In this episode we hear from Professor Jacob Faber of New York University about a federal government program called the Home Owners' Loan Corporation that started in the 1930s and how the decisions made in that program promoted residential segregation that is still with us today.

Poverty Research & Policy

Jacob Faber on How a New Deal Era Program Shaped America's Racial Geography

The goal of reducing incarceration has been gaining traction for at least the last decade in the United States. In an interview we did with sociologist Pamela Oliver in late 2020, she talked about how we got to where we are today when it comes to U.S. imprisonment (Part 1) and the impact that different reforms would have on reducing the U.S. prison population (Part 2).  The interview is based on a paper Professor Oliver wrote for the Marquette Law Review (Volume 103, Issue 3).  

Pamela Oliver on What the Numbers Say About How to Reduce Imprisonment, Part 2

The goal of reducing incarceration has been gaining traction for at least the last decade in the United States. In an interview we did with sociologist Pamela Oliver in late 2020, she talked about how we got to where we are today when it comes to U.S. imprisonment and the impact that different reforms would have on reducing the U.S. prison population. This is part 1 of the interview.  The interview is based on a paper Professor Oliver wrote for the Marquette Law Review (Volume 103, Issue 3).  

Pamela Oliver on What The Numbers Say About How to Reduce Imprisonment, Part 1

In this episode, Carolyn Heinrich of Vanderbilt University talks about a study she conducted with Jennifer Darling-Aduana, Annalee Good, and Huiping (Emily) Cheng that looked at the use of online education products in high schools to help students who were falling behind. Heinrich describes her team's observations of online course-taking and the longer-term academic and labor market outcomes of students in online settings versus those in traditional instruction. They find that, on average, students who took more credit recovery courses in online settings generally fared worse. Heinrich says that this raises equity concerns and asks if we are "disadvantaging the exact students we’re trying to help in the way we roll this out?" To learn more about the study, the instruments used in classroom observation, and related publications, see https://my.vanderbilt.edu/digitaled/.   

Carolyn Heinrich on Whether the Labor Market Offers the Same "Credit" for Online Learning

In this episode we hear from economist Eric Chyn about the impact of home removal—for reasons like neglect or abuse—on children’s later outcomes. In a paper he co-wrote with Anthony Bald, Justine Hastings, and Margarita Machelett, their perhaps surprising main result is that temporary home removal increases later test scores and reduces grade repetition for young girls, but doesn't show any significant impacts for young boys.  Dr. Chyn is an assistant professor of economics at Dartmouth College and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. The paper he talks about in this episode is NBER working paper number 25419 "The Causal Impact of Removing Children from Abusive and Neglectful Homes." 

Eric Chyn on the Impacts of Removing Children from Abusive or Neglectful Homes

In this episode, IRP and Morgridge Center for Public Service media intern Simon Guma talks to Troy M. Williams. They discuss Williams' path to pursuing a PhD at UW-Madison's School of Human Ecology, advice for students and researchers who are engaging with members of their communities, and the challenges of working in institutions that still have a lot of work to do when it comes to issues of race. 

Troy M. Williams and Simon Guma on Community Engagement and Institutional Change

In this episode, Stephanie Canizales of the University of California, Merced discusses her work talking to undocumented and unaccompanied youth workers in Los Angeles about their experiences and struggles with work and social integration in the United States.

Stephanie Canizales on the Experiences of Undocumented and Unaccompanied Youth Workers

Mario Luis Small of Harvard University talks about social networks and social capital and about some of his work looking at those things in the context of programs like Head Start.

Mario Small on How Social Networks and Social Capital Matter for Human Services Programs

This episode features Professor Sarah Halpern-Meekin, who discusses work from her 2019 book, Social Poverty. Halpern-Meekin is a sociologist at UW-Madison’s School of Human Ecology and La Follette School of Public Affairs.  

Sarah Halpern-Meekin on "Social Poverty"

In this episode, Peter Blair of Harvard University talks about a paper called “Job Market Signaling through Occupational Licensing” he wrote with Bobby Chung that looks at how licenses people need for jobs contribute to differences in pay and if the story is different depending on someone’s race or gender. He also talks about culture challenges in the economics profession, mentoring, and how growing up in the Bahamas influenced some of his goals as an economist.

Peter Blair on Occupational Licenses and What They Signal in the Job Market

We’ve all heard stories about the rise in helicopter parenting—parents who do their kids’ homework, drop off things at school for them that they’ve forgotten, and intervene to smooth the path for their children. It’s become so common that many schools now have rules against this kind of parental behavior. But our guest for this episode, sociologist Jessica Calarco of Indiana University, says that for many privileged parents and families, these rules just don’t seem to apply. She set out to find out why and tells us about it in this podcast episode.

Jessica Calarco on Parents and the Power of Privilege in Schools

For this episode, we hear from Angela Guarin about a paper she wrote with Lonnie Berger, Maria Cancian, and Dan Meyer that tries to understand how low-income noncustodial fathers who have children in more than one household make decisions when it comes to supporting their children. Guarin is a postdoctoral fellow at Los Andes University in Colombia and was a graduate research fellow at the Institute for Research on Poverty while earning her Ph.D. in social welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Angela Guarin: Do Low-Income Noncustodial Fathers "Trade" Earlier Families for New Ones?

For this episode, we hear from Lars Højsgaard Andersen of Denmark’s Rockwool Foundation about a policy change in Denmark that aimed to increase employment among refugees to the country by reducing public benefits. The policy change brought a number of consequences — some intended, some not — that could inform similar policies being implemented in other countries.

Lars Højsgaard Andersen on the Consequences of Lowering Welfare Benefits for Migrants and Their Families

This episode features Michael Strain, the Economic Policy Director at the American Enterprise Institute, who gave a talk at IRP earlier this year titled “The American Dream isn’t Dead.” It’s a provocative title and Strain says that this line of work is growing out of concerns he has about the narrative around the American Dream.

Michael Strain: The American Dream Isn't Dead

In this episode, we hear from IRP postdoctoral scholar Leslie Hodges about the Unemployment Insurance program and how the program might mitigate economic distress, including poverty and material hardships, when someone loses a job. 

Leslie Hodges on Unemployment Insurance and Material Hardships

The Poverty Research & Policy Podcast is produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) and features interviews with researchers about poverty, inequality, and policy in the United States.

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