IRP designated an area poverty research center

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has designated the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as one of three Area Poverty Research Centers.

The designated centers will provide DHHS with valuable insights on the causes and consequences of poverty and the effects of antipoverty policies. The IRP Area Poverty Research Center will focus on research and analysis of poverty and antipoverty policies in the upper Midwest.

“We look forward to continuing our long tradition of poverty research with a renewed emphasis on developments in Wisconsin and other Midwestern states,” says John Karl Scholz, IRP director and professor of economics.

DHHS is asking IRP to examine behavioral dynamics, such as family formation and fertility, and the payment of child support; how social policies in areas such as health and labor force development affect poverty; and how antipoverty policies operate and affect various disadvantaged populations.

DHHS received a total of 27 applications for the three available slots as area centers. The agency also designated Area Poverty Research Centers at the University of Kentucky and the University of Missouri, and a National Poverty Research Center at the University of Michigan.

The area center designations are three-year cooperative agreements. IRP will receive $500,000 in annual funding from DHHS, approximately the same level of annual funding that IRP has received since 1995 as one of two National Poverty Research Centers. “In a difficult federal budget environment, we are quite pleased to continue our existing level of core federal funds,” Scholz says.

For 36 years, IRP has sponsored studies of the nature, causes and consequences of poverty. Through its research programs, active conference and workshop agenda, and training programs for young scholars, it has created an influential national network of poverty researchers and policy makers.

IRP’s membership comprises more than 100 faculty affiliates and associates, located on the Madison campus and elsewhere. The research staff is drawn from the social sciences – primarily economics, sociology, demography and social work.

Since its formation in 1966 as the research arm of the federal war on poverty, IRP’s activities have included evaluations of welfare reform proposals, training and employment programs, and investigations of groups at high risk for poverty, such as single-parent families. IRP also studies the low-wage labor market, the mechanisms of social mobility and the intergenerational effects of poverty; produces many discussion papers, a special report series and a newsletter; and offers extensive information on its Web site.