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Pamela J. Loprest
Senior Fellow
Income and Benefits Policy Center
  • Profile
  • Outside Affiliations
  • My mission is to provide solid information to policy debates on how our country can improve the lives of working families and those facing difficulties gaining and maintaining employment.

    Pamela Loprest is a senior fellow and labor economist in the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Loprest’s research focuses on policies to enhance the economic well-being of disadvantaged persons through work, including providing opportunities for advancement along career pathways, removing barriers to work, improving skills, provision of work support benefits, and improving job quality.

    Loprest coleads the Urban Institute's assessment of the JPMorgan Chase & Co. New Skills at Work Initiative, focused on improving workers' access to skills and economic opportunity. She is currently Urban’s project lead for evaluation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants to provide health care training to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients and other low-income individuals. She also coleads Urban’s Building America’s Workforce initiative, which brings together workforce research from across the Urban Institute.

    Loprest has experience in quantitative and qualitative methods. Her prior research examines how to address employment challenges facing welfare recipients and persons with disabilities. She is coauthor of the book Leaving Welfare: Employment and Well-Being of Families that Left Welfare in the Post-Entitlement Era, with Gregory Acs.

    She received her PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Research Areas
    Education
    Workforce
    Social safety net
    Race and equity
    Tags
    Beyond high school: education and training
    Job markets and labor force
    Families with low incomes
    Racial barriers to accessing the safety net
    Racial equity in education


    Events
    Outside Affiliations
    Shared Humanity Project
    VP of Board
    Body

    Urban experts are permitted and empowered to work and affiliate with outside organizations, whether serving on boards, volunteering their time, or providing advice and counsel. And Urban welcomes visiting scholars, nonresident or affiliated fellows who work for other organizations. These outside affiliations enrich our perspectives and our learning environment. We also require all paid and unpaid experts to disclose their affiliations to Urban leadership and follow rules governing their engagement to ensure transparency for audiences and independence of experts.