Exploring Basic Income in a Changing Economy Teach-Out

Trina Shanks, Associate Professor of Social Work

Dr. Trina Shanks is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the School of Social Work and a Faculty Associate in the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research. Her research interests include the impact of poverty and wealth on child well-being; asset-building policy and practice across the life cycle; and community and economic development.

She has been a research investigator for the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment (SEED) demonstration program and consults with several other child savings account initiatives, including one started in Lansing Public Schools and at a non-profit organization in Detroit. As a faculty affiliated with the Technical Assistance Center funded by the Skillman Foundation, over a ten-year period Trina Shanks was actively engaged in six Detroit communities as part of the Good Neighborhoods program.

He also has conducted multiple evaluations of Detroit’s Summer Youth Employment Program—Grow Detroit’s Young Talent. From 2010 to 2012 Dr. Shanks was appointed by Michigan Governor Granholm to serve two years on the state Commission on Community Action and Economic Opportunity. Dr. Shanks is currently one of the national network co-leads for the Social Work Grand Challenge: Reversing Extreme Economic Inequality. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Work from Washington University and as M.S. in Comparative Social Research from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Kristin Seefeldt, Assistant Professor of Social Work & Assistant Professor of Public Policy

Dr. Kristin Seefeldt is an Assistant Professor of Social Work and the School of Social Work and an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy. Dr. Seefeldt’s primary research interests lie in exploring how low-income individuals understand their situations, particularly around issues related to work and economic well being.

Currently, she is conducting research on families’ financial coping strategies and is a Principal Investigator of a survey examining the effects of the recession and recovery policies on individuals’ well being.

Her most recent book, Abandoned Families (Russell Sage), explores the ways in which various institutions that once fostered economic security and upward mobility, currently fail low and moderate income families, particularly families of color. She is also the author of Working After Welfare (W.E. Upjohn Institute Press), which discusses employment and work-family balance challenges among former welfare recipients, and a co-author of America’s Poor and the Great Recession (Indiana University Press).

In this segment you will hear Trina and Kristin define the social safety net and discuss the difference between in-kind programs, such as SNAP, and cash-assistance programs, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.