Projects and Papers
The Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy conducts research to shed light on the structures of inequality and develop knowledge about the pivotal roles of race, power, and social stratification. Building relationships beyond the academy, institute researchers work to identify, implement, and scale transformative ideas to promote economic inclusion, civic empowerment, and social equity. The Institute also works to foster the next generation of scholars bringing diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and new thinking to society’s biggest challenges.
Health and Political Economy Project
The Health and Political Economy Project (HPEP) is catalyzing action toward an economy that enables all people to have what they need to experience wellbeing.
Through field-building and organizing initiatives, we seek to create a forward-oriented community — and roadmap for change — in pursuit of this vision.
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Baby Bonds
Baby Bonds are a policy proposal aimed at addressing wealth inequality and promoting economic mobility. Developed and championed by Founding Director Darrick Hamilton, the concept of Baby Bonds is designed to narrow the racial wealth gap and provide pathways for wealth building for all children, regardless of economic circumstances at birth. Explore a host of resources about Baby Bonds, including our 2022 report with Prosperity Now, A Brighter Future with Baby Bonds: How States and Cities Should Invest in Our Kids, which presents frameworks for states and localities to design and implement Baby Bonds.
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Equity Scoring
In response to the federal government’s executive order advancing racial equity, Institute founding director Darrick Hamilton and Andre Perry of the Brookings Institution called on the federal government to develop a scoring system that measures the potential impacts of proposed policies on racial equity. Following this call to action, our organizations partnered to produce research that contributes to the development of equity assessment and scoring frameworks that can be implemented at the local, state, and federal levels.
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Guaranteed Income Research Hub
Building on the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy’s guaranteed income federal policy proposal, the Institute is producing and seeding research that facilitates the movement for guaranteed income and direct cash support as an economic right and a medium through which policymakers can abolish poverty in the United States. In partnership with Economic Security Project, PolicyLink, and Liberation in a Generation, the Policies for Action Guaranteed Income/Cash Support Research Hub is building a positive narrative about unrestricted cash supports, and equipping policymakers and grassroots advocates with ideas, evidence, and tools to design, demand, and deliver equitable policies.
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The Color of Wealth
Racial wealth inequities are rooted within histories of structural racism and state violence with profound structural intergenerational effects. The Color of Wealth studies examine historical forces, regional variations and local asset market and policy conditions, across and within racial and ethnic groups, migration and immigration patterns and measures racial wealth inequities, assets, and debts.
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The Color of Achievement
Racial inequality was entrenched in the American education system prior to the country's inception. The pernicious achievement gap exemplifies an enduring outcome of this historical legacy. Research on disparities in academic achievement is predominantly based on quantitative studies, mainly emphasizing resource allocation, parental involvement, and socioeconomic status, to name a few. The Color of Achievement uses mixed methods to interrogate inequality in three critical aspects of public education: the instructional framework, the curriculum content, and the standardized assessments. This research investigates education as a civil right by making visible salient themes of enacted and espoused values, common law, history, and hierarchies.
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Advancing Racial Equity Through the American Rescue Plan Act
Recognizing the potential for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) fiscal recovery funding to address long-standing inequities, the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School and PolicyLink partnered to examine whether and how cities and counties are prioritizing equity in their decisionmaking and making equity-promoting investments. The Institute continues to document and disseminate best practices, examples, and lessons learned from the local ARPA experience - producing important tools and insights to inform equitable policy making locally.
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Building an Equitable Recovery: The Role of Race, Labor Markets, and Education
A research paper to be released in February 2021 by Darrick Hamilton, Ofronama Biu, Christopher Famighetti, Avi Green, Kyle Strickland, and David Wilcox, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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New Imperatives in American Learning, Civic Education & Employment Equity
Advancing the Common Good Through Expanded Racial & Economic Justice
This project is a multimedia series of conversations and examinations intended to assess the need for new approaches to American human capital formation and community building. We examine these important topics with an eye to their racial and economic justice dimensions. This work is essential to strengthen our democracy and to promote more equitable economic development and prosperity sharing across the nation at a time of growing racial and economic division. We focus aspirationally on the need to advance a next generation of racial and economic justice reforms, building on more inclusive modalities of education and training, community engagement, and allied efforts to better align our nation’s largely disconnected systems of public instruction, civics education, and workforce preparation.
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Shifting the Burden of Proof: Using Audit Testing to Proactively Root Out Workplace Discrimination
A new report released in September 2022 recommends the use of audit testing, a tool that can proactively identify discrimination in the hiring process, by public agencies at all levels aiming to combat employment discrimination. The report, produced jointly by the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School and the National Employment Law Project, argues that such audits, performed on a systematic basis, could be relatively easily and inexpensively administered in virtually every sector of the U.S. economy. Almost 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, race-based employment discrimination persists, which is why the report authors call for a more proactive approach to advance racial equity in workplaces.
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Towards an Inclusive Economic Rights Agenda
This project aims to build a learning community and develop innovative ideas and new analyses to advance an economy that benefits all. Team information includes Darrick Hamilton, Grieve Chelwa, and Avi Green. Sponsored by the Kresge Foundation.
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United Nations & The Institute Partnership For a Human Rights Economy
In August 2022, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Institute announced a global partnership to advance scholarship and economic policy-making towards achieving human rights.
The new “Partnership For a Human Rights Economy” is seeded in a common conviction that economic, social and cultural rights, including the rights to health, education, social security and decent work including a living wage and labor rights, are core to an inclusive economic model.
Economics Reimagined: A Discussion on Building a Human Rights Economy (Aspen Institute January 2023)