Overview

The West Coast Poverty Center’s research agenda addresses the causes and consequences of poverty and effective policy responses to it in the west coast region. The Center gives particular focus to:

• the consequences of changing labor markets
• transformations in the organization of work and family life
• changing demographics and the disproportionate poverty risk for immigrant families
• social and economic inequality, and
• recent changes in policies and programs to support working families.

Research by Faculty Affiliates of the Poverty Center provides the multi-disciplinary core of the Center’s research activities. Through our Publications page, you will find their research listed by topic and by author. Special Projects highlights research collaborations between WCPC affiliates and Our Research Links page provides additional research resources.

The Center also awards grants for new research on poverty by Emerging Scholars and Dissertation Fellows at the University of Washington, as well as Western Poverty and Policy Small Grants for researchers outside UW.

The Center funds major academic conferences. The Center’s first conference, "Local Contexts and the Prospects for the Second Generation," took place in October 2006. A second conference, on western poverty and policy, will take place in 2008. Further information about the October conference is available here.