Institute for Research On Poverty
Robert M. Hauser, Director
Betty Evanson, Public Information, 608-262-6574
Elizabeth Uhr, Editor, Focus
1180 Observatory Drive, 3412 Social Science Building
University of Wisconsin - Madison
(608) 262-6358
(608) 265-3119 fax

Established in 1966 by the federal Office of Economic Opportunity as part of the War on Poverty, the Institute for Research on Poverty was created in an effort to measure the nature and extent of poverty in the United States through scientific methods, a discipline that was essentially unknown at the time.

Located at the University of Wisconsin and not Washington because of the university's long history of applied research on social issues, the Institute's core funding remains a biennial federal grant of about $1.5 million, earmarked by Congress since 1981 and channeled through the Department of Health and Human Services.

The non-profit, non-partisan Institute operates strictly as a research organization and does not engage in advocacy. With an annual budget of about $1.75 million, a support staff of about 15 researchers, editors, data analysts, computer technicians and office staff and a body of about 50 "affiliates" -- professors who conduct research using its grants -- the Institute over its 27 years has generated a library of original research on poverty-related issues. According to its project summary, Institute researchers have "formulated and tested basic theories of poverty and inequality, developed and evaluated social policy altenatives, and analyzed trends in poverty."

In addition to conducting research, the Institute disseminates its findings widely. It sells for nominal costs ($2 to $3.50 per report or $50 for a year's subscription to all papers) its reprints of more than 650 professional journal articles published by staff members; nearly 1,000 Discussion Papers; and various Special Reports. All of these are listed in the Institute's booklet, Recent Publications, which is available to the public. The Institute also distributes free of charge its three-times-per-year newsletter FOCUS, which contains lengthy non-technical essays on poverty-related topics, as well as INSIGHTS, an occasional bulletin summarizing recent research. The Institute also sponsors frequent conferences and workshops; the papers presented at its major national conference approximately every 10 years are gathered into widely applauded books, like "Fighting Poverty," edited by Sheldon Danziger, following the 1984 conference, and a sequel emerging from the 1992 conference (working title, "Poverty & Public Policy") to be published by Harvard Press next year.

Although the Institute doesn't pursue advocacy, its research has been deeply influential in promoting social change. In the early years, its researchers pioneered the measurement of in-kind benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps, and they've developed innovative equivalence scales that provide scientists a baseline for comparing the well-being of households of varying sizes and ages. One project has established a detailed historical record of the incidence, intensity and socio-economic characteristics of poverty in the U.S. from 1940 through the late 1980s.

Staff members devised and conducted the New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment in the late '60s, applying the methods of natural-science experimentation for the first time to the social services and studying the degree to which entitlement grants prompted recipients to work fewer hours. Institute researchers have also conducted extensive research into AFDC in a quest to quantify and objectively judge its purported deficiencies.

One of the Institute's major areas of inquiry has been in the field of Child Support Enforcement and Assurance, and most of the policy that became law with passage of the Child Support Act of 1988 was conceived and written in Madison, including the use of objective standards such as income in setting the amount of child-support awards; periodic updating of award amounts; and the use of automatic wage witholding to collect from the non-custodial parent. A proposed pilot program of support assurance, establishing a proposed state supplement to assure a minimum benefit level to custodial parents unable to collect from the absent parent, was to have been implemented in two Wisconsin counties, but the new Republican state administration cancelled it. The Institute has also done considerable study of paternity establishment (such as registering the father's name and social security number at birth), and the Summer 1992 edition of FOCUS contains a lengthy article on this topic.

The Institutes research projects for the coming biennium, to be outlined in detail in the next issue of FOCUS, are primarily in three broad areas: MEASURING DEPENDENCY AND VULNERABILITY, an effort to describe and define objective indicators or "alarm signals" of national poverty, analogous to the standare economic indicators; WELFARE REFORM, particularly child-support reform; and EDUCATION, with particular focus on tracking trends in educational attainment over time by different racial and ethnic groups.

(No immediate connections here, but these people work closely with David Ellwood and with Wendell Primus and Bill Prosser at HHS. I've subscribed to FOCUS for us (it's free) and am bringing back several recent editions as well as their "Recent Publications" directory, which Bill and Jim will want to review and perhaps order a stack of research reports.)

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