Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and Their Children by SESP professor Greg Duncan and co-authors Aletha Huston and Thomas Weisner was awarded the Richard A. Lester Prize for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations published in 2007. This prize is awarded annually by the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University.The award is presented to the book making the most original and important contribution toward understanding the problems of industrial relations, labor market policies and the evolution of labor markets, according to Princeton. Higher Ground was published by the Russell Sage Foundation.
With skill and vigor, Higher Ground describes the New Hope program, a three-year experimental program in Milwaukee, as a model for a policy to help people overcome poverty. New Hope combined key supports for participants, including work supports, health insurance and child care.
Created in the belief that work should be the best avenue for exiting poverty, New Hope was rigorously evaluated and found successful in many ways. "A decade later there is clear evidence that New Hope reduced poverty and promoted the school achievement and development of children of working, low-income parents," the authors write. Greg Duncan is the Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education and Social Policy at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. He has devoted his career to researching the impacts of poverty, neighborhood conditions and welfare reform on children's development. Duncan received his PhD in economics and, prior to joining the Northwestern University faculty in 1995, spent 23 years at the University of Michigan working on and ultimately directing the Panel Study of Income Dynamics project.
Currently Duncan is president of the Population Association of America and president-elect of the Society for Research in Child Development. He is also the co-author of For Better and For Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-Being of Children and Families with Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and has written numerous articles and book chapters.
The Richard A. Lester award is given in honor of Richard Lester's contributions to the fields of labor economics and industrial relations. At Princeton between 1934 and 1973, Lester served as a professor, chairman of the economics department and dean of the faculty. He was a founder and president of the Industrial Relations Research Association in 1956 and also served in Washington, becoming the vice-chairman of the President's Commission on the Status of Women in 1961.
Last Modified: 8/14/09