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A ‘Hesitantly Bullish’ Take on U.S. Unemployment Trends

A WalletHub article on U.S. states where unemployment is ticking up cited Robert Fairlie, chair of Public Policy at UCLA Luskin and a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research. “I’m hesitantly bullish on the job market for 2024,” said Fairlie, explaining that national jobless rates are still relatively low and are not likely to increase rapidly in the coming year. But he added, “The major problem many people have is that their wages are not increasing as fast as inflation. That is making it hard for people to afford to live, especially in high-cost housing markets.” Moving savings out of non-interest-earning accounts and into money market funds that pay a higher interest rate is one way that people can protect their finances, Fairlie said. 


 

An Equity-Focused Transition to Clean Energy in L.A.

Media coverage of UCLA’s LA100 Equity Strategies report, which will help the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power meet its goal of prioritizing equity as it transitions to renewable energy sources, featured several members of the UCLA Luskin community. Gregory Pierce, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, which produced the report’s chapter on energy affordability, addressed the DWP’s goal of transitioning to 100% carbon-neutral power by 2035 on KCRW’s Greater L.A. “I’m fairly optimistic that the city will get there, but it needs to move really quickly,” Pierce said. The report, which featured research from across the UCLA campus, was also highlighted in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Their stories cited Stephanie Pincetl UP PhD ’85, a professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and Cynthia McClain-Hill, president of the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners and a member of the UCLA Luskin Board of Advisors.


 

Shoup on Parking Reforms Taking Hold Across the U.S.

Media outlets covering new parking policies in cities across the United States spoke to UCLA Luskin’s Donald Shoup, whose decades of research in the field helped bring about the reforms. Smart Cities Dive profiled three cities — San Francisco; Boulder, Colorado; and Seaside, Florida — that have instituted systems that adjust parking rates according to demand. The policies embrace a new way of valuing urban real estate and provide a mechanism for investing revenues in neighborhood improvements. “If curb pricing were priced right, people would never be desperate for parking,” Shoup said. The distinguished research professor of urban planning also spoke to Grist about Austin, Texas, which just became the largest U.S. city to eliminate rules requiring a minimum number of parking spaces in new developments. Shoup said the move could pave the way for denser housing, increased public transit options and reduced carbon emissions.


 

Turner on Schools’ Potential to Provide an Oasis From Heat

An LAist article on efforts to increase green spaces on Los Angeles school campuses to provide cool relief in a warming world cited V. Kelly Turner, associate director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. By 2050, parts of L.A. that are prone to extreme heat could see at least 30 additional days with temperatures above 90 degrees. Turner said it’s important to think about schools as community resources, especially for kids who come from historically disinvested and disadvantaged communities. “If kids live in a home without air conditioning or a cool place to go on hot days, then come to school, which also lacks cooling inside and shade outside, their core body temperatures are never getting down to safe levels,” said Turner, an associate professor of urban planning. “That’s going to cause them to have difficulty concentrating … and it’s going to be very, very hard for a child to learn in that context.”


 

Pierce on Water Safety Near Tustin Hangar Fire

An LAist story on contaminated debris from a massive fire at a World War II-era hangar in Tustin cited Gregory Pierce, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Lead, arsenic and asbestos have been detected in some ash and debris tested in the air and on the ground. While some groundwater has been contaminated, toxins are unlikely to make their way into drinking water systems, the story noted. Pierce, who directs the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, said he has confidence in local water suppliers and official monitoring bodies to manage any potentially toxic effects from the fire on the water system. He added that the volume of toxic sediment that could reach waterways is likely small and diffuse and therefore unlikely to have a big impact on surface water quality.


 

Taylor on Angelenos’ Travel Choices During Freeway Closure

Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to LAist about how Angelenos coped with the temporary shutdown of the 10 Freeway. “If one piece of our network goes down, there’s a lot of opportunities for people to make changes and move around those things,” said Taylor, a professor of urban planning and public policy. “People adjust their behavior by changing their routes, changing the time of their travel, and changing the mode by which they travel, in that order.” Now that the freeway has been reopened, it’s unlikely these changes will stick, he said. The disruption may have had the positive effect of making people more aware of their commuting options, he said, “but it’s unlikely that the event itself … might cause people to reconsider their travel choices.”


 

Seeking Safe Spaces for People Whose Cars Are Their Homes

Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA Luskin, appeared on an episode of KQED’s Forum devoted to the growing number of people who are using their cars for shelter. Brozen shared research showing that nearly 19,000 people in Los Angeles County are living in their vehicles, many of them women living with children, or older Americans, or people who are employed yet cannot afford rent. Some municipalities have set aside areas for safe overnight parking, but Los Angeles has only 500 such parking spots. While these sites provide a short-term solution at best, Brozen called on Los Angeles to act with creativity and flexibility to allow more of its vast stretches of paved spaces to be used to keep the vehicular homeless population safe. “The more rational and compassionate approach would be to allow a space for people to really have safety and security on a path to being housed,” she said.


 

Wesley Yin Appointed Chief Economist of White House Budget Office

UCLA Luskin’s Wesley Yin has been appointed chief economist at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Yin heads OMB’s Office of Economic Policy, where he will help formulate President Biden’s budget and work on a wide range of issues, including national tax policy, health care and social insurance, climate policy, labor and student loans. OMB assists the president in meeting administration policy, budget and management objectives across the federal government. “There’s the saying, ‘Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget — and I’ll tell you what you value.’ This saying resonates with me, and now more than ever at OMB,” said Yin, whose research focuses on economic inequality, health care and household finance. During his government service, Yin will be on leave from UCLA during the 2023-24 academic year. He previously served on the White House Council of Economic Advisors and as the U.S. Treasury Department’s deputy assistant secretary of economic policy during the Obama administration.

