Families' and workers' economic security and opportunity for upward mobility depends on actionable evidence that reaches decisionmakers at the right times and in the right formats. The Urban Institute's incredible people work together to deliver exceptional research answering critical questions, agenda-setting evidence-backed frameworks, and actionable solutions. Our robust communications and engagement teams ensure our resources drive progress for all workers and their families. As a scholar and strategist deeply committed to bridging research to action in service of creating a more equitable, vibrant, and resilient country, Urban is the perfect home for me.
Elisabeth Jacobs is associate vice president at the Urban Institute and a cofounder and interim executive director of WorkRise, a research-to-action network on jobs, workers, and mobility. Her previous roles include founding senior director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, fellow at the Brookings Institution, and senior policy adviser appointments with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and with the congressional Joint Economic Committee. Jacobs is a nationally recognized expert on family income and earnings instability, low-wage employment and job quality, and labor market mobility. She is the author of numerous publications bringing rigorous evidence to a broad audience of policymakers and practitioners, including her most recent book, Moving the Needle: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor (with Katherine S. Newman). Jacobs is an elected member of the National Academy for Social Insurance and has served in an advisory capacity for myriad collaborations between researchers and changemakers seeking to improve the socioeconomic well-being of workers and their families. She holds a BA from Yale University and an MA and PhD from Harvard University, where she was a fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
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