Ms. Magazine

Randy Albelda is a professor of economics and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Social Policy at University of Massachusetts Boston. She has worked as research director of the Massachusetts State Senate's Taxation Committee and the legislature's Special Commission on Tax Reform. Her research and teaching covers a broad range of economic policies affecting low-income families. Professor Albelda writes on poverty, paid family leave policies, racial and gender divisions in occupations, and the distribution of family income and earnings. Her recent work includes the report "Bridging the Gaps Between Earnings and Basic Needs in Massachusetts," the edited volumes The Dilemmas of Lone Motherhood and Lost Ground: Poverty, Welfare Reform, and Beyond and the coauthored reports, Sharing the Costs, Reaping the Benefits: Paid Family and Medical Leave in Massachusetts, A Tale of Two Decades: Changes in Work and Family in Massachusetts 1979-1999 and Beyond Welfare: Emergency Services in Massachusetts. She is the co-author of the books Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty, The War on the Poor: A Defense Manual, and Unlevel Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination.