NYU Wagner

News & Events

August 2009

This month, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced the Measuring American Poverty Act of 2009 in the Senate. Its companion bill was introduced in the House by Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) in July. If passed, the Act would update the current poverty measure to reflect the economic and social realities Americans face today.

To Read more & take action, click here.

May 18, 2009

Today, the Women of Color Policy Network at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service,NYU released the first report in a four-part series on the recession entitled Race, Gender, and the Recession: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and its impact on Women of Color, their families and communities.

The series focuses on four key areas of impact for women of color and their communities: job creation and employment, housing and social services, education, and tax cuts to individuals. The launch report focuses on the components of the Reinvestment Act that purport to create jobs to discern how economically marginalized communities will be impacted or benefit.

View the Report

The Network increases its visibility and accessibility of its research through events, public forums and conference presentations at local and national levels. We invite you to learn more and get involved by clicking on the tabs to your left.

Please check back as we are constantly updating this page.

Peter Orszag, Director of the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB), talked extensively about the U.S. budget deficit, its principle causes, and its potential implications for health care, higher education and the career prospects of younger people in an address November 3rd at New York University sponsored by the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Orszag was introduced by John Sexton, NYU's President, and Ellen Schall, the Dean of NYU Wagner, who served as the event's moderator and in her opening remarks noted that Orszag was the youngest member of President Barack Obama's cabinet.

Last year, Orszag told the audience of more than 400 people at NYU's Kimmel Center, the federal deficit was $1.4 trillion ,and a comparable budget gap is projected for the present fiscal year. Over the next decade, he said, the federal government is projected to generate additional red ink of $9 trillion. "Deficits of this size are serious and ultimately unsustainable," Orszag said.

The event was broadcast live by Fox Business while generating a significant amount of public interest and media coverage. To read an official text of the speech or view the NYU webcast, click on the links below.

     "Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch's appearance at an NYU forum yesterday was overbooked almost as soon as it was announced, and the audience wasn't disappointed as Gov. Paterson's No. 2 let loose on a variety of subjects." So began a Crain's Insider dispatch on Ravitch's bracing, widely reported discussion Oct. 28, 2009, at NYU Wagner on New York State's huge budget challenges and the implications for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which he formerly headed, the $2 transit fare, and the controversial idea of introducing East River bridge tolls.

      Ravitch, a major figure in the development of fiscal practices in the city and state since 1970s, offered his assessments with Wagner's Professor Charles Brecher (moderator) as a guest of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, housed at the school, and the Center's director, Anthony Shorris, who previously headed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. "The State of New York," Ravitch said, "has in the remainder of this fiscal year a deficit of $4 billion--$3 or $4; people argue about it," he said, speaking to students and transportation professionals at NYU's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy. "Next year it's between $7 and $8 [billion], assuming revenues level off. The year after that, when the stimulus bill no loner provides any one-shots for the State of New York, the deficit will be between $15 and $18 billion. These are numbers that are unprecedented."

To hear the full discussion, click the Wagner Podcast.

      In a public conversation at NYU Wagner before more than 125 students, Newark, N.J., Mayor Corey Booker offered hard-won insight, progress reports and humor in describing how his administration's strategies to reduce recidivism are contributing to broad civic improvement.

      Mayor Booker fielded questions October 8, 2009, about his pattern-breaking efforts from Ellen Schall, Dean of Wagner, and the audience on a day when, as it happened, he was attracting national attention for countering quips delivered by TV talk-show host Conan O'Brien at Newark's expense. The mayor told students that New Jersey's largest city is simply "not the butt of jokes," but conceded that matching O'Brien laugh-for-laugh is no easy challenge.

But Booker had the audience chuckling at several points, even as he described serious and substantial efforts since his election in July, 2006, to set a national standard for urban transformation. He noted he has created several public/private partnerships and brought together civic group to rehabilitate and green the city's parks and playgrounds, doubled affordable housing construction, and set up model programs to assist at-risk youth and empower ex-offenders to thrive in meeting their family obligations.

     The evening event was sponsored by The NYU Wagne rStudents for Criminal Justice Reform and The Black Allied Law Students Association.

Do patrons alter their food choices when they see how many calories their selections contain? A study published October 6, 2009, in the journal "Health Affairs" by Brian Elbel, Rogan Kersh, Victoria L. Brescoll, and L. Beth Dixon examines how likely customers of restaurant chains in low-income New York City neighborhoods are to make healthier choices when the menus include prominent, now-mandatory calorie postings. The researchers collected about 1,100 cashier receipts two weeks before the city's calorie labeling law took effect and four weeks after. They found that eating habits did not change significantly in the wake of the initiative.

Brian Elbel is an assistant professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University and in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. Rogan Kersh is an associate professor and associate dean of NYU Wagner. Victoria Brescoll is an assistant professor in the Yale School of Management. Beth Dixon is an associate professor in the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. The research for the study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Eating Initiative, the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, and the New York University Wagner Dean's Fund.

This morning, Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat that will be left empty by David Souter. She has more experience than any other current member of the court at the time of their nomination and is said to be most in touch with what's happening in the lives of ordinary citizens. She is also the first Latino and if confirmed would be only the third woman to serve as Justice.