 

L.A. Asks How to Equitably Achieve 100% Clean Energy by 2035 — and UCLA Answers Luskin School research centers join cross-campus effort to guide LADWP strategies centered on equity and justice

By Mara Elana Burstein

In 2021, after the LA100 analysis laid out pathways for the city of Los Angeles to produce 100% renewable electricity, the City Council and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power committed to pursuing the most ambitious — and expensive — scenario: achieving the goal by 2035 at a cost of nearly $40 billion.

But cost is far from the only challenge. Facing a legacy of inequity within the city’s energy system, the LADWP turned to UCLA researchers to develop strategies for pursuing clean energy without perpetuating social, racial and economic injustices.

Five teams convened by the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge answered the call, bringing together more than 20 UCLA faculty and researchers with expertise in engineering, environmental science, law, labor studies, public health and urban policy. Working with researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which offered computing power and technical capacity, these scholars provided a deep local context, as well as behavioral, social and political expertise, to help Los Angeles ensure a more just transition.

The release of their two-year study, the LA100 Equity Strategies report, was announced today at a press conference at LADWP headquarters downtown, where Mayor Karen Bass’ “Powered by Equity” initiative, based on the report’s findings, was also unveiled.

“We have an opportunity to be innovative and bold,” Bass said in a press release. “We have an opportunity to shape our clean energy future in a manner that delivers benefits to community residents and our LADWP customers in the neighborhoods where they live. We’re making a conscious decision to take intentional clean energy actions that are ‘Powered by Equity,’ as recommended by the newly released LA100 Equity Strategies research study.”

Stephanie Pincetl, a co-author of the report and director of the UCLA California Center for Sustainable Communities, welcomed the initiative, which will kick off with a LADWP project to build, operate and maintain a network of electric vehicle charging stations in underserved communities.

“No other utility in the United States has made a commitment to not only 100% renewable but making sure it’s implemented equitably,” said Pincetl, who earned a PhD in urban planning from UCLA in 1985. “This is the power of a municipal utility, a utility owned by and for its customers.”

The UCLA authors of LA100 Equity Strategies found that significant changes will be necessary to prevent the energy system’s injustices from increasing both during and after the transition, particularly for underserved communities of color, which currently bear the brunt of bad air quality, extreme heat and electrical outages. Without mitigation, these communities are projected to pay more for energy and experience fewer benefits over time.

To that end, UCLA’s approach has been justice-centered, providing community-informed, evidence-driven strategies and recommendations on affordability and policy solutions, air quality and public health, green jobs and workforce development, and housing and buildings.

The cost of electricity will rise with the transition to clean energy, with average electricity bills predicted to increase by nearly 80% for households overall and by more than 130% for low-income households by 2035. Addressing those rate hikes has been a key goal for UCLA researchers.

The work of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, supported by the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, provides specific recommendations for robust, long-term structural solutions to improve LADWP customers’ ability to pay their energy bills. These include addressing regulations that constrain rate affordability and continuing to explore and scale up innovative approaches to support affordability for ratepayers.

“Affordability is a key equity concern for all LADWP stakeholders, and protections for lower-income customers must be expanded,” said Gregory Pierce, a report co-author and research director of the Luskin Center for Innovation. “And as exposure to extreme heat increases, universal access to residential cooling is essential.”

The UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute analyzed aspects of energy affordability for small ethnic-owned businesses. They recommended that the LADWP partner with community-based organizations to better engage with these businesses.

Other projects, led by teams from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and UCLA California Center for Sustainable Cities, focused on improving air quality, promoting green jobs abd equitable workforce development, and proving energy upgrades to housing and other buildings, many of them in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Achieving the city’s carbon-neutral goal equitably requires intentional, community-informed, bold decisions adapted over time, and UCLA will continue to work with the LADWP and local communities on these efforts.

Importantly, the researchers say, UCLA’s methods, tools, insights and strategies not only support the LADWP’s efforts but can be used other cities seeking a just energy transition.

In addition to Pincetl and Pierce, the UCLA teams were led by Paul Ong, director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge; Yifang Zhu, professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, director of North America Integration and Development Center at UCLA; and Abel Valenzuela Jr., interim dean of social sciences and professor at the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

Read the full story.

Learn more about the Luskin Center for Innovation’s recommendations for how to expand protections for low-income customers.

Abrams Co-Edits Book on Social Work’s Reckoning With a Racist History

A new book co-edited by Laura Abrams, chair of Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin, considers the complex history of social work in the United States, including ways the profession has perpetuated white supremacy even as it works toward an anti-racist future. “Social Work, White Supremacy, and Racial Justice: Reckoning With Our History, Interrogating Our Present, Reimagining Our Future” is a collection of 40 chapters reflecting diverse voices, theories and methods. Published by Oxford University Press, the book challenges readers to acknowledge the field’s history of exclusion, moral superiority and oppression, then work to upend the status quo. “For social work to have a serious and substantive role in contributing to an anti-racist future, we must first commit to ending the practices that maintain our racist present,” including complicity with systems of policing, incarceration and child services that disproportionately punish Black, Indigenous and Latinx families, the editors write. They add, “It is challenging to imagine a future without racism, and yet still, many of the authors of these chapters are thinking outside the box and are working to build such a future. Collectively, this volume provides a foundation for what can become our next steps — to consider ideas, voices and platforms for concrete action that exist outside of mainstream discourse.” The book grew out of a four-part virtual conference on racial justice during the 2020-21 academic year that was organized by the four co-editors: Abrams, Sandra Edmonds Crewe of Howard University, Alan Dettlaff of the University of Houston and James Herbert Williams of Arizona State University.

two men and two women with book

Book co-editors, from left, James Herbert Williams, Sandra Edmonds Crewe, Alan Dettlaff and Laura Abrams.