C.V.
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Professional Experience
American Enterprise Institute
Deputy Director, Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility, 2023–Present
Senior Fellow, 2023–Present
Research Fellow, 2014–2017
IZA Institute of Labor Economics
Research Affiliate, 2021–Present
United States Congress Joint Economic Committee
Staff Director, 2022–2023
University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy
Executive Director of the Comprehensive Income Dataset Project, 2021–2022
White House Council of Economic Advisers
Chief Economist, 2020–2021
Chief Economist for Domestic Policy, 2018–2020
Senior Economist, 2017–2018
Analysis Group
Research Analyst, 2006–2008
Education
Ph.D., Economics, University of Chicago, 2014
M.A., Economics, University of Chicago, 2010
B.A., Economics and Political Sciences, Boston College, 2006, Summa Cum Laude
Academic Journal Articles
“Evaluating the Success of the War on Poverty Since 1963 Using a Full-Income Poverty Measure,” (with Richard V. Burkhauser, James Elwell and Jeff Larrimore), Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming.
“The Effect of Elevating the Supplemental Poverty Measure on Government Program Eligibility and Spending,” B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 2023.
“JUE Insight: The Effect of Relaxing Local Housing Market Regulations on Federal Rental Housing Assistance Programs,” (with Amelia Irvine), Journal of Urban Economics, 2023, 136: 103572.
“The Size and Census Coverage of the U.S. Homeless Population,” (with Bruce D. Meyer and Angela Wyse), Journal of Urban Economics, 2023, 136: 103559.
“The Change in Poverty from 1995 to 2016 Among Single Parent Families,” (with Bruce D. Meyer and Derek Wu), American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, 2022, 112: 345-350.
“Policies to Help the Working Class in the Aftermath of COVID-19: Lessons from the Great Recession,” (with Richard V. Burkhauser and Douglas Holtz-Eakin), The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2021, 695(1): 314-330.
“The Geography of Unsheltered Homelessness in the City: Evidence from ‘311’ Calls in New York,” (with Grace Finley), Journal of Regional Science 2020, 60(4): 628-652.
“When Warm and Cold Don’t Mix: The Implications of Climate for the Determinants of Homelessness,” (with David Lucas), Journal of Housing Economics, 2018, 41: 45-56.
“Social Ties and the Incidence of Homelessness,” (with Claire Rossi-de Vries), Housing Policy Debate, 2018, 28(4): 592-608.
“The Impact of Permanent Supportive Housing on Homeless Populations,” Journal of Housing Economics, 2017, 35: 69-84.
Book Chapters
“Building the Comprehensive Income Dataset to Create Highly Accurate Evidence on Disadvantage,” (with Bruce D. Meyer). Brookings Institution Press, Build Me the Evidence, forthcoming.
“Income Growth and its Distribution from Eisenhower to Obama: The Growing Importance of In-Kind Transfers: 1959-2016,” (with James Elwell and Richard V. Burkhauser), In Diana Furchtgott-Roth (ed.) United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality, Oxford University Press, 2020.
“Improving our Federal Response to Homelessness,” In Robert Doar (ed.) A Safety Net that Works: Improving Federal Programs for Low-Income Americans, American Enterprise Institute, 2017.
Working Papers
“The Impact of Opportunity Zones on Commercial Investment and Economic Activity,” (with Naomi Feldman), SSRN Working Paper, 2023.
“The Understated Housing Shortage in the United States,” (with Hugo Dante), IZA Discussion Paper No. 15447, 2022
“The Anti-Poverty, Targeting, and Labor Supply Effects of Replacing a Child Tax Credit with a Child Allowance,” (with Bruce D. Meyer, Matthew Stadnicki and Derek Wu). NBER Working Paper No. 29366, 2021.
“The Impact of Social Disorder on Crime: The Case of Homelessness,” (with Grace Finley), AEI Economics Working Paper, 2017.
“A Price Theory of Altruistic Identity,” AEI Economics Working Paper, 2016.
“Designing Performance-Based Incentives when Service Providers Compete for Users to Help,” AEI Economics Working Paper, 2016.
Policy Papers
“Wrong Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription,” City Journal, May 5, 2023.
“The Change in Poverty from 1995 to 2016 Among Single-Parent Families,” (with Bruce D. Meyer and Derek Wu), Cato Institute Research Briefs in Economic Policy No. 318, February 1, 2023.
“The Size and Census Coverage of the US Homeless Population,” (with Bruce D. Meyer and Angela Wyse), VoxEU, 2022.
“The HOUSES Act: Addressing the National Housing Shortage by Building on Federal Land,” (with Hugo Dante), Joint Economic Committee, 2022.
“State Inflation Tracker,” (with Jackie Benson and Kole Nichols), Joint Economic Committee, 2022.
“The Minimum Wage Versus the Earned Income Tax Credit for Reducing Poverty,” (with Richard V. Burkhauser), IZA World of Labor: Evidence-based Policymaking, 2021, 153(2): 1-10.
“Addressing the Shortcomings of the Supplemental Poverty Measure,” (with Richard V. Burkhauser, Bruce D. Meyer, Matt Weidinger, and Angela Rachidi), American Enterprise Institute, 2021.
“Introducing a New Dataset to Better Understand Homelessness in the US,” (with Bruce D. Meyer and Angela Wyse), VoxEU, 2021.
“Barriers to Work and Social Enterprise: Estimating the Target Population,” American Enterprise Institute, 2017.
“Toward a More Efficient Housing Safety Net,” AEI Economic Perspectives, 2017.
“Technology and Innovation in Homelessness Policy,” 8th International Conference on Social Informatics: Workshop on Urban Homelessness and Wise Cities, 2016.
