Our experts in the news
Urban Institute insights and analysis inform national reporting
A woman and her four young children unload grocery bags around a kitchen island.
Greg Acs, vice president for the Tax and Income Supports Division at the Urban Institute, spoke with Virginia Public Media about the risks of addressing affordability in a zero-sum context that focuses on who bears the short-term costs of a policy instead of its potential for growth.
Latest
  • A blonde woman in a camel-colored sweater puts bell peppers in a plastic produce bag at WinCo Foods, a low-cost and employee-owned supermarket.
    Elaine Waxman reflects on SNAP’s successful history
    Before SNAP was established 62 years ago, those unable to afford food had to turn to “whatever might be available in terms of charity in their local communities,” Elaine Waxman told Marketplace.
  • A Black mother stands with her three children, her arm around the child on her left, and all four are standing alongside a city street while smiling at something off-camera.
    Signe-Mary McKernan on affordability in Texas
    According to the Urban Institute’s American Affordability Tracker, monthly health insurance premiums in Texas are $40 higher than the national average.
  • A man in a long-sleeve orange t-shirt and blue jeans man sits on a brown leather bench while looking intently at his cell phone.
    Judah Axelrod discusses the rise in online sports betting
    Judah Axelrod, a data scientist at the Urban Institute, spoke with G&M News about how online sports betting has grown rapidly since Murphy v. NCAA case legalized it.
  • A happy little girl hugs her mom, who is smiling so hard her eyes are closed and her nose is crinkling, stand on the driveway in front of a two-story home.
    Breno Braga on rising credit card delinquency rates
    The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest household debt and credit report shows credit card delinquencies are nearing Great Recession levels.
  • A class of small children sit in a circle in a classroom as the teacher in a yellow shirt and glasses presents on a strawberry, with the teacher's aid sittings nearby, looking at a diagram of the solar system.
    Diane Schilder on proposed changes to Head Start
    “There is a lot of variability across states and communities in the way that Head Start is designed and the way that it operates.”
  • An elderly man in a light blue button-up looks toward a window in a sunny home as an older woman with a cane and a younger woman in scrubs and a lanyard look on.
    Sarah Rosen Wartell on promising solutions to seniors’ housing challenges
    The nation’s housing crisis is “not only making it difficult for young people to afford rent or homeownership,” writes Sarah Rosen Wartell, president of the Urban Institute, in an op-ed for Governing.