IRP Seminars will be in-person meetings this semester, unless otherwise noted. Connection information for virtual seminars will be sent in advance to the IRP Seminar email list.
Thursday, September 4
Structuring Consumption Subsidies: The Impact of Recurrent and One-Shot Food Vouchers and Cash Transfers on Grocery Purchases
Diane Schanzenbach, McCourt Chair, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
This talk will compare spending responses to four types of COVID relief payments made to low-income families with children: in-kind monthly, in-kind one-shot, cash monthly, cash one-shot.
Thursday, September 11
The Politics of Protection: Responsible Mothers, Wage-Labor, and the Racialization of Early Foster Care, 1930s–1960s
Michaela Simmons, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin–Madison
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
Scholars increasingly frame the U.S. child protection system as a tool of racial punishment. Historians pinpoint the 1960s as a decisive moment of change, giving rise to damaging rhetoric about Black family pathology, as well as federal funding and mandated reporting which launched a program of surveillance and regulation. This talk offers a pre-history to this punitive turn—one animated by changes in economic security and constructs of work responsibility among low-income mothers in the developing welfare state of the 1930s.
Thursday, September 18
Who Responds to Mental Health Crises in Wisconsin? Building Community-Engaged Research Linking EMS Responder Mental Health and Patient Outcomes
Rachel Odes, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, University of Wisconsin–Madison; Paco Bonnín, Paramedic/Community Paramedic, Madison Fire Department; and James Small, Rural EMS Outreach Program Manager, , Wisconsin Office of Rural Health
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
Emergency Medical Services (EMS) responders play a primary role in the healthcare delivery system. In many parts of Wisconsin, EMS agencies are faced with inadequate funding and pronounced workforce shortages, with these issues being most pronounced in rural areas. In addition to responding to urgent medical conditions, EMS responders also frequently manage mental health emergencies, often with minimal preparation. While some municipalities have deployed specialized responder units, such as Madison’s Community Alternative Response Emergency Service (CARES) team, most places in Wisconsin do not have this type of clinical support. When it comes to mental health crisis response, the EMS workforce faces combined pressures from the policy environment and fragmented mental health care services landscape. Improved efforts to grow the EMS workforce and expanded specialized mental health crisis interventions have the potential to support essential responders and provide the most appropriate type of trauma-informed care to those in need.
Thursday, September 25
The Impact of State Political Culture on African American Civic and Political Participation
Austin Conner, National Poverty Fellow, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin–Madison
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
Despite the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, African Americans continue to experience systemic barriers to civic and political participation. Dismantling these barriers requires greater understanding of the context from which they originate and how they impact African American civic and political participation. This talk will examine the impact state political culture has on African American civic and political participation. Furthermore, we will discuss how social capital—a promoter of civic and political participation—mediates the relationship between state political culture and African American civic and political participation.
Thursday, October 2
Integrating the Study of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Poverty
Joshua Mersky, Professor and Co-Director, Institute for Child and Family Well-Being, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and childhood poverty are interrelated phenomena with lasting effects, but they are often siloed in research, policy, and practice. This presentation will synthesize evidence that highlights the need for greater integration, including research that shows ACEs are unequally distributed along economic lines and that ACEs undermine economic attainments in later life. Research also suggests that disparities in the prevalence and consequences of ACEs are misestimated when income is ignored. Opportunities for consilience will be discussed, including expanding the ACE framework with indicators of economic insecurity, employing intersectional analytic strategies, and exploring prevention and intervention strategies that may have dual effects on ACEs and poverty.
Thursday, October 9
In-Kind Transfers and Early Childhood Development: Evidence from Housing Assistance Lotteries
Rob Collinson, Wilson Family LEO Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
This talk examines how public housing and housing vouchers affect families’ housing circumstances and child development. Using randomized public housing and housing voucher offers from lottery-ordered waiting lists and housing applications linked to data on kindergarten readiness assessments, test scores, and Medicaid claims, we examine the impact of both programs on housing consumption and instability, neighborhood quality, and child development. Vouchers improve children’s early literacy skills, kindergarten readiness, subsequent test scores, and behavioral health, while public housing has no detectable effects on average.
