The Russell Sage Foundation has recently approved the following Presidential Authority awards in several programs, including Future of Work, Social Inequality, Cultural Contact, and Immigration programs.

Awards approved in the Future of Work program:

Living at the Minimum: Low-Wage Workers with Children During Seattle's Minimum Wage Increase
Heather D. Hill and Jennifer Romich (University of Washington)
Jointly funded with the MacArthur Foundation

Human development and social policy experts Heather Hill and Jennifer Romich will carry out an in-depth, qualitative study of Seattle workers with children before and after the implementation of the city’s minimum wage increase to $15 per hour starting in April 2015.

The Effects of Race on Perceptions of Criminality and Employment
Robynn Cox (Spelman College), Jennifer Doleac (University of Virginia), Benjamin Hansen (University of Oregon), and Sarah Jacobson (Williams College)

Economists Robynn Cox, Jennifer Doleac, Benjamin Hansen, and Sarah Jacobson will conduct lab experiments to understand how race affects the perception of a person’s criminality, and how that perception relates to an employer’s willingness to trust that person as an employee.

Franchising and Low-Wage Work
Rosemary Batt and Wilma B. Liebman (Cornell University)

Labor expert Rosemary Batt and former chair of the National Labor Relations Board Wilma Liebman will organize two workshops to examine the franchise business model in the fast food industry and the consequences of its growing use for the future of work, the quality of jobs, compliance with labor standards, and the achievement of the underlying policy goals of labor laws.

Rethinking Unemployment Insurance
Thomas Bethell (National Academy of Social Insurance)

Bethell, in collaboration with tax law expert Michael Graetz, will organize a workshop to rethink Unemployment Insurance, focusing on strategies to move toward a modernized system that serves employers and employees alike by promoting job retention and reemployment, as well as temporary wage replacement, on a consistent basis nationwide.

Award approved in the Social Inequality program:

Human Capital Spillovers and the Geography of Intergenerational Mobility
Brant Abbott (Yale University) and Giovanni Gallipoli (University of British Columbia) Jointly funded with the MacArthur Foundation

Economists Abbott and Gallipoli will investigate the extent to which variation in the way workers’ skills are used and rewarded may cause differences in long-term human capital investments, social incentives for redistribution and intergenerational mobility.

Awards approved in the Immigration program:

Intergenerational Differences in Perceptions of Opportunity Among Latinos
Maria Rendon (University of California, Irvine)

Sociologist Maria Rendon will examine whether and how second-generation Latinos changed their views of success and failure in the aftermath of the Great Recession, looking at how these views compare to those of their immigrant parents.

Pathways to Success: The Successful Second Generation in New York City
Richard Alba (CUNY Graduate Center), Maurice Crul (Erasmus University, Rotterdam), and Vivian Louie, (W. T. Grant Foundation)
Jointly funded with the MacArthur Foundation

Sociologists Richard Alba, Maurice Crul and Vivian Louie will examine how some second generation children in New York City overcome educational and housing inequalities and, later in life, achieve labor market and income success, looking at how this process differs in New York City compared to select European cities.

Award approved in the Cultural Contact program:

Using Brain Imaging to Analyze Police Responses to Young Black Males
Lasana Harris (Leiden University)

Psychologist and neuroscientist Lasana Harris will test the feasibility of using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to gain insight into police shootings of young black males. He will collect data from 120 police officers from the Los Angeles Police Department.