Domestic policy

In the Media

Pilkauskas comments on rise in multigenerational households

May 17, 2026 Business Insider

Natasha Pilkauskas describes the factors affecting a rise in multi-generational homes.

In the Media

Owen-Smith says careers in research are no longer secure opportunities

Mar 19, 2026 STAT News

Under the Trump administration, researchers in partnership with NIH have experienced extreme funding cuts without compensation. The Ford School's Jason Owen-Smith explains the negative impacts the industry is facing amid funding rollbacks.

In the Media

Moynihan: Trump's foreign policy is "smash and grab, see what works"

Mar 16, 2026 The New York Times

Don Moynihan cites Trump’s "almost childish impetuousness": A through line of Trump’s actions is that they are impulsive, with little consideration of the constraints or consequences. We clearly see this with Iran, where the president has shown littl...

In the Media

Stevenson - Price shocks from Iran war will hit single moms first

Mar 16, 2026 Forbes

“Single mothers often have the least financial cushion to absorb price shocks,” said Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of Michigan and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.

Screenshot of the livestream of Betsey Stevenson testifying in-person before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

In the Media

Seefeldt finds mixed results from Ann Arbor's guaranteed basic income program

Feb 2, 2026 WDIV

The Ford School's Kristin Seefeldt has analyzed the city of Ann Arbor's first year of a guaranteed basic income program.

News

Students build career-ready grant writing skills in Aid & Development Workshop series

Dec 8, 2025

Faculty experts Amy Beck Harris and Stephanie Leiser coached students in grant writing and strategic budgeting for a real-world UN/EU education project in Moldova.

Person instructing class of college students

News

Levy's health research highlighted by The Washington Post

Nov 16, 2025

“This is a big deal,” said Helen Levy, co-author of both reviews and a professor at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. “We know health insurance saves lives. Full stop.”

In the Media

Civil service brain drain will be hard to reverse - Moynihan

Sep 30, 2025 Reuters

Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, said the biggest impact of this week's exodus will be the brain drain of so many experienced civil servants, a loss of talent he says will be hard to reverse...

In the Media

Stevenson on how government shutdown impacts jobs data reporting

Sep 29, 2025 The Washington Post

Betsey Stevenson, who was the Labor Department’s chief economist from 2010 to 2011 and is now at the University of Michigan, said this week’s jobs figures would typically be wrapped up earlier in the week and could presumably get out the door. But da...

In the Media

Wolfers explains potential impacts of new $100K H-1B visa fee

Sep 23, 2025 PBS

"Economics is like baking a cake," said Wolfers, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. "You put a whole lot of ingredients into the mixing bowl and we bake our economic cake. Sometimes, though, in America, we discove...

News

Swisher Hosts Pete Buttigieg for Live Podcast Appearance

Sep 21, 2025

Kara Swisher, the award-winning journalist and current Ford School Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence, sat down for a conversation with Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to discuss “The State of U.S. Democracy,” for her On with ...

In the Media

Wolfers calls Trump administration's economic interventions "crony capitalism"

Sep 18, 2025 Marketplace

"It's government intervention. It's the heavy hand," said Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. "Sometimes it's the greedy hand as well, because some of these moves, particularly when it comes to crypto an...

News

U.S. poverty: Shaefer and Seefeldt discuss labor markets, child tax credits, and racial gaps

Sep 11, 2025

U.S. inflation-adjusted household income increased but poverty rates showed only modest changes last year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported , offering a mixed snapshot of how American households fared as the economy returned to pre-coronavirus pandemi...

News

Trump is driving America toward authoritarianism - Moynihan

Sep 10, 2025

Donald Trump's second presidential term has been marked by what Ford School professor Don Moynihan describes as following a checklist for consolidating power and silencing dissent—both serious threats to democracy. In an opinion for the Detroit News,...

In the Media

Wolfers on market reactions to Trump pronouncements

Jul 23, 2025 MSNBC

Wolfers on MSNBC: Here's the most important thing if you look at markets: If you look at every singly day where Trump has backed his own instincts, when he's imposed new tariffs, every single time he's done that, markets have gone down. When he's bac...

