Research Summary:Jennifer Romich is an Assistant Professor of Social Welfare at the University of Washington, a founding affiliate of the new federally-funded West Coast Poverty Center, and a founder of the Policy Practice Concentration at the UW School of Social Work. Her scholarship focuses on resource use in low-income working families with particular emphases on families’ interaction with tax and transfer systems and children’s roles within the household.
Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, Romich’s past research has focused on how families view and use the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); the Chicago Extra Credit Savings Program, which linked EITC and tax returns with a matched savings incentive program; and child and family well-being as experienced by families in the Milwaukee New Hope anti-poverty demonstration program. Her current projects include a study titled Give and Take: Child Agency in Resource Allocation (with economist Shelly Lundberg) which consists of a number of secondary analyses of children’s participation in family processes within working families; an examination of how high implicit marginal tax rates created by intersecting programs affect low-wage workers’ upward mobility; and ongoing volunteer service and consultation with the King County (WA) EITC Campaign.
Romich holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics and earned a PhD in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University in 2002.
Recent Publications:- Romich, J.; Lundberg, S.; Tsang, K. P., (Forthcoming), Independence Giving or Autonomy Taking? Childhood Predictors of Decision-Making Patterns Between Youth Adolescents and Parents, Journal of Research on Adolescence.
- Lundberg, S.; Romich, J.; Tsang, K. P., (2009), Decision-making by Children, Review of Economics of the Household, 7, 1-30.
- Romich, J., (2009), Trying to keep children out of trouble: Child characteristics, neighborhood quality, and within-household resource allocation, Child. Youth Serv. Rev. Children and Youth Services Review, 31: 3, 338-345.
- Holt, S. D.; Romich, J. L., (2007), Marginal Tax Rates Facing Low- and Moderate-Income Workers Who Participate in Means-Tested Transfer Programs, National Tax Journal, 60: 2, 253.
- Lundberg, S.; Romich, J.; Tsang, K. P.; Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der, A., (2007), Decision-making by children, IZA, Bonn, Germany.
- Romich, J. L., (2007), Sharing the Work: Mother-Child Relationships and Household Management, Journal of Early Adolescence, 27: 2, 192-222.
- Romich, J. L., (2007), Taxes Are a Women's Issue: Reframing the Debate by Mimi Abramovitz, Sandra Morgen, and the National Council for Research on Women, AFFILIA, 22: 2, 230.
- Romich, J. L.; Simmelink, J.; Holt, S. D., (2007), When working harder does not pay: Low-income working families, tax liabilities, and benefit reductions, Families in Society, 88: 2, 418-426.
- Romich, J. L., (2006), Difficult Calculations: Low-Income Workers and Marginal Tax Rates, Social Service Review, 80: 1, 27.
- Romich, J. L., (2006), Randomized social policy experiments and research on child development, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 27: 2, 136.
- Romich, J. L.; Simmelink, J., (2005), Piecing it all together (teaching case), Preparing Educators for Family Involvement: From theory to practice, Weiss, H. B.; Kreider, H.; Lopez, M. E.; Chatman, C., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
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Ph.D. 2002, Northwestern University. Low-income working families; social policy, tax structures and family resource management; multi-method policy research.
