Urban across the Country

Urban’s researchers partner with state and local leaders to provide the evidence, tools, and support they need to improve lives and strengthen communities. This work includes strategic advising to translate research into action, program evaluations to measure effectiveness, and research and data analysis to inform decisionmaking. Our experts develop custom data tools and modeling to support equitable resource allocation and lead community-engaged research and convenings to ensure policies reflect local priorities.

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Research Report Mandated Saving and the Fallacy of Aggregation
Because Social Security spends tax collections almost immediately, rather than putting them aside to fund future retirement costs, it is believed by many to reduce net national saving at a time when other private and public saving are considered too low. This low savings rate coincides with a
Research Report Privatizing Social Security: A Third Option (Part 2 of 2)
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle explains how raising the rate of contribution to private accounts by a significant amount, without a substantial increase in mandates or taxes might help clarify the Social Security privatization debate.
Research Report Privatizing Social Security: A Third Option (Part 1 of 2)
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle comments on Social Security privatization options, noting that none say much of anything about the current private pension system, its advantages and limitations, nor about the ways that new, mandated, private accounts would be integrated with private accounts already
Brief Antistatism and Government Downsizing
The author describes the recent trend to both diminish government's role and reduce its size. She provides an historical overview of previous cycles of antistatism and government downsizing; briefly summarizes a period when a fairly stable balance of opposing views of the government role was
Brief Domestic Reforms: The Importance of Process
This paper identifies three major domestic program areas in need of basic reform: health care, particularly Medicare and Medicaid; Social Security, both old age pensions and disability; and the general revenue tax system. The author reviews the history of reform efforts in these areas and comments
Brief How Much Do Americans Move Up and Down the Economic Ladder?
The incomes of American families change frequently. Some of the poor get richer, some of the rich get poorer, and for a variety of reasons: accumulation of job skills and experience, marriage and divorce, job change, addition or loss of a second paycheck, and business success or failure. But despite
Brief The Challenges for Policy Research in a Changing Environment
In the wake of apparent decreasing public confidence in both government and in the value of empirical analysis as a guide to action, this paper reflects on the historical role that applied social science has played in the public sector and the role it might play in the future. The author offers