Institute for Research on Poverty Podcasts

In this podcast, Alexes Harris, a sociologist at the University of Washington, talks about work from her June 2016 book Pound of Flesh: Monetary Legal Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor. Music is from "Test Drive" by Zapac, used under Creative Commons license.

In this podcast, Chris Herbst of Arizona State University discusses his research on changes in the cost of child care in the United States in recent decades. Despite reports of skyrocketing child care costs, Herbst finds that child care costs have been essentially flat since around 2000 and that there has been a noticeable divergence in the quality of child care that low- and high-income parents purchase for their children. Music is from "Test Drive" by Zapac, used under Creative Commons license.

Our April 2016 podcast features IRP National Poverty Fellow Megan Reid discussing her research on cohabiting stepfamily formation among low-income black families in the Bronx and, in particular, the ways in which mothers engage in deliberative vetting of potential partners before allowing them to move in. Music is from "Test Drive" by Zapac, used under Creative Commons license.

In this podcast, law professor Susannah Camic Tahk discusses the growth in U.S. antipoverty programs that are administered through the tax code and what it means for the politics of these programs, how they're administered, and the types of problems that they raise. Intro and closing music from Test Drive by Zapac, used under Creative Commons License.

Our February 2016 podcast features Lincoln Groves, who is a postdoctoral scholar in the National Poverty Fellows Program, talking about his research on how increased Child Medicaid access in the 1980s and early 1990s may have led to improved high school graduation rates. Intro and closing music is from "Test Drive" by Zapac, used under Creative Commons license.

In this podcast, Lisa Gennetian of the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families discusses research about income instability in the households of Hispanic children and how better understanding the ways that race, ethnicity, and language affect the experience of poverty may matter when it comes to developing better public policy. Intro and closing music is from "Test Drive" by Zapac, used under a Creative Commons license.

Our November 2015 podcast features Clare Huntington, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Law at Fordham University. In the podcast, Huntington discusses how family law and the related institutions that support it do not align with needs of many of today's families, particularly given a shift in marriage trends in the United States in which lower income Americans are much less likely to ever get married.

Neighborhood violence is often talked about as being a result of poverty or random threat but, in this podcast, University of Wisconsin–Madison sociologist Robert Vargas says that those characterizations can be very inaccurate. Instead, based on his extensive ethnographic research in a Chicago neighborhood, Vargas explains we can't understand problems of violence or disadvantage without understanding the political histories and structures of those neighborhoods. *Music is from "Test Drive" by Zapac

Does foster care lead to worse academic achievement for kids? In this podcast, IRP Director Lawrence Berger discusses a Wisconsin study he conducted with other IRP colleagues that explores the relationship between foster care and academic achievement using linked child welfare and Department of Public Instruction data.

In this podcast, UW–Madison School of Social Work Professor Daniel Meyer discusses the growth of family complexity in the United States, what that growth might mean for inequality, and the challenges that policymakers face in adapting U.S. family policy to the needs of more complex families.

In this podcast, Urban Institute Senior Fellow and IRP visiting scholar Julia Isaacs talks about the effectiveness of safety net supports for low-income children with an unemployed parent during the Great Recession. Music is from "Test Drive" by Zapac, used under Creative Commons license.

In this podcast, UCLA Associate Professor of Economics Leah Boustan discusses the Great Black Migration that took place in the United States from 1915 to 1970 and how competition from migrants from the South affected wages in Northern labor markets.

In this podcast, University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist Bridget Goosby discusses her work on how the health of African American people may be linked to stress associated with discrimination.

In this podcast, Dr. Tova Walsh talks about the reunification process for fathers of young children returning from military deployment as they transition back into family roles. While reunification can be a very happy time, it can also be challenging as military fathers face parenting and relationship stresses alongside stress related to their deployments. Additionally, deactivated soldiers often experience a drop in pay and rates of unemployment that are higher than for their civilian peers, which may lead to economic strain for these families. The podcast is based on a study that Walsh and her coauthors published in the February 2014 issue of Health and Social Work and features discussion of the struggles returning servicemen experience in reconnecting to their partners and their young children.

The U.S. prison population has expanded significantly over the last three decades. In this podcast, University of Minnesota sociologist Christopher Uggen talks about the links between crime, punishment, and inequality and discusses how the criminal justice system can mediate transitions in and out of poverty and adult social roles.

In this podcast, Maria Rendón of UC-Irvine discusses findings from her qualitative study of second-generation Latino young men in urban neighborhoods and their attitudes about getting ahead in the United States.

IRP affiliate Sarah Halpern-Meekin talks about her research on how recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit understand and respond to the incentives of the EITC, especially regarding decisions about childbearing, marriage, and earnings.

Joe Glass of UW–Madison's School of Social Work discusses results from his study that examines disparities in the effects of alcohol consumption by race, ethnicity, and poverty status.

IRP Director Lawrence Berger discusses the challenges that families with multipartner fertility or complexity encounter when it comes to determining roles and dividing resources like time, money, and public benefits across multiple households or family groups.

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee economist Owen Thompson talks about his research that examines how parenting practices changed among southern African Americans relative to their experiences during the civil rights era.

New York University Professor Dalton Conley talks about how advances in the availability of genomic data can potentially inform the study of intergenerational poverty and inequality.

Case Western Reserve University Associate Professor Darcy Freedman discusses her work on food access and health, with a focus on two studies that took place at the Right Choice, Fresh Start Farmers' Market in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

In this podcast, Zachary Oberfield of the Haverford College Department of Political Science discusses his research on how "street-level bureaucrats" develop in their first years on the job, and what that means for how they act and how the public experiences government.

