| Principal Investigator: | Daniel G. Schroeder, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Office of the Attorney General of Texas |
| Project Duration: | June 2024 – August 2026 |
| Description: | The Texas Child Support Guidelines project is being conducted by the Ray Marshall Center under an agreement with the Office of the Attorney General of Texas (OAG). Federal and state laws require the OAG to establish guidelines for child support, and to review these guidelines every four years to ensure their adequacy in determining appropriate child support award amounts in divorce cases and other suits affecting parent-child relations (SAPCR). The review will utilize up to date, detailed economic analysis of the cost of raising children in Texas to 1) determine whether the existing guidelines result in fair child support award amounts, and to 2) propose a workable income-shares model to develop new guidelines that take into account both parents’ income levels. Additional topics to be addressed include how to handle parenting-time adjustments, child care costs, and whether a true limit to child support exists, and at what level it should be set. |
| Reports Available: |
RMC’s Prince and Boswell present findings at CENCAM International Workshop
Ray Marshall Center’s Dr. Heath Prince and Thomas Boswell presented findings from their study titled “Prevention, Resilience, Efficiency, and Protection for workers in industrial agriculture in a changing climate (PREP): Baseline results from a household panel survey of the socioeconomic conditions experienced by agricultural workers in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua” at the Fourth International Workshop on Chronic Kidney Disease sponsored by Consortium for the Epidemic of Nephropathy in Central America and Mexico (CENCAM) and held February 13th-16th in Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala. The workshop was developed as a collaboration between CENCAM, the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers of Health of Central America and the Dominican Republic (SE-COMISCA), the Latin American Society for Nephrology and Hypertension (SLANH), and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).
Their poster presentation, seen here, summarizes the key research strategies and results from their study, the purpose being to examine the socieoconomic outcomes associated with chronic kidney disease not related to well-known risk factors (CKDnt) in four communities in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua that are home to a substantial number of sugarcane workers. Despite strong similarities in terms of demographic characteristics, and despite residing in the same communities with similar access to the available resources, households experiencing CKDnt exhibit distinct and statistically significant differences in important socioeconomic outcomes when compared to non-CKDnt households. Contributing to the study were Jason Glaser (La Isla Network), Catharina Wesseling (Karolinska Institute, Sweden), Ashweeta Patnaik (RMC), and William Martinez-Cuadra (La Isla Network).
RMC’s Thomas Boswell presents at AEA’s Evaluation 2023 with Nuru International
Ray Marshall Center’s Social Science Research Associate Thomas Boswell was part of a trio presenting findings from Nuru International‘s 2022 Nuru Nigeria Resilience Report at the American Evaluation Association‘s Evaluation 2023 conference in Indianapolis October 9-14, 2023. Boswell joined Nuru’s Ian Schwenke and Dena Bunnel of Kansas State University in the October 14th presentation. The report marks the end of a five-year evaluation conducted in partnership with the Center. The randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluated communities in northeast Nigeria and seeks to understand how Nuru interventions impact community resilience. You can read Nuru’s October 5th press release here and view the presentation here. You can also read more about our partnership here.
Self-Sufficiency Wage Data Study
| Principal Investigators: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Texas Workforce Commission |
| Project Duration: | May 2023 – December 2026 |
| Description: | Pursuant to the Texas Workforce Commission’s (TWC) duties under Government Code, Chapter 2308A (enacted in House Bill 3767, 87th Legislature), the TWC has entered a partnership with the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) to implement its duty to establish a self-sufficiency wage for each Texas county. RMC will study Texas family compositions and suggest improvements, and study current labor market conditions and how it relates to the Self-Sufficiency Wage. |
| Reports Available: |
AT Home Initiative Evaluation
| Principal Investigators: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) |
| Project Duration: | March 2023 – December 2027 |
| Description: | In coordination with ECHO, the Ray Marshall Center (RMC) will execute the planning and preparation needed to conduct the evaluation of the AT Home Initiative. |
| Reports Available: |
RMC contributes to ENBEL policy brief on co-design in climate change and health research
The Ray Marshall Center’s work in Nicaragua (Protection, Resilience, Efficiency, and Prevention for workers in industrial agriculture in a changing climate [PREP]) has focused on measuring the differences in socioeconomic and resilience outcomes between households suffering from chronic kidney disease and those that are not, sampled from four communities that provide agricultural labor for a large local sugar mill. This work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, under the auspices of the Belmont Forum, an international partnership that mobilizes funding of environmental change research and accelerates its delivery to remove critical barriers to sustainability. PREP was one of several projects supported by a recent round of Belmont Forum grantmaking.
