and prescience, making life better

Dec 18, 2014

To solve a vexing problem. To seize a promising opportunity. To find the best path forward. For centuries, for millennia, we’ve sought the power of prescience. These days, policy analysis—well and thoughtfully done—is among the most powerful tools...

Policy analysis and prescience, making life better

State & Hill

On poverty, policy, and people: Sheldon Danziger's lasting legacy

Dec 9, 2014

Two wars dominated the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. One was the war in Vietnam, whose escalation in 1964 triggered more than a decade of combat in Southeast Asia and discontent at home. The other was a wide-ranging package of social legislation...

On poverty, policy, and people: Sheldon Danzinger's lasting legacy

Levy's work cited in NYT piece on ACA's 'essential benefits' requirement

Dec 9, 2014

Helen Levy’s analysis of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) implementation of key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was referenced in a New York Times Upshot article, “Health Care Law Is Not One-Size-Fits-All, and Here’s...

Ruth Browne (MPP/MPH '83) to teach health disparities seminar this winter

Nov 21, 2014

This winter, Ruth Browne (MPP/MPH ’83), will return to the Ford School as the 2015 Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence.Browne is currently the CEO of the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, a leader in providing...

News

As Detroit bankruptcy wins federal judge approval, a summary of Ford School engagement

Nov 7, 2014

As the Detroit bankruptcy agreement wins federal judge approval, we’re sharing a quick roundup of stories highlighting the Ford School’s engagement. In July of 2013, just after the bankruptcy filing was announced, BBC Radio interviewed Tom...

News

Kary Moss on Detroit water shutoffs

Oct 22, 2014

Kary Moss speaks on the Detroit water shutoffs in Henry Gass’s “Do Detroit's water shutoffs violate international law? UN to investigate,” posted in the Christian Science Monitor on October 17. The United Nations visited Detroit last weekend to...

Michael Barr in WaPo on proliferation of rent-to-own retailers and their impact on the working poor

Oct 21, 2014

Michael Barr was quoted in a Washington Post news feature about the boom of the rent-to-own retail industry since the Great Recession. The article, “Rental America: Why the poor pay $4,150 for a $1,500 sofa,” examines the impact these retailers have...

Law enforcement increasingly intolerant of dissent

Aug 29, 2014

"It's very clear that when people get this gear they tend to want to use it," says Joy Rohde in the August 28 Policy Points video, "When the police look like soldiers." Rohde argues that militarized police departments lead to violent confrontations...

Law enforcement increasingly intolerant of dissent image

Wealth inequality doubles among US households

Jun 27, 2014

By Diane SwanbrowWealth inequality among U.S. households roughly doubled between 2003 and 2013, according to a new analysis by University of Michigan researchers."American families experienced significant losses in wealth during the Great Recession,...

Wealth inequality doubles among US households image

NY Times publishes "answer on a postcard"

Jun 19, 2014

Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo) have proposed a bipartisan bill to dramatically simplify the college financial aid form. They announced their proposal in the op-ed column, "An Answer on a Postcard," published by The New...

No job, no welfare, no good: Atlantic features report by Seefeldt, Urban Institute

Jun 13, 2014

A recent report authored by Kristin Seefeldt and colleagues from The Urban Institute is the subject of Olga Khazan's article for The Atlantic, "What Happens If You Have No Welfare and No Job?""Spending on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or...

Internship field report: Nick Pfost @ EqualityMaine

Jun 3, 2014

Second year Ford School students are engaged in public policy internships all around the world this summer, and we're hoping they'll check in to share news from the field.Review more internship field reports from Ford School students serving...

Michigan's hourly minimum wage to increase to $9.25

May 29, 2014

In the May 28 Michigan Daily article, "Michigan law raises minimum wage to $9.25," Margo Levy, an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan, interviews Professors Sandra Danziger and Alan Deardorff on the pros and cons of the state's new...

Michigan's hourly minimum wage to increase to $9.25 image

State & Hill

Hauling charcoal, studying conservation in Kenya

May 5, 2014

By William Foreman Zach Petroni (BA '13) believes that to truly know something, you have to experience it. So that's why he spent some time working as a charcoal hauler in Kenya, loading huge bags of the fuel on a rusty fixed-gear bike and...

Hauling charcoal, studying conservation in Kenya image

State & Hill

Zachary Petroni, inaugural Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship recipient, discusses the flawed conservation equation for Kenyan forest

May 5, 2014

By Zach Petroni (BA '13) Kenya's Arabuko-Sokoke Forest (ASF), the largest remnant of a hardwood forest that once spanned East Africa's coast from Somalia to southern Mozambique, is a refuge for dozens of endemic and endangered flora and fauna—the...

Zachary Petroni, inaugural Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship recipient, discusses the flawed conservation equation for Kenyan forest image