Poverty and Social Welfare

America is rife with "internal colonies," where systemic violence, resource extraction, and corruption among decision makers have contributed to generations of poverty and disadvantage. These communities suffer from environmental degradation, lack...

Alexandra (Sasha) Killewald will be the next director of the Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics at the University of Michigan, effective July 1. Killewald is a PhD alum of the Ford School and is being recommended as a professor of sociology in...

A new program that will grant Flint families with new babies $7,500 has been making the news, as it addresses "one of the most fundamental social determinants of health: poverty." The program, Rx Kids, received an initial grant of $15 million from...

Restrictive abortion policies in the U.S. are predicted to have negative effects on maternal health, women's economic opportunities and social welfare systems.  A multidisciplinary team of experts from the University of Michigan warns that...

The federal government has ended its pandemic aid for millions of low-income families on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.  The average person will receive about $90 less in benefits per month, possibly hundreds of dollars...

The progress that has been made in Michigan's child welfare system could be put at risk by a ban on abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court's Roe decision. The effects "could add thousands more children to the system in the coming years and...

“There are a lot of countries that [provide a monthly child tax benefit] already; some for decades: Canada, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Australia. These countries have decided, 'hey, raising kids is expensive, and the government has a reason...

“To me, it’s the most transformational thing that’s under discussion, and nobody’s talking about it,” said Luke Shaefer. Read the full article in the New York Times...

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...

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...

Social Welfare Policy in the United States: 
From the War on Poverty to the Covid-19 Pandemic