“The Role of Community in Economical Rental Housing by Design for Communities that Work,” AEI International Center on Housing Risk, 2016.
“Pay for Performance: A New Solution for Vulnerable Homeless Adults,” AEI Economic Perspectives, 2016.
“A Tech Revolution for the Homeless: Taking Big Data to the Streets,” American Enterprise Institute, 2016.
“On Utah’s 91 Percent Reduction in Chronic Homelessness,” American Enterprise Institute, 2016.
“Supplemental Security Income and the Tax on Shared Housing,” Tax Notes, 2016.
“How Safety Net Programs Tax the Sharing of Housing,” Tax Notes and State Tax Notes, 2015.
“What Should We Do About Homeless Families? Comments on the Family Options Study,” AEI Economic Perspectives, 2015.
“Street Homelessness: A Disappearing Act?” AEI Economic Perspectives, 2015.
Congressional Testimony
“The Consequences of Redrawing the Poverty Line,” United States House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Work and Welfare, October 24, 2023.
“Correcting the Record on the Effects of Replacing the Child Tax Credit with a Child Allowance,” United States Senate, Committee on Finance, Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight, July 13, 2023.
Popular Writing
“Better Data Means Better Policy,” (with Scott Winship), The Dispatch, June 14, 2023.
“Will Biden Cross a Line on Poverty?” The Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2023.
“Introduction to The Social Breakdown,” (with Scott Winship and Thomas O’Rourke), The Social Breakdown, April 28, 2023.
“It’s time to link work and food stamps again,” Deseret News, February 21, 2023.
“Why extending the current child tax credit would do more harm than good,” (with Bruce D. Meyer), Washington Post, October 14, 2021.
“We need to change how we measure poverty,” (with Bruce D. Meyer), RealClear Policy, September 13, 2021.
“Deregulation can do more for renters than eviction moratoriums,” (with Amelia Irvine), The Hill, August 25, 2021.
“Is social enterprise a solution to America’s work problem?” AEIdeas, July 20, 2017.
“DC needs smarter policy to fight evictions,” The Huffington Post, May 22, 2017.
“Low-income housing programs are safe for now. Should they be?” Washington Examiner, May 11, 2017.
“Exploiting homeless people is not okay,” AEIdeas, February 28, 2017.
“Community is key in expanding housing opportunity,” Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, January 4, 2017.
“What Trump should do about homelessness,” The Huffington Post, December 8, 2016.
“New York City has already solved family homelessness,” Inside Sources, August 22, 2016.
“The next phase for homelessness policy? The transformational phase,” AEIdeas. August 5, 2016.
“The three phases of homelessness policy in New York City,” AEIdeas, August 4, 2016.
“A homelessness agenda for San Francisco,” Medium.com, June 27, 2016.
“Smartphones could transform our response to homelessness,” Tech Policy Daily, April 21, 2016.
“Think Utah solved homelessness? Think again,” The Huffington Post. March 4, 2016.
“Congress should fix Obama’s plan to end family homelessness,” The Hill, March 4, 2016.
“Every ward in DC is getting a homeless shelter: Why that’s a good thing,” The Huffington Post, February 22, 2016.
“Housing the homeless isn’t a cure-all,” U.S. News and World Report, February 11, 2016.
“Shared housing as a poverty solution,” Real Clear Policy, January 25, 2016.
“Getting real with the new homelessness numbers,” AEIdeas, November 20, 2015.
“DC’s plan to end homelessness is deceptive,” The Huffington Post. November 10, 2015.
“Does housing end homelessness?” AEIdeas, November 5, 2015.
“Homes aren’t enough for homeless families,” Inside Sources (Also published in Palm Beach Post, Courier Post, The Daily Journal, Muscatine Journal, The Detroit News, Penn Ave Post and Quad City Times), August 18, 2015.
“Is homelessness really falling? Probably not,” The Huffington Post, July 2, 2015.
“Homelessness can require complex solutions,” The New York Times Room for Debate, February 19, 2015.
“How Christmas spirit can help solve homelessness,” The Huffington Post, February 5, 2015.
“Want to help the homeless? Don’t avoid them,” Real Clear Markets, December 24, 2014.
“4 charts that expose the invisible side of homelessness,” AEIdeas, November 10, 2014.
“If DC closes its largest homeless shelter, where will it send the homeless?” AEIdeas, October 17, 2014.
“The war on invisible poverty,” U.S. News and World Report, September 18, 2014.
“Dear politicians: Stop pretending to be poor,” U.S. News and World Report. August 7, 2014.
“Metal spikes versus cold concrete – is this what we have come to in the fight against homelessness?” AEIdeas, June 23, 2014.
Media Appearances
Fox Business “The Big Money Show,” America’s Talking Podcast, Political Economy Podcast with James Pethokoukis, One America News Network “The Tipping Point with Liz Wheeler,” Christian Post TV Insider, Southern California Public Radio “AirTalk with Larry Mantle,” AEI Banter, Ricohet with Jim Pethokoukis, The Michael Medved Show, The Jim Bohannon Show, 1070 WINA “The Schilling Show,” AEI Values and Capitalism “Common Good,” KNRS Salt Lake City “The Rod Arquette Show,” USA Radio “Trending Today USA,” 1330 WEBY with Renee Giachino, WSVA Harrisonburg “Late Afternoons with Mike Schikman”
Invited Talks and Presentations
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, American Economic Association Annual Meetings, National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics, Society of Labor Economists Annual Meeting, SocInfo Workshop on Urban Homelessness and Wise Cities, South by Southwest, Columbia University, Eastern University, George Mason University, Montana State University, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, Cato Institute, Niskanen Center, R Street Institute, WashU at Brookings