inequality

State & Hill

Our new dean, Celeste Watkins-Hayes

Dec 12, 2023

State & Hill sat down with the Ford School’s new dean to reflect on her scholarship, her mentors, and Gerald Ford State & Hill: Tell us about your intellectual journey to leading the Ford School.Celeste Watkins-Hayes: What you see in my leadership...

Dean Watkins-Hayes and ASPIRE students gathering on the balcony overlooking the Great Hall

News

Ford School junior is named U-M's 30th Truman Scholar

Apr 12, 2023

The lack of stability in housing for Brown and Black communities and barriers to college access for Arabic and Muslim high schoolers have been a focus of Yasmine Elkharssa's studies for several years. Now, as the newest Truman Scholar, the...

Yasmine Elkharssa and Celeste Watkins-Hayes

News

Cavaillé talks voting, inequality with University of Cambridge

Dec 13, 2022

Charlotte Cavaillé, assistant professor of public policy, joined the University of Cambridge via podcast to discuss income and regional inequality, why policymakers should care, and what policy interventions work best to reduce them. "In order to...

News

Parthasarathy discusses implications of Large Language Models

Nov 7, 2022

Large Language Models (LLMs) are artificial intelligence tools that can read, summarize and translate texts and predict future words in a sentence letting them generate sentences similar to how humans talk and write. Shobita Parthasarathy, professor...

News

U-M study finds 1 in 4 adults experience transportation insecurity

Sep 29, 2022

Nearly one-quarter of adults age 25 and older in the United States experience transportation insecurity, meaning they are unable to move from place to place in a safe or timely manner. The Transportation Security Index, a novel measure of...

Photo of cars and buses driving on a Chicago street as the Metro train passes overhead on an elevated platform

State & Hill

Soundbites: Policy Talks @ the Ford School

May 31, 2022

The only way that I know to really have the work that we’re doing rooted in communities is to have a connection with communities, making sure that not only are we talking with those who help bring a voice to the voiceless, as Dr. King would have...

Headshots of Don Graves, Elizabeth Warren, Molly Ball, and Jeb Bush

State & Hill

IEDP students get a close-up view of economic development in Puerto Rico

May 31, 2022

Story by Daniel Rivkin Photos by Isaac Nico (MPA ’22) The International Economic Development Program (IEDP) took a COVID-required turn in 2022, exploring the economic, environmental, and cultural circumstances of the Commonwealth of Puerto...

In the Media

Hausman and Raimi discusses information failures and environmental justice

Apr 16, 2022 Resources Radio

Catherine Hausman, associate professor of public policy, was recently featured on the podcast Resources Radio, hosted by Ford School lecturer Daniel Raimi, to break down her paper, "Inequality, Information Failures, and Air Pollution." She discussed...

News

Lantz calls for acknowledgement of racial inequity in health care

Feb 23, 2022

Twenty years ago, a report pointed out, “Racial and ethnic minorities experience a lower quality of health services, and are less likely to receive even routine medical procedures than are white Americans.” An article in STAT News notes that the...

Publication

Hernandez calls for management scholars to focus on inequality

Aug 9, 2021

What role can those who study management play to address systems of inequality? How should the professional community consider the ways in which organizations are designed or evolve to advantage some groups over others? University of Michigan...

In the Media

Harris discusses financial inclusion and earned wage access

Mar 22, 2021 Future of Pay Podcast

Adrienne Harris sits down with the Future of Pay podcast to discuss ways to increase financial inclusion, earned wage access, and the fixed pay cycle. "The fact that people get paid every two weeks or every month is really born of an arcane system...

News

Parthasarathy testifies about equity in innovation before key Congressional subcommittee

Feb 25, 2021

On February 25, Shobita Parthasarathy testified before the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies. The hearing included four invited experts to speak about energy and climate innovation issues....

Screen cap of Shobita Parthasarathy testimony

In the Media

Gerber and Morenoff seek to understand vaccine hesitancy in Detroit

Jan 25, 2021 Model D

"It really jumped out that for people of color in general, and Blacks specifically, how important it is to get a [vaccination] recommendation from a health care provider or government health officials," said Jeffrey Morenoff, commenting on findings...

News

Ford School wins NASPAA 2020 Social Equity award

Oct 4, 2020

The Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) has awarded the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy with its 2020 Social Equity Award, which honors a public policy, affairs, or administration program that exemplifies...

Reducing coronavirus pandemic inequities requires bold policy action, Associate Dean Lantz stresses in new paper

Jun 4, 2020

“The novel coronavirus pandemic has set in high relief the entrenched health, social, racial, political, and economic inequities within American society,” opens an article co-authored by Associate Dean Paula Lantz that appears in the Journal of...

Alumni spotlight

Eric Rodriguez (MPP ‘19) innovates to reach vulnerable populations in San José with virtual local assistance center

May 29, 2020

Meeting the needs of vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 crisis was Ford School alum Eric Rodriguez’ (MPP ‘19) top priority. As senior executive analyst for the City of San José, Rodriguez launched the first virtual local assistance center...

News

Two Ford School faculty awarded the prestigious Carnegie Fellowship

May 12, 2020

Two faculty members at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy have been chosen from hundreds of nominees as part of the prestigious Carnegie Fellows program. Professors Susan Dynarski and H. Luke Shaefer are among only...

News

College admissions scandal reaffirms prevalence of privilege in higher education for Dynarski

Mar 16, 2019

Everyone on college campuses across the nation is discussing the latest admissions scandal in which wealthy prospective students received acceptance into prominent universities as a result of unfair tampering. For many, the story merely confirms...

Wolfers in NYT Upshot: "Pinpointing racial discrimination by government officials"

Oct 30, 2017

In "Pinpointing racial discrimination by government officials," Justin Wolfers' October 6 article for The New York Times "Upshot," Wolfers highlights soon-to-be published research that finds local government officials in the U.S. are less responsive...

News

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...

News

Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan announces two research grant competitions

Nov 2, 2016

Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan has issued two requests for proposals for action-oriented research. Junior faculty small grants competition The first request for proposals is intended for junior faculty at the University of...

News

U-M launches new initiative to address one of humanity's most critical problems: poverty

Oct 5, 2016

The University of Michigan has launched a new initiative to address one of humanity's most critical and seemingly intractable problems: poverty. Called Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan, the initiative will explore and test models...

Shaefer speaks to United Way of Washtenaw County about local economic disparity

Sep 15, 2016

Luke Shaefer marked the start of the United Way of Washtenaw County’s annual fundraising campaign by highlighting the increasing and often invisible economic inequality in the local community. According to Lisa Barry from WEMU, who covered the...

Betsey Stevenson in Bloomberg View, "Want to help the economy? Learn to trust."

Jul 5, 2016

“It’s hard to know whom you can trust anymore—at least that’s the attitude of many Americans today. Therein lies a crucial challenge for the world’s largest economy,” writes Betsey Stevenson in “Want to Help the Economy? Learn to Trust,” published...

“Is student debt hampering the housing recovery?” No, says Dynarski in Brookings

May 4, 2016

“The striking gap in homeownership is not between college-educated people who did and did not borrow, but between those with and without a college education,” writes Susan Dynarski in “The dividing line between haves and have-nots in homeownership:...

State & Hill

Amplifying policy issues that impact black lives: Menna Demessie (PhD ’10) at CBCF

Apr 29, 2016

As vice president of research and analysis for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), Menna Demessie (PhD ’10) sifts through data and information on racial disparities and uses her findings to help educate policymakers and their...

News

$2.00 a Day wins 2016 Hillman Prize for book journalism in the service of the common good

Apr 22, 2016

The Sidney Hillman Foundation has selected $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, by Luke Shaefer and Kathryn Edin, for the 2016 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism. The prize will be awarded on May 3 at the 66th annual Hillman Prize...

Luke Shaefer delivers a talk at the Ford School

Moss’s decision to hire ACLU investigative reporter crucial to uncovering Flint water crisis

Apr 20, 2016

In its report released in late March, the task force appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to investigate the Flint water crisis called the disaster a clear case of "environmental injustice," and a failure of state leadership. Identified as a chief culprit...

Tom Ivacko on emergency financial management and the Flint water crisis

Apr 12, 2016

CLOSUP program manager Tom Ivacko’s “What is lost when a state takes over a city,” was published on April 13 by Governing.com. The piece, which ran in "Voices of the Governing Institute," describes Michigan’s restrictive local government finance...

Davis and independent Flint panel cite environmental injustice, EMF system, and other key factors

Apr 11, 2016

An independent panel convened by Gov. Rick Snyder in the wake of the Flint water crisis concluded that government disregard for low-income residents and people of color contributed to the delay in action, according to a recent New York Times...