The recent economic recession has affected virtually every American household with its worst effects felt in communities in color.  These communities continue to feel the recession's lingering effects, particularly with regard to high unemployment and falling rates of home ownership.  The Joint Center's Economic Security Initiative seeks to create space for the policy making process to address these inequalities and advance solutions that strengthen our economy at all levels and thereby benefit every American household.  

Specific activities of the Economic Security Initiative include targeted research and policy analyses in the following areas:

Job Creation and Expansion

The Joint Center monitors employment trends among African Americans and other people of color.  Its research looks at improving job prospects for young people, advancement prospects for low wage workers, status and effectiveness of welfare-to work initiatives, potential of apprenticeship and school-to-work programs, and financing of unemployment insurance.   

Housing and the Financial Crisis

With the housing market in flux, the Joint center continues to analyze the impact of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and the resulting banking crisis on minority homeowners and their communities.  Key areas of focus are on strengthening oversight of financial markets and predatory lending practices, as well as studying the effectiveness of various federal and state housing policies.

Economic Mobility

The Joint Center follows trends in economic mobility across racial and generational lines- how education, discrimination, health, family status, wealth, and income volatility drive both upward and downward mobility.

Social Security and Other Benefits Programs

The Joint Center has undertaken numerous in-depth studies of the Social Security system and its importance to communities of color, as well as the impact of the recent recession on retirement savings behavior.  It looks at how public policies regarding social insurance, income support and child support influence the economic well-being of people of color, particularly the elderly, the disabled and low-income families.

Consumer Behavior and Living Standards

The Joint Center looks at the impact of economic gyrations-especially higher energy and food prices-on living standards in communities of color and trends related to stability of family income, as well as public infrastructure and its impact on quality of life and employment opportunities.

In addition to these research areas, the Economic Security Initiative has been working on a new program, Asset-Building Policy Initiative: Confronting and Closing the Wealth Gap.  Funded under the Ford Foundation's Bridging Economic security over a Lifetime Initiative, this new program is addressing current gaps in existing policies and programs, particularly their lack of focus on the particular asset-building challenges faced in communities of color.  As part of this program, the Joint Center aims to be an educational catalyst for policy reforms, particularly through intensive work with state legislators, with the goal of narrowing and ultimately closing the "wealth gap" in ways that help more working families in communities of color join and remain in the ranks of the middle and upper-middle class.  To advance these goals, the Joint Center will work with state and regional coalitions that have been formed with the support from the Ford Foundation to plan and hold state-level policy conferences that serve as forums for discussion on asset-building issues and potential policy solutions.