Faculty Profile: Hilary Hoynes

Hilary Hoynes is Professor of Public Policy and Economics, Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities, and Co-Director of the Berkeley Opportunity Lab. We recently sat down with Professor Hoynes to discuss her groundbreaking research on poverty and safety net programs, her role as a scholar-practitioner, and her newfound love of swimming in the Bay.

Your research is in poverty and inequality, including the impact of safety net and government transfer programs (SNAP, TANF, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Universal Basic Income, etc.) on low-income families. What drew you to this subject matter?

I was led to this area of focus through a twist of fate and personal passion. Growing up, my mother worked at the Institute for Research on Poverty, which was established in the early days of the War on Poverty. As a child, I was surrounded by people who worked with my mother. When I came out of college, my first job was at a consulting firm that did public policy research. I was paired with an expert in the field and worked on several projects evaluating the effects of tax and transfer programs. I just found myself gravitating towards the content. I’m not entirely sure what the throughline is, but it feels like a part of my DNA.

One of your recent papers found that the United States' relatively low and declining safety net spending, particularly on families with young children, contrasts with our understanding of how safety nets benefit society over the long run. What should we be doing differently?

There’s been a vast amount of recent research clearly documenting that when families have more resources, they not only benefit today, but this dramatically improves the life trajectory of their children. Evidence that we lacked just 20 years ago shows that we can credibly speak about safety nets as long-term investments that will pay for themselves. My research has focused primarily on SNAP (food stamps). My co-authors and I looked back to the ‘60s and ‘70s when the program was first introduced in the United States, and examined the long-term impacts on children who were introduced to the program at different ages. We found that kids who were exposed to food stamps, particularly before around age five, experienced greatly improved levels of education and lower poverty rates in adulthood. They are more likely to have survived into adulthood. They live in better neighborhoods. African American men were less likely to have been incarcerated. And the magnitudes are not small. 

We’re used to thinking of programs like Head Start as a long-term investment, but we tend not to think about the safety net that way. Yet the evidence is very strong -- when you provide Medicaid to children, it also pays for itself. There's clear evidence that we have been systematically underestimating the benefits of safety net programs, and it's incumbent on us to respond and expand these programs that we know work.

I also recently investigated what we call the purchasing power of SNAP -- the fact that a $200 food stamp benefit doesn’t mean the same thing in San Francisco as it does in my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. Our research focused on the effects on childhood health. We found that kids who live in areas where the SNAP benefits go farther have fewer school absences, and tend to see the doctor for standard routine visits at higher frequencies. This is consistent with other literature showing that resource-restricted families have a harder time participating in the everyday activities in which we engage as economic beings.

Throughout your career, you have worked at the intersection of policy and practice. In addition to serving as Professor of Economics and Public Policy and Haas Distinguished Chair of Economic Disparities, you have served in numerous leadership and advisory capacities. What are some of your most recent efforts?

I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve in advisory roles -- the projects I've been asked to join are so close to what I care about that I can't possibly say no. In 2017-2018, I simultaneously served on the State of California Task Force on Lifting Children and Families out of Poverty, which was brought together during a transition in both the California governorship and the senior leadership of the Department of Social Services. We wanted to create an agenda centered around how we should address financial insecurity among Californians. At the same time, I was also on a National Academy of Sciences committee that was tasked with identifying policies that would reduce child poverty within ten years. While these organizations had different missions, they were both asked to address local and national concerns about childhood poverty. This made me somewhat optimistic about the future possibility of doing more of the things that we know works.

What are some of your current projects?

GSPP Professor Jesse Rothstein and I recently wrote a paper on Universal Basic Income (UBI) that has gotten recent press, because there's so much attention on UBI. Although we’ve completed the paper, we are often invited to participate in various conversations about UBI; it’s been an interesting topic to contribute to on an ongoing basis. 

I'm also working on research related to the Social Security disability program, which provides important support to people who are no longer able to work in both low- and middle-income households. I’m investigating the role that paid attorneys play in the process of attaining the benefit. There are several large, financially-motivated law firms conducting broad-scale advertising to attract clients. It's an open question whether these firms increase your probability of getting on disability benefits. Which kinds of applicants are attorneys most likely to bring over the finish line? Since attorneys are compensated based on how much time has elapsed since a client has stopped working, do they ever slow down their cases? We hope to better understand and quantify these dynamics. 

Tell us about yourself. How do you like to spend your time outside of Goldman?

I love to do anything outdoors. I just ran a half marathon on Sunday! That was really exciting -- it was only my second one. Today is Wednesday, and I’m walking -- so that’s a good sign. I also love to swim -- I was a competitive swimmer when I was a kid. I’ve started swimming in the bay on Sunday mornings at the Berkeley Marina, and there’s this epic swim from Alcatraz that I’m thinking of doing. I also love to hike and cook.