On any given day, over 48,000 youth are confined in facilities away from home due to juvenile justice or criminal justice involvement and even a short time in detention can influence a child’s well-being. Recent work has found that diversion programs can reduce recidivism, but few studies have focused on justice system-involved youth. Economist Alberto Ortega will examine the effect of the Anne Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative on arrests and disciplinary outcomes.

In 2019, there were over 37 million housing-cost-burdened households in the United States, and the national discussion about the difficulty of finding affordable housing hinges, in part, on the idea that stable housing may be a prerequisite to stability and success in other domains in life. Economists Emily Leslie and Brittany Street will investigate the impact of access to public housing assistance on labor market and criminal justice outcomes as well as how these outcomes vary by racial group.

In response to the economic and social disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, federal, state, and local governments enacted a wide variety of policies, including moratoria on evictions. Economist Rebecca Hsu will investigate the impact of eviction moratoria on the rate of eviction filings in 2020. She will utilize court data, American Community Survey data, and data from the SafeGraph Data Consortium for her study.

Research has shown that married mothers spend more than 50 percent more time caring for their children than fathers. This inequality is associated with gender inequalities in labor market outcomes, capital accumulation, and economic mobility. Economists Laura Gee, Kristy Buzzard, and Olga Stoddard will examine the extent to which mothers are more likely than fathers to be contacted by their child’s school and how this varies by stated parent availability. They will conduct a large-scale field experiment for their study. 

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted college, particularly for low-income and first-generation (LI/FG) college students. Economists Jane Fruehwirth and Krista Perreira and developmental psychologist Shauna Cooper will examine the effects of the pandemic on resilience, grade point average, credit hours, graduation rates, and post-graduation wages of LI/FG college students. They will analyze longitudinal survey data for their study.

Although the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reached 38 million people in 2019, an estimated 18 percent of eligible households do not participate in the program. Economists Jason Cook and Chloe East will examine the extent to which caseworker discretion impacts SNAP accessibility and the labor market outcomes for applicants who are denied SNAP benefits. They will analyze administrative datasets on SNAP applications and Unemployment Insurance records for their study.

The federal government spends more than $19 billion annually on training programs designed to improve economic mobility for low- and moderately-paid workers. However, evidence of the efficacy of these programs is mixed. Economists Patrick Turner, Tania Barham, and Brian Cadena will examine the impact of a tuition free, non-profit IT training program on employment, earnings, and educational outcomes. They will partner with the organization NPower and conduct a randomized controlled trial evaluation of their Tech Fundamentals program for their study.