Natasha Pilkauskas

Core faculty

Natasha Pilkauskas

Associate Professor of Public Policy

Pilkauskas is a social demographer who studies the social safety net, children's living arrangements, and economic insecurity. Pilkauskas' work considers how social policy might improve the developmental and life trajectories of children living in poverty.

In the Media

Pilkauskas supports expansion of the child tax credit under a Harris presidency

Oct 11, 2024 The Gander

Presidential candidate Vice-President Kamala Harris has plans to expand the child tax credit if granted presidency in the upcoming 2024 election. Discussing her research on the expansion of the child tax credit from 2021, the Ford School's Natasha...

Publication

Child Tax Credit expansion boosted housing affordability and stability, U-M study shows

Aug 8, 2024

A temporary, pandemic-era expansion of the Child Tax Credit improved housing affordability for families with low incomes, according to University of Michigan research.The study by Natasha Pilkauskas and Katherine Michelmore, associate professors of...

State & Hill

Katherine Michelmore and Natasha Pilkauskas on policy rooted in evidence and facts

Apr 24, 2024

Ford School students take on a variety of different roles after graduation—some do research, some will engage in advocacy, others will become civil servants. As instructors of two of the core research methods courses that our students take, we have...

State & Hill

Faculty news, spring 2024

Apr 24, 2024

Kamissa Camara chaired the Bipartisan Senior Study Group for the Sahel at the U.S. Institute of Peace. The study group’s comprehensive report critically assesses opportunities for peace, security, and economic development in the Sahel.Charlotte...

(Top row, left to right) Fullerton Rico, Hills, Holz, Jacob, and Leiser (Bottom row, left to right) Morenoff, Raimi, Shipan, Spencer, and Stevenson

News

Highlights from the Dean's Symposium

Apr 21, 2024

Two days of panels, chats, and keynotes focused on examining and seeking solutions to some of the biggest challenges we face in Michigan, in the United States, and across the globe. More than 400 students, faculty, staff, and friends attended in...

News

Stacey Abrams, other policymakers and leading scholars to join Ford School symposium

Mar 12, 2024

The Ford School of Public Policy is happy to announce the Dean’s Symposium, which will take place April 11 and 12 at Weill Hall, with the theme, “Policy Innovation for Our Times.” The two days will feature keynote appearances by voting rights...

Publication

Michelmore and Pilkauskas on Congressional proposal to expand the child tax credit

Jan 29, 2024

Congress is currently considering a $33 billion measure that would adjust the earning requirements and make it easier for many lower-income families to receive the full child tax credit, an average credit that is about $1,130 higher than in 2022....

Natasha Pilkauskas and Katherine Michelmore

State & Hill

Faculty news, fall 2023

Dec 12, 2023

Axelrod's adventures Robert Axelrod, William D. Hamilton Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, writes about the difficulties and rewards of interdisciplinary collaboration in his new autobiography, A Passion for Cooperation: Adventures...

Headshots of Axelrod, Cavaillé, Michelmore, Neggers, Ostfeld, Parthasarathy, Pilkauskas, Stange, Torres, and Weiss

News

Michelmore and Pilkauskas discuss the benefits of tax credits

Oct 9, 2023

Over the past few months, Ford School associate professors Katherine Michelmore and Natasha Pilkauskas have been discussing their research and insights on the 2021 Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit in a wide array of outlets. Here...

Publication

Pandemic pushed half-million kids into grandparents’ homes - Pilkauskas

Aug 30, 2023

Grandparents appeared to serve as an important private safety net when COVID-19 first hit the U.S., according to a new study. The pandemic’s arrival in 2020 coincided with a surge of nearly 510,000 children living in “doubled-up” households,...

News

Ford School welcomes PPIA 2023 cohort

Jun 19, 2023

The 2023 Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute (JSI) has welcomed 23 students from 11 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This year’s cohort will spend seven weeks taking classes, participating in...

State & Hill

Faculty News, spring 2023

May 3, 2023

Dominique Adams-Santos, Celeste Watkins-Hayes, and PhD candidate Kayonne Christy contributed a chapter, "Narratives in Context: Locating Racism and Sexism in Black Women's Health Experiences," to The Routledge Companion to...

Headshots of Kathryn M. Dominguez, Rusty Hills, Morela Hernandez, Brian Jacob, Barry Rabe, Megan Stewart, David Thacher, Christina Weiland

Publication

Lantz, Michelmore & Pilkauskas celebrate 100 years of ‘The Milbank Quarterly’ with special issue

Apr 25, 2023

In celebration of its 100th anniversary, The Milbank Quarterly published “The Future of Population Health: Challenges and Opportunities,” a special issue of 36 articles by a diverse set of leading and emerging scholars. Edited by Paula Lantz, James...