Publication

Michigan's local leaders express lingering pessimism, entrenched partisanship about state's direction

Jul 22, 2025

Despite improvement since the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of Michigan local officials say the state is on the wrong track. These findings are from the latest installment of the Michigan Public Policy Survey conducted by the University of Michig...

News

Trump new federal worker classification an unnecessary politicization: Moynihan

Jul 19, 2025

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that establishes a new classification of federal workers in policy-related roles who are not career civil servants called “Schedule G.” A White House fact sheet said, that “creating Schedule G facilit...

News

U-M and Wayne State University collaborate to study assisting Michigan college students to achieve graduation

Jul 14, 2025

In Michigan, 18% of all community college students have completed some college but are still enrolled well beyond the expected time to a degree. Despite their substantial progress, about 36% of all “long-term persisting” students do not complete any ...

News

Wolfers profiled in German newspaper: "Behind his mockery lies a serious message"

Jul 11, 2025

Ford School economics professor Justin Wolfers makes regular appearances in the media discussing the economic implications of the Trump administration's actions, among other be seen on MSNBC and CNN, among others, and in print in The New York Times,...

Publication

Michigan's local leaders support database tracking police misconduct, far fewer favor public access to it

Jul 8, 2025

Michigan's local leaders strongly support a law enforcement database for keeping track of officer misconduct, though far fewer are in favor of that database being accessible to the public. That's a key finding from the latest installment of the Michi...

News

Herd and Moynihan: Administrative burdens will cause low-income Americans to lose benefits

Jul 7, 2025

The "Big Beautiful Bill" passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump will cause low-income Americans to lose health coverage and government food assistance, mostly because of new administrative burdens put in place. Ford School ...

Headshots of Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan

In the Media

Potential cause of slow job market hard to assess - Stevenson

Jul 7, 2025 The New York Times

“The Fed is in a challenging position,” said Betsey Stevenson, a former chief economist at the Labor Department who is now a professor at the University of Michigan. “They need to be really careful that what they’re seeing is actually weak labor dema...

In the Media

White House debt figures don't add up - Wolfers

Jul 7, 2025 MSNBC

Ford School economics professor Justin Wolfers told MSNBC, "Center-right and center-left economics all agree that this is going to have a massive effect blowing up the national debt. The White House Council of Economic Advisors... has put out a claim...

In the Media

Bednar: Musk's third party unlikely to rival established parties

Jul 7, 2025 The Times of India

Jenna Bednar, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, echoed these concerns in an interview with The TimesofIndia.com: "“In the United States' electoral system, third parties face nearly insurmountable organizational, institutional, and ...

Publication

Fear, trust and other human factors are vital yet overlooked piece of solar geoengineering research

Jul 1, 2025

Human perceptions hold the key to the future of solar geoengineering and other approaches to cool our warming planet. A new study from the University of Michigan urges the scientific community to move beyond solely focusing on the physical aspects of...

News

New Wolfers segment on MSNBC: The Professor Is In!

May 23, 2025

Ford School economics professor Justin Wolfers is one of the most prolific “public” scholars at the school. His analyses about current economic events regularly appear on the pages of The New York Times (among others), on the screens at Bloomberg (am...

News

Expert Analysis: House bill proposes restrictions to Medicaid through work requirements that won't work

May 22, 2025

The U.S. House narrowly passed a bill early Thursday that would slash taxes and cut Medicaid, a health care program that provides comprehensive health care services to low income adults and children. It now heads to the Senate. While major changes ma...

News

State-level AI legislation can guide fair housing practices

May 20, 2025

As the number of artificial intelligence (AI)-related measures introduced in U.S. state and territorial legislatures continues to grow, policymakers, advocates and consumers can seize the moment to assure that the technology is promoting fair housing...

State & Hill

Soundbites: Policy Talks @ the Ford School - spring 2025

May 7, 2025

Highlights from Ford School events: Dr. Denis Mukwege, Etienne Charles, Jenny Durkan, Jalonne White-Newsome, and Tonya Schuitmaker.

News

"We can do better than this" – Weiland Kohn lecture on closing early education gaps

Apr 20, 2025

Christina Weiland, co-director of the Education Policy Initiative and professor at the Ford School, delivered her inaugural lecture as the Karl and Martha Kohn Professor of Social Policy. Weiland, who is also a professor at the Marsal Family School o...