The brief published by ENBEL (Enhancing Belmont Research Action to support EU policy making on climate change and health) provides an overview of each of this round’s grantees, summarizing collaborative activities and lessons learned from Climate, Environment, and Health (CEH) projects. The featured projects focus on worker’s health, infectious disease control and early warning, nutrition, maternal health, and local community collaborations. Activities for co-design encompass a range of activities and should begin with the mapping of local stakeholders.
RMC’s Cynthia Juniper interviewed for Texas Standard
RMC Research Associate Cynthia Juniper was interviewed recently by Texas Standard on pandemic-era staffing shortages in the childcare sector. “Compared to pre-pandemic levels, Texas’ childcare industry remains understaffed” aired October 17, 2022. You can read a transcript of and listen to the interview here.
Child Care Market Rate/Cost of Quality Studies
| Principal Investigators: | Daniel G. Schroeder, PhD (Principal Investigator) – Ray Marshall Center Monica Faulkner (Principal Investigator), Laura Marra (Co-Principal Investigator) – Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing |
| Sponsor: | Texas Workforce Commission |
| Project Duration: | July 2022 – June 2025 |
| Description: | Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin will provide services in order to complete two annual studies for the Texas Workforce Commission. The Texas Institute for Child and Family Wellbeing at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work will manage data collection from child care providers. The Ray Marshall Center at the LBJ School of Public Affairs manages the data analysis and reporting.
The purpose of the Child Care Market Rate Study is to create statistical summaries of market rates for child care for the entire state of Texas and for each of the 28 Local Workforce Development Areas. The purpose of the Cost of Quality Study is to understand the cost of providing quality child care in the state of Texas. The purpose is to provide estimates of how much more additional funding, in terms of daily rates, should be paid to providers who meet quality standards to care for children, relative to how much providers who meet minimal standards are paid. |
| Reports Available: | The reports for this project are published through the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing at the University of Texas at Austin’s Steve Hicks School of Social Work. The following reports are available on their website.
2023 Texas Child Care Market Rate Survey |
CAREER Project Evaluation
| Principal Investigator: | Greg Cumpton, PhD |
| Sponsor: | Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce |
| Project Duration: | February 2022 – May 2024 |
| Description: | The CAREER Project (Trellis Foundation’s Regional Ecosystem Innovation for Reskilling/Upskilling in Texas) aims to create a network of postsecondary and employment support for individuals in the Central Texas community impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by building out widescale infrastructure like a referral map and integrated marketing and data efforts. The Ray Marshall Center has partnered with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce to evaluate the CAREER Project. |
| Reports Available: |
Pathways Taken By Opportunity Youth in San Antonio (UP)
| Principal Investigator: | Heath J. Prince, PhD |
| Sponsor: | UP Partnership |
| Project Duration: | October 2021 – August 2026 |
| Description: | Through a partnership with the UP Partnership and the Aspen Institute, the RMC will engage in a data-driven longitudinal study following Opportunity Youth (OY) in San Antonio into either the labor market or postsecondary education (or both) between Fall 2021 and Summer 2026 to map out the pathways taken by OY. This study will begin tracking OY at the point that they exit OY programs. In addition, and in order to gain a fuller understanding of the entire OY population, we will identify the total population of OY in an area (based on high school of graduation) through data collected from the Education Research Center (ERC). We will also submit a request to the ERC to upload participant data we collect from OY programs in order to compare the difference in the relative size of the OY population receiving and not receiving services. This partnership is motivated by several research questions:
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| Associated Projects: | Pathways Taken By Opportunity Youth Pathways Taken By Opportunity Youth in San Antonio (Aspen) |
| Reports Available: |
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