domestic poverty

Shaefer discusses jump in joblessness that strains safety nets

Mar 27, 2020

With widespread shutdowns of businesses across the country due to COVID-19, states have seen a dramatic rise in the number of unemployed and those seeking unemployment benefits. This week, unemployment claims jumped 2000% in Michigan, putting the...

Luke Shaefer delivers a talk at the Ford School

Ivacko provides context for economic hardship findings

Mar 29, 2019

Understanding poverty in Michigan is the first step towards alleviating it, so people are playing particular attention to the recent Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) report on how local officials think about economic hardship. Much...

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Harvard Magazine publishes feature on previously-announced partnership with U-M Poverty Solutions

Sep 25, 2018

Two new partnership between U-M’s Poverty Solutions and Harvard University’s Equality of Opportunity Project (EOP), announced last week, will integrate high-level research with the applied scholarship U-M’s initiative is known for to tackle the...

MLive taps Poverty Solutions expert on child poverty in Flint

Sep 25, 2018

New analysis from the U.S. Census Bureau data from 2017 reveals Flint is the poorest city in the U.S. of its size, and that more than half of the city’s child residents are living in poverty, according to a September 17, 2018 article by Zahra...

Luke Shaefer proposal for Universal Child Allowance influences Senate tax proposal

Nov 9, 2017

On June 21, a proposal by Christopher Wimer (Columbia University), Jane Waldfogel (Columbia University), and the Ford School’s Luke Shaefer – “A Universal Child Allowance to Combat Child Poverty” – was published in Spotlight On Poverty, a...

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Seefeldt on Making Sen$e: Fix social safety net—don’t shame those who need it

Feb 6, 2017

Kristin Seefeldt’s (MPP '96, PhD '10) recent op-ed, featured in Making Sen$e on February 2, highlights the need to “fix the social safety need, not shame those who need it.” Seefeldt notes that “the [social] safety net is perpetually under...

Shaefer weighs in on state's faulty unemployment insurance fraud claims

Jan 27, 2017

A January 18 Detroit MetroTimes piece by Jack Lessenberry, "Politics & Prejudices: Screwing the poor, and ourselves," features quotes from Luke Shaefer.Lessenberry's opinion piece profiles the issue of a faulty fraud detection system implemented by...

Pilkauskas studies links between private financial transfers and material hardship for families

Jan 16, 2017

Natasha Pilkauskas, Colin Campbell (East Carolina University) and Christopher Wimer (Stanford University) have a forthcoming paper, "Giving Unto Others: Private Financial Transfers and Material Hardship Among Families with Children," that will be...

Huff Po asks if America’s poor really are “the envy of the world,” cites new NPC paper

Aug 9, 2016

Jonathan Cohn, senior national correspondent for the Huffington Post, explores how America’s poor measure up by international standards in, “Yet another conservative argument about poverty appears to be wrong.”The piece explores whether America’s...

Vox interviews Hillary Clinton on the rise of $2.00 a day poverty and what to do about it

Jul 19, 2016

“So, let’s start with poverty,” says Ezra Klein, editor of Vox, launching a 40-minute interview with Hillary Clinton. “Scholars have estimated that the number of American families living in extreme poverty, under $2 in cash income, has skyrocketed...

NYT profiles bipartisan plan to reduce poverty, professor emeritus Sheldon Danziger

Feb 3, 2016

The New York Times this week highlights a recent development in the fight against poverty that brought together thinkers from both sides of the aisle, including professor emeritus Sheldon Danziger. "Finding Common Political Ground on Poverty," the...

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Shaefer promotes job stability as a key solution to poverty in SSIR op-ed

Jan 25, 2016

In "Precarious Work and the Employment-based Safety Net," an op-ed for the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), Luke Shaefer argues that our current employment-based welfare system overlooks the fact that the poorest Americans can only secure...

