Dolores Acevedo-Garcia and Pam Joshi receive new grant to focus on inclusive social policy

Pam Joshi and Dolores Acevedo-Garcia were awarded a Rapid Response Research grant from the William T. Grant and Spencer Foundations. These grants are expressly designed to synthesize existing research to inform public policy that can positively impact the lives of young people. In 2020, the Foundation devoted nearly the entire budget of this grant program toward work that is specifically designed to reduce inequality and improve the youth outcomes amid the changing social contexts in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project focuses on the exclusion of children in immigrant families, the majority of whom are U.S. citizens by birth, from social programs, extending to the 2020 CARES Act. Given ongoing policy deliberations over pandemic-related relief efforts, the impending start of the next presidential term, the recent National Academies report "A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty," and the national reckoning on racial and ethnic inequality, there is an opportunity to reexamine immigrant restrictions in safety net policies. The work will document the many ways children living in immigrant families are excluded from social safety net programs (e.g., SNAP, EITC) and is designed to inform key federal policymakers about the effects of immigrant exclusions and promote the inclusion of children of immigrants in social policy and pandemic-related recovery measures. Our policy partner for this project is UNIDOS US.