Event Details 

Poverty, Inequity, and Disparity (series)
The United States is a wealthy country, so why are 38 million Americans, including one out of every six of our children, living in poverty?  Is poverty
inevitable, or is it the result of economic and political decisions that we have made, and continue to make?  This series will provide insight into the
history and possible alternatives for the future of those who do not share in our country’s obvious prosperity.   

We will examine the issue from the viewpoints of economics, sociology, and political science.  We will also hear from experts in the fields of housing,
education, and health care.  We hope to come to an understanding of both the causes of, and workable solutions to, a problem which causes such suffering
and prevents our nation from reaching its full potential.

This event includes all six lectures in the Thursday Morning Lecture Series titled:

September 10, 2020, 10:00-11:30am
Poverty:  Causes, Consequences, and Cures
Speaker:  Professor Charles L. Ballard 
Charles Ballard has been on the Economics faculty at Michigan State University since 1983, when he received his Ph.D. from Stanford University.  In 2007,
he was selected as the Outstanding Teacher in MSU’s College of Social Science.  He has consulted with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Health and
Human Services, and with research institutes in Australia, Denmark, and Finland.  His books include Michigan at the Millennium and Michigan’s Economic
Future.
Speaker’s Synopsis: Professor Ballard will discuss poverty, with special emphasis on poverty in the United States.  He will discuss problems in the
measurement of poverty, and lay out the facts of poverty in America in recent decades.  He will describe past political decisions that exacerbated US
poverty.   Finally, he will outline political and economic policies that could help eliminate poverty, and the political changes necessary for those
policies to be enacted.  

September 17, 2020, 10:00-11:30am
The Questions We Don’t Know to Ask:  Studying Poverty in 21st Century America
Speaker:  Professor H. Luke Shaefer, Ph.D. Hermann and Amalie Kohn Professor and Director of Poverty Solutions
H. Luke Shaefer is the Hermann and Amalie Kohn Professor of Social Justice and Social Policy, Professor of Public Policy and Social Work, and Director of
Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan. 
Speaker’s Synopsis: Shaefer will present on the work of Poverty Solutions, a University of Michigan presidential initiative that partners scholars with
communities to find new ways to prevent and alleviate poverty, stressing the initiative’s systems-level approach to addressing poverty.    

September 24, 2020, 10:00-11:30am
Access and Equity in US School Systems
Speaker:  Dr. Simona Goldin
Simona Goldin teaches about the sociology, history, and policy of schooling in the United States, at the University of Michigan’s School of Education.
She has studied ways to transform the preparation of beginning teachers to teach in more equitable ways, and has elaborated the teaching practices that
bridge children’s work in schools on academic content with their home and community-based experiences.
Speaker’s Synopsis: We will investigate what happens to students’ aspirations and goals from the start of middle school until college graduation,
looking in particular at how these trajectories are impacted by socio-economic factors (SES).  We will study the socially constructed barriers that
obstruct access to opportunities for lower SES students and the opportunities and supports that are, conversely, offered to higher SES students.  Examining
the systemic nature of these will help to illuminate the fallacy of the idea of a meritocratic system.
We will investigate data, and strategize about what can be done to make good on the promises we make to our nation’s students about what and who they can
be.  We will orient our work toward finding strategies to address systems of oppression and privilege that structure education opportunities.     

October 1, 2020, 10:00-11:30am
The Short-Term and Long-Term Impacts of Health Care Access for Low Income Americans
Speaker:  Dr. Sarah Miller 
Dr. Miller received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois in 2012.  She joined the University of Michigan in 2014 after being an economics
professor at the University of Notre Dame.  Dr. Miller is currently a professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan’s
Ross School of Business.  Her work examines the effect of health care policies on economic and health outcomes.
Speaker’s Synopsis: Over the past 50 years, the United States has implemented policies to improve access to health care for low-income adults and
children, including through the Medicaid program and, most recently, the Affordable Care Act.  The recent COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of
such care access, not only for beneficiaries themselves, but for public health within our communities.  To what extent have these policies been successful
in improving access to care, and what are the implications of these policies for the health of our most vulnerable residents in the future?   

October 8, 2020, 10:00-11:30am
Building and Preserving Affordable Housing in the United States: Federal Resources and Local Efforts
Speaker:  Lan Deng, Associate Professor of Urban & Regional Planning
Lan Deng is an Associate Professor of Urban & Regional Planning at the University of Michigan. She studies housing and real estate development in both the
U.S. and China. In both countries she has conducted extensive research to examine the different types of interventions directed towards housing and real
estate development.  Her research seeks to examine the outcomes of these interventions and how they were shaped by both market forces as well as
institutional choices.
Speaker’s Synopsis:  In the United States only one out of every four eligible low-income households is able to live in a subsidized housing unit.  This
limited supply of affordable housing is also shrinking.  This talk will first provide an overview of the major federal affordable housing programs.  Using
Detroit as an example, it will then examine the recent efforts of producing and preserving affordable housing under the country’s largest affordable
housing production program, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program.

October 15, 2020, 10:00-11:30am
From the Edge of the Ghetto:  The Quest of Small City African-Americans to Survive Post-Industrialism
Speaker:  Alford Young Jr., Ph.D., Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Sociology, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Public Policy
Professor Young attended Wesleyan University (BA) and the University of Chicago (MA and Ph.D.).  His research generally focuses on low-income African
American men.  He is a former Chair of Michigan’s Sociology Department, and he serves as Associate Director of Michigan’s Center for Social Solutions
and Faculty Director of Scholar Engagement and Leadership at Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity.  He has published The Minds of
Marginalized Black Men and Are Black Men Doomed?  
Speaker’s Synopsis:  This presentation uncovers perspectives about work and work opportunity held by socio-economically disadvantaged African Americans
residing in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a declining “single-industry” town.  In exploring their worldviews, this presentation elucidates how their thinking
results from being caught between a traditional industrialism that is in decline and a proliferating post-industrialism exemplified by the neighboring city
of Ann Arbor.  It concludes with an illustration of how race, class, and gender factor into their thinking.