Seefeldt questions Massachusetts' welfare and work program in The Atlantic

Dec 15, 2015

A recent Atlantic article, "When the Government Tells Poor People How to Live," profiles A Better Life, an intensive case management program that requires residents of Worcester, Massachusetts’ state-subsidized public housing system to work or...

Seefeldt shares new research on poor single motherhood in The Atlantic

Dec 3, 2015

According to “How Poor Single Moms Survive,” an article by Alana Semuels for The Atlantic, the number of single-parent households in the US has soared since 1960, just as the amount of government assistance available to these largely female-headed...

Joe Schwarz presses Michigan to fund emerging primary care doctors

Sep 22, 2015

Michigan needs more medical students interested in primary care fields like internal medicine and pediatrics, according to Ford School lecturer Dr. Joe Schwarz. “Every time I go to another medical school graduation and hear the number of students...

NY Times reviews Shaefer/Edin's $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America

Sep 2, 2015

“This essential book is a call to action,” writes William Julius Wilson of Luke Shaefer and Kathryn Edin’s just released $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America. Wilson, who is a professor of sociology and social policy at Harvard, writes...

State & Hill

All in the game

Apr 22, 2013

An interdisciplinary approach to urban policy "Aw yeah. That golden rule." -Bunk Moreland Dirty and disheveled, Dukie rocks up to his crew in an alley somewhere off Franklin Street in West Baltimore. It's the last day of a long, hot summer,...

Sheldon Danziger discusses poverty, inequality trends in the U.S.

Jun 26, 2009

In a recent podcast, Sheldon Danziger shared his research on poverty levels and trends in the U.S. and made suggestions on what the Obama Administration could do to help bring people above the poverty line. Sheldon explained that anti-poverty policy...

Sheldon Danziger discusses poverty, inequality trends in the U.S. image

Policy implications of Kristin Seefeldt's research explored in magazine profile

Mar 16, 2009

A new book by the Ford School's Kristin S. Seefeldt was featured in a recent edition of Dome magazine, an online publication that covers politics and policy in the State of Michigan.Seefeldt (MPP '96) is a Research Investigator at the Ford School...

Real-World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions

Poverty Solutions Alumni Panel

Nov 3, 2023, 12:00-1:00 pm EDT

ECC 1840

Part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions Speaker Series

Policy Talks @ the Ford School, Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture Series

What policymakers need to know about the criminal justice system

Dec 8, 2022, 4:30-5:30 pm EST

Weill Hall, Betty Ford Auditorium (1110)

Join Judge Laurel Beatty Blunt and Dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes for a conversation at the intersection of law, policy, and the criminal justice system.

The Once and Future Worker: How the Consumerist Consensus Led America Astray, and How to Recover

Jan 17, 2019, 4:00-5:30 pm EST

Weill Hall, Annenberg Auditorium (1120)

In his new book, The Once and Future Worker, Manhattan Institute scholar Oren Cass challenges our basic assumptions about what prosperity means and where it comes from.

Making housing more affordable

Apr 7, 2017, 3:30-6:30 pm EDT

School of Social Work

Making Housing More Affordable is the first in the Poverty Solutions Engagement Series, where we will tackle a poverty-related topic and connect faculty, students and communities to explore ideas, strategies and potential solutions to some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

Not a Crime to be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America

Feb 1, 2018, 4:00-5:30 pm EST

Weill Hall, Betty Ford Classroom (1110)

Through money bail systems, fees and fines, strictly enforced laws and regulations against behavior including trespassing and public urination that largely affect the homeless, and the substitution of prisons and jails for the mental hospitals that have traditionally served the impoverished, in one of the richest countries on Earth we have effectively made it a crime to be poor.

Policy Talks @ the Ford School

Combating poverty and inequality amidst a pandemic

Jul 15, 2020, 2:00-3:00 pm EDT

Luke Shaefer, Alford A. Young Jr., and Michael S. Barr will discuss some of the ways that policymakers and communities are attempting to combat poverty during the COVID-19 crisis.