From 10 Downing Street to the White House
Demonstrators listen to speakers at a rally staged by The Campaign to End Child Poverty in Trafalgar Square in central London, October 4, 2008.
Dr. Jane Waldfogel had a front row seat in London in 1999 when former Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to end child poverty in Britain.
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| Top: Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair (center) meets children from a child poverty action group outside 10 Downing Street, December 21, 2005. Bottom: U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama speaks at the White House Council on Women and Girls Forum on Workplace Flexibility in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, March 31, 2010. |
“The antipoverty reforms were so unprecedented, it occurred to me even as they were unfolding that these reforms were a once-in-a-lifetime initiative,” says Dr. Waldfogel, professor of social work and public affairs at the School and a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.
Her latest book, Britain’s War on Poverty (Russell Sage Foundation, 2010), is the result of 10 years of research and experience as an adviser to government officials. It examines Britain’s successful reforms and holds out hope that the United States can learn from Britain’s example and significantly reduce childhood poverty with the proper investment of resources.
Here in the United States, Dr. Waldfogel was part of a select group of experts invited to attend the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility in March, which focused on the changing American workforce.
“It was an incredibly exciting event,” says Dr. Waldfogel. “The First Lady spoke at length about work-family issues and her commitment, and why workplace flexibility is important for families. President Obama spoke about his commitment and what he’s doing within the Executive Office to promote flexibility.”
Dr. Waldfogel is a co-director of the Columbia Population Research Center and principal investigator of Work-Family Policies and Child and Family Well-Being. The project, which is funded by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, is studying how public policies influence parental employment and child care arrangements.
As one of the nation’s leading experts on poverty, Dr. Waldfogel heads a faculty-student team at the School, working to improve the federal poverty measure, which hasn’t been updated significantly since it was devised in the early 1960s by Social Security Administration statistician Mollie Orshansky. The team, whose work is supported by the Annie
E. Casey Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies, includes Drs. Irwin Garfinkel and Neeraj Kaushal as well as master’s and doctoral-level students.
“We wanted to have a real-world policy analysis project that students could work on with us, and this one certainly fits that bill,” says Dr. Waldfogel. “It’s involved a lot of contact with policymakers and advocates in Washington as well as researchers across the country. It’s been a great experience for all of us.”