Thursday, October 16
Strengths-Based Approaches for Supporting Child Language Development to Buffer Against Economic Adversity
Rebecca Alper, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Wisconsin–Madison
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
Early language skills are critical to lifelong academic and health outcomes. Experiencing early economic adversity is a group-level risk factor for children’s language skill development. However, on the individual, clinical level early interaction quality and language outcomes vary greatly. This talk will focus on examining systems- and individual-level factors associated with early language skills. Furthermore, we will discuss strengths-based approaches for supporting caregiver-child interaction, early language skills, and subsequent outcomes for families experiencing economic adversity.
Thursday, October 23
Improving Economic Outcomes for Disadvantaged Youth with Disabilities: Evidence from PROMISE
Mike Levere, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Colgate University
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
Though numerous programs and policies have been shown to improve long-term outcomes for youth, finding similar successful efforts for youth with disabilities has been historically difficult. This talk will cover the results of a randomized controlled trial with 12,000 Supplemental Security Income recipients that offered intensive supports and services to youth with disabilities from low-income backgrounds. These services improved youth’s employment and reduced health care expenditures as they transitioned into adulthood. Mediation analysis suggests that early paid employment experiences played a critical role in these long-term improvements.
Thursday, October 30
Emerging Changes to Social Security Administration Processes and Implications for Supplemental Security Income Claimants
Callie Freitag, Assistant Professor, Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work, University of Wisconsin–Madison
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
Abstact- TBA
Thursday, November 6
Genetic Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias: Cognition, Economic Behavior, and Long-Run Planning
Kevin Thom, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Iowa
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) are widespread and costly. The severe under-diagnosis of ADRD impedes many people from preparing for its health and economic consequences. Existing work has identified several genetic predictors of ADRD, but genes do not yet figure prominently in ADRD screening. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we examine whether these genetic factors can significantly improve the prediction of future ADRD beyond what is possible using standard observables like past cognitive test scores and family history. We then test whether individuals with elevated genetic risk engage in behaviors that could help them plan for or respond to future ADRD.
Thursday, November 13
NO SEMINAR – APPAM
Thursday, November 20
Impact of the Chicago’s Universal Prekindergarten Expansion on Local Early Care and Education Market
Terri Sabol, Associate Professor, Department of Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
This presentation explores the impact of the universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) expansion for four-year-olds in Chicago on the local early care and education (ECE) market. Utilizing a panel dataset on all ECE programs in the city from 2017-2023, we examine the effect of the UPK expansion on capacity and closures among local community-based organizations (CBOs), including center-based and family child care programs. We find that the UPK expansion did not lead to significant CBO closures or reduced market capacity. Interviews with CBO directors highlight how they adapted to the UPK expansion, such as expanding their programming for children aged three and under. Our findings suggest that it is possible to expand public pre-kindergarten without reducing capacity in the broader birth-to-five early care and education market.
Thursday, November 27
NO SEMINAR – Thanksgiving
Thursday, December 4
Workplace Stratification and Racial Health Disparities
Trevon Logan, Professor, Department of Economics, The Ohio State University
12:15–1:30 pm, 8417 Sewell Social Science Building
To what extent is a worker’s relative rank within their workplace a determinant of health status, conditional on income? We provide the first U.S.-based evidence on the relationship between relative workplace rank and health status for the near population of workers in one U.S. state. Using a new linkage of commercial all-payer health insurance data to administrative earnings records for workers in Utah from 2013–2015, we quantify the impact of relative workplace rank on health status, the incidence of specific chronic diseases, and racial health disparities. We show that about 70% of SES-health gradient that is commonly interpreted as an income gradient actually operates through relative rank. For an average worker, moving from the 90th to the 10th percentile of within-firm rank holding fixed income, age, location, and health insurance characteristics is associated with a 16.5% increase in morbidity. The racial segregation of jobs in the U.S. leads minority workers to be overrepresented in lower-ranked jobs within firms, which in turn exacerbates racial health disparities.