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Gregory Acs
Vice President, Income and Benefits Policy
Income and Benefits Policy Center
We can’t begin to make progress on social problems until we understand them, and that’s the role of policy research.

Gregory Acs is vice president for income and benefits policy at the Urban Institute, where his research focuses on social insurance, social welfare, and the compensation of workers. Previously, he served as unit chief for Labor and Income Security in the Congressional Budget Office’s Health and Human Resources Division and as vice president of the Association for Policy Analysis and Management. His recent work examines economic and social mobility and economic security with a focus on low-income working families. In the past, Acs has studied the employment patterns of young women to determine the paths women take to obtain jobs paying enough to leave them better off working than on welfare. He has also examined the well-being of children across living arrangements, the ways welfare policies influence family composition, the status of families leaving welfare, and how policies affect the incentives families face as they move from welfare to work. Acs has a PhD in economics and social work from the University of Michigan.

Research Areas
Economic mobility and inequality
Wealth and financial well-being
Workforce
Children and youth
Social safety net
Race and equity
Tags
Kids in context
Inequality and mobility
Washington, DC, research initiative
Beyond high school: education and training
From Safety Net to Solid Ground
Job markets and labor force
Families with low incomes
Racial barriers to accessing the safety net
Racial inequities in economic mobility