Laura M. Tach

Laura’s research examines urban poverty and family life. Her mixed-methods research examines how neighborhoods and families reproduce inequality and how public policy affects these processes. With funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Science Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, she has studied housing policies designed to deconcentrate poverty. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, she has examined family instability and complexity, nonresident fathers, and household income volatility. She is also involved in a collaborative study funded by the Ford Foundation that examines the public and private strategies low-income families use to make ends meet in the post-welfare reform era, with a focus on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).