In this podcast, Professor Dorceta Taylor discusses her book, Toxic Communities, which addresses the structural processes by which poor and minority Americans are disproportionately exposed to industrial pollution, and the state of environmental justice scholarship.

In this podcast, Mariana Chilton, director of the Center for Hunger Free Communities and associate professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health, talks about doing participatory research and the lessons this type of work can offer.

In this podcast, Giovanni Peri of UC–Davis talks about the need for nuance when considering the effects of immigration on the domestic labor market. While many fear that immigrants will drive down wages or increase native-born unemployment, Peri says there is more to the picture, including geographic concentration and wide variation in skill levels among immigrants. Ultimately, Peri says that to really evaluate the impact of immigration, it's important to understand the margins of adjustment that happen within a local economy.

Following a 1982 Supreme Court decision, children that arrived in the United States with their undocumented parents were granted full access to the K–12 school system. However, with pathways towards citizenship—and, thus, work, drivers' licenses, voting, and post-secondary education—severely limited, these young people transition toward fewer and fewer rights as they near their 18th birthday. In this podcast, Roberto Gonzales of the Harvard Graduate School of Education talks about his work with these undocumented young people and the implications that immigration policy changes might hold for them.

Judith Levine of Temple University talks about her recently released book Ain't No Trust: How Bosses, Boyfriends, and Bureaucrats Fail Low-Income Mothers and Why It Matters. In the podcast, Levine explains how low-income mothers experience more than their share of distrust and how that distrust serves as a form of inequality. In Levine's work, she finds that much of this distrust develops from often-negative social interactions with employers, government workers, and people in the women's social networks. The distrust that develops out of those interactions can undermine policy and serve as a barrier that keeps these mothers from pursuing better opportunities.

Pam Herd and Don Moynihan discuss their work on red tape—or administrative burden—and how it affects the way that people access government social welfare programs. They discuss potential benefits of shifting administrative burden from program participants to the program administrators and how improving program implementation can alter the way that people perceive government and civically engage.

Jesse Gregory, assistant professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Louisiana Road Home Program and its effect on helping low-income homeowners rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. He also talks about the challenges of creating policy that balances the need to help disaster victims recover while not encouraging further building in disaster-locations.

Timothy Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs, talks about the latest Wisconsin Poverty Report, released in June of 2013. Smeeding says that poverty in Wisconsin increased modestly between 2010 and 2011 and that the state saw a statistically significant increase in child poverty, mostly a result of changes in refundable tax credits. The podcast explains the differences between the Wisconsin Poverty Measure and the official federal poverty measure and looks at how a better understanding of how we define poverty can have an effect on our understanding of who is poor.

In this podcast, Daniel Miller of the Boston University School of Social Work discusses his research on measuring child food insecurity in the context of family type, changing family structure, and father involvement. Miller says there's still a lot that we don't know about food insecurity for kids but that understanding the connections between family change and food insecurity has a lot of promise in giving us a better picture of the problem.

In this podcast, Crystal Hall of the University of Washington Evans School of Public Affairs talks about her work applying insights from behavioral and cognitive psychology to better understand the decision making of people living in the context of poverty. Hall explains how the operating assumptions of programs and services might not do a good job at taking account of the many tradeoffs that people with fewer material resources have to make.

Douglas Harris, associate professor of economics and University Endowed Chair in Public Education at Tulane University in New Orleans, talks about the development of the charter school system in New Orleans coming out of Hurricane Katrina. He explains some of the likely hypotheses for why New Orleans' schools might be doing better and discusses the challenges of measuring improvement in the city's schools. Intro Music is from "Stormy Blues" by Arne Bang Huseby

Bryan Sykes, a sociologist at DePaul University, explains some of the barriers that former inmates encounter when trying to find work and how the costs of incarceration disproportionately affect young African American men. He also talks about his work on off-the-books labor and how former inmates still face heavy discrimination in the informal economy. Intro Music is from "Stormy Blues" by Arne Bang Huseby.

A podcast featuring Damon Jones, an economist at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. Jones discusses the Earned Income Tax Credit, along with other refundable tax credits, and the associated "lump sum" tax returns for lower income tax filers. He looks into the unpopularity of the now-defunct Advance EITC and how the lessons learned from that program might apply to other efforts to distribute the EITC and other credits throughout the year, as well as the implications for healthcare credits under the Affordable Care Act.

Marcy Carlson, professor of sociology at UW–Madison, talks about parents having kids with more than one partner and how this can be a challenge for families and for policymakers.

J. Michael Collins, director of the Center for Financial Security, explains some of the efforts behind getting more low-income people to save money and talks about the challenges in developing good policy and helpful financial products for the underbanked population.

Katherine Curtis of University of Wisconsin–Madison's Department of Community and Environmental Sociology talks about developing spatial measurements of poverty and how it is critical to consider locally specific factors when trying to understand the drivers of poverty and child poverty.

Judi Bartfeld, director of the IRP-USDA RIDGE Center, professor with the Department of Consumer Science, and specialist with the University of Wisconsin–Extension, discusses the growth in food insecurity following the Great Recession, measurement methods, and the development of the Wisconsin Food Security Project website.

In July's podcast, Bradley Hardy of American University talks about trends in U.S. income volatility and how shifts towards greater volatility can particularly impact low-income people.

Justin Sydnor, a microeconomist at the Wisconsin School of Business, talks about the growing field of behavioral economics and how it can be applied to research on poverty and the problems facing low-wage workers.

In IRP's first podcast, Dave talks with Christopher Wimer of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality about Wimer's work on measuring unmet food need in San Francisco and Marin County, California.