Headshots of Paula Lantz, Katherine Michelmore, Natasha Pilkauskas

In the Media

Pilkauskas: Child Tax Credit "lost in the wash of stimulus money"

Jan 3, 2023 Los Angeles Times

Natasha Pilkauskas, Los Angeles Times: "It’s baffling to me that it (the expanded Child Tax Credit) wasn’t more popular." The enhanced payment may have been lost in the wash of stimulus money Americans received at the height of the pandemic,...

State & Hill

Faculty Findings, fall 2022

Dec 19, 2022

Governing for revolution In her 2021 book, new Ford School professor Megan Stewart describes how, during the Chinese Civil war in the 1940s, Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established a new model for governing as they took up...

Photo of the proceedings of the 6th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

State & Hill

Faculty News, fall 2022

Dec 19, 2022

Jenna Bednar published “The Fractured Superpower: Federalism is Remaking U.S. Democracy and Foreign Policy,” in Foreign Affairs. The Coalition for Networked Information, the Association of Research Libraries, and EDUCAUSE awarded Paul Courant the...

Headshots of Brian Jacob, Paula Lantz, Katherine Michelmore, Jeffrey Morenoff, Susan D. Page, Shobita Parthasarathy, Natasha Pilkauskas, Joy Rohde, Joe Schwarz, and Fabiana Silva

News

Seeking inspiring scholar and changemaker—please apply

Dec 15, 2022

The University of Michigan has officially launched its invitation to apply to be the next Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. The job description calls for “an experienced and inventive...

Photo of the upper half of the northwest corner of Weill Hall

In the Media

Pilkauskas: increase of multi-generational households following the pandemic

Dec 7, 2022 NPR

Natasha Pilkauskas, NPR: "Another thing that also explains part of the increase is that marriage rates have...

In the Media

Pilkauskas insight on multigenerational households

Nov 24, 2022 NPR

Natasha Pilkauskas, NPR: "In terms of multigenerational households, the kind of people who tend to live in them tend to have fewer economic resources. It's also much more common amongst nonwhite families. It's very surprising to me in some senses...

In the Media

'MarketWatch' notes Poverty Solutions child tax credit research

Oct 12, 2022 MarketWatch

Poverty Solutions, MarketWatch: "Low-income families with $500 monthly checks reduced their food insecurity by 32% and the monthly payments made life easier for some when it came to their medical bills and utility costs, University of Michigan...

Professors Pilkauskas, Michelmore and Shaefer pose for headshots

News

2021 Child Tax Credit reduced hardship for families in poverty, had no significant impact on employment

Oct 5, 2022

New research from the University of Michigan focuses on the effect of the 2021 Child Tax Credit on families living in poverty, noting that the monthly payments reduced certain types of hardship and had little to no impact on parents’ employment...

Photo of jars of money, one each labeled for travel, education, car, health, and house.

In the Media

Children living with grandparents may be underestimated, says Pilkauskas

Sep 30, 2022 The New York Times

According to an analysis by associate professor Natasha Pilkauskas, about 10 percent of Black children lived with grandparents from birth to age 18. The numbers are lower among Latino, Asian and white children. “Given the pandemic, these figures...

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

News

U-M public policy professors awarded Equitable Growth grant to study effects of expanded Child Tax Credit

Sep 22, 2022

ANN ARBOR – With support from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, public policy professors at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy will delve deeper into exploring the effects of the expanded Child Tax Credit...

In the Media

Pilkauskas says finances encourage multi-generational households

Aug 7, 2022 Marketplace

Marketplace reports that 8in 10 young adults are moving settling in their home towns. And it reports that one in five adults now live in a multigenerational home. “People actually save a lot of money, I mean it’s not surprising, when they move...

In the Media

Poverty Solutions papers on cash payments show lack of long-term impact

Jul 12, 2022 Vox

Two studies published by Poverty Solutions were cited in an article in Vox which stated that "cash transfers in the US, and those studies found the transfers did... very little." The papers by Ford School professors Brian Jacob, Natasha...

State & Hill

Faculty News, spring 2022

May 31, 2022

Arun Agrawal was selected as co-chair on the Intergovernmental Transformative Change Assessment, sponsored by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Javed Ali provided his expertise on national security to numerous...

Headshots of 10 Ford School faculty arranged in a grid

State & Hill

Discourse: Ford School faculty in the news, spring 2022

May 31, 2022

“(Putin) has already violated every international treaty, including the U.N. charter, by invading. This has international implications, not just European implications. Now, the question of what we do and how we do it, with regards to sanctions or...

Headshots of Melvyn Levitsky, Brian Jacob, Natasha Pilkauskas, Katherine Michelmore, Justin Wolfers, and Barry Rae

In the Media

Pilkauskas quoted on affluence and family cohesion

May 11, 2022 The Atlantic

An article in The Atlantic examines how affluence affects where older children live in relation to their parents. Ford School associate professor Natasha Pilkaukas is cited, noting that that the rate of multigenerational living is considerably...