Sheila Zedlewski

The Urban Institute

Sheila Zedlewski is the director of the Urban Institute's Income and Benefits Policy Center.  The center houses about 35 researchers engaged in research to evaluate the effectiveness of private and public systems for generating and distributing income in the United States. Analysts in the IBP center monitor all components of these systems--including wages, pensions, health benefits, and government taxes and transfers.

Ms. Zedlewski is a specialist in the areas of income security and poverty. Her research in this area focuses on work support programs, participation in food stamps and other nutrition assistance programs, trends in poverty among single-parent families, and the changing characteristics of parents on welfare.  For the past eight years, she has led the Employment and Income component of the Institute’s Assessing the New Federalism project. She recently co-authored a summary of the project’s findings on welfare reform entitled “The Changing Role of Welfare in the Lives of Low-Income Families with Children.”

Another key area of her research interest centers on retirement policy.  For example, she leads a foundation-funded project focused on engagement of older Americans. She also is leading a team developing the Polisim microsimulation model for the Social Security Administration. The model uses numerous longitudinal data sets, including administrative earnings data, to estimate the demographic and economic processes that determine individual life histories.