Scott W. Allard

Associate Dean for Research & Engagement;
Daniel J. Evans Endowed Professor of Social Policy

Scott W. Allard joined the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington as a professor of public policy and governance in 2014. At UW, Allard is an affiliate of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) and of the West Coast Poverty Center. Allard is a research affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he served on the National Advisory Board from 2018-2020. He also served as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program from 2010 to 2020. He previously held faculty positions at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University (2000–03), the Department of Political Science at Brown University (2003–08), and in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago (2008–14).

His primary areas of research expertise are urban poverty, employment among low-skill workers, food security, safety net utilization, and the spatial accessibility of governmental and nongovernmental safety net programs. He is author of Out of Reach: Place, Poverty, and the New American Welfare State (2009, Yale University Press), which examines the contemporary social service safety net through survey interviews with almost 1,500 government, for-profit, and nonprofit social service organizations. In 2017, he published a book entitled Places in Need: The Changing Geography of Poverty, which focuses upon the rise in poverty in America’s suburban areas and the stubborn persistence of poverty in urban areas. He is working with the Michigan Recession and Recovery Study—a panel survey of households in metropolitan Detroit—to examine how working poor families are coping in a persistently sluggish regional economy. He also is a co-investigator with the Seattle Minimum Wage Study, which is a multi-faceted evaluation of the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance. In addition to these projects, he has published several articles on the geography of contemporary social welfare policy and on social service delivery in the post-welfare reform era that have appeared in a number of academic journals, including the Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, Journal of Politics, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Policy Studies Journal, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Social Science Quarterly, and Urban Affairs Review. He served as a Managing Editor at the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM)from 2018 to 2021.

Allard has received research grants supporting his work on social welfare policy from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Russell Sage Foundation, The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, The New York Community Trust, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research (UKCPR), the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), and the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI). From 2013-19, he served as co-primary investigator of the Family Self-Sufficiency Data Center at the University of Chicago.

Morrisey, Taryn, Scott W. Allard, and Elizabeth Pelletier. Forthcoming. “Access to Early Care and Education in Rural Communities: Implications for Children’s School Readiness.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.

Allard, Scott. W. and Elizabeth Pelletier. 2021. “Place, Poverty, & Safety Net Provision in the U.S.” The Journal of Social Security Research.

Allard, Scott W., Sandra Danziger, and Maria Wathen. Forthcoming. “The Relationship between Food Resource Access and Receipt of SNAP Assistance.” Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition.

Allard, Scott W. 2022. “The Changing Geography of Poverty in Metropolitan America.” In Social Stratification, 5th edition. Eds. Grusky, David, Nima Dahir, and Claire Daviss. New York: Routledge

Allard, Scott W. 2021. “Poverty Traps in America,” Pathways: A Magazine on Poverty, Inequality, and Social Policy, Winter 2019 Volume.

Allard, Scott W., Jennifer Romich, Anne Althauser, James Buszkiewicz, and Emmi Obara. 2020.  “The Initial Nonprofit Exposure and Response to Seattle’s Minimum Wage Ordinance.” Social Service Review 94(2): 185-237.

Allard, Scott W., Emily Wiegand, Colleen Schlect, A. Rupa Datta, Robert Goerge, and Elizabeth Weigensberg. 2018. “Agencies’ Use of Administrative Data for Improved Practice: Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities.” Public Administration Review, 78(2): 240-50.

Romich, Jennifer, Scott W. Allard, Anne Althauser, James Buszkiewicz, and Emmi Obara. 2018. “Employer Responses to a City-level Minimum Wage Law: Early Evidence from Seattle.” Urban Affairs Review. doi:10.1177/1078087418787667

Otten, Jennifer J., Katherine Getts, Anne Althauser, James Buszkiewicz, Ekaterina Jardim, Heather D. Hill, Jennifer Romich, and Scott W. Allard. 2018. “Responding to an Increased Minimum Wage: A Mixed Methods Study of Child Care Businesses during the Implementation of Seattle’s Minimum Wage Ordinance.” Social Work and Society, 16(1): 1-22.

Allard, Scott W., Maria Wathen, H. Luke Shaefer, and Sandra Danziger. 2017. “Neighborhood Food Infrastructure and Food Security in Metropolitan Detroit.” Journal of Consumer Affairs, 51(3): 566-97.

Fyall, Rachel and Scott W. Allard. 2017. “Nonprofits and Political Work: A Joint Consideration of the Political Activities, Programs, and Organizational Characteristics of Social Service Nonprofits.” Human Service Organizations, 41(3): 275-300.

The Seattle Minimum Wage Study Team. 2017. Report on Nonprofit Response to Minimum Wage. Seattle. University of Washington.

Allard, Scott W. and Sarah Paisner. 2016. “The Rise of Suburban Poverty.” Oxford University Press Handbooks Online.

Roth, Benjamin and Scott W. Allard. 2016. “Latino Immigrant Access to Social Service Providers.” Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 7(4): 729-753.

Allard, Scott W., Maria Wathen, and Sandra Danziger. 2015. “Bundling Public and Private Supports to Cope with the Effects of the Great Recession.” Social Science Quarterly, 96(5):1348-62.

Maria Wathen and Scott W. Allard. 2015. “Local Nonprofit Welfare Provision: The United States and Russia.” Public Administration Issues, 5(2014): 7-28.

Roth, Benjamin and Scott W. Allard. 2015. “Getting By Rather than Getting Ahead: The Response of the Nonprofit Safety Net to Rising Suburban Poverty.” in Analyzing Suburbs with 2010 Census Data: Places of Change, Katrin B. Anacker (ed.), Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Allard, Scott W., Sandra Danziger, Maria Wathen, and H. Luke Shaefer. 2015. “Food Resource Access in Metropolitan Detroit.” Focus, 32(1):7-12.

Murphy, Alexandra K. and Scott W. Allard. 2015 “The Changing Geography of Poverty.” Focus, 32(1):19-23.

Allard, Scott W. 2014. “State Dollars, Nonstate Provision: The Institutional Consequences of Local Nonprofit Welfare Provision in the United States.” in The Politics of Non-State Social Welfare Provision in the Global South, Melani Cammett and Lauren Morris MacLean (eds.), Cornell University Press.

Allard, Scott W. and Steven Rathgeb Smith. 2014. “Medicaid and the Funding of Social Service Organizations.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, 39(6): 1135-72.

Small, Mario and Scott W. Allard (eds.). 2013. “Reconsidering the Urban Disadvantaged: The Role of Systems, Institutions, and Organizations.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Undergraduate
MPA
EMPA
Ph.D.

External Member, Research Center for Child & Adolescent Poverty, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 2021 to present.

Affiliate, Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE), 2015 to present.

Advisory Board, Metropolitan Policy Center at American University, 2014 to present.

Managing Editor, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM), 2018 to 2021.

National Advisory Board Member, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2018 to 2021.

Executive Committee and Faculty Affiliate, West Coast Poverty Center, University of Washington, 2014 to 2020.

Executive Committee, Urban@UW, University of Washington, 2015-20.

Treasurer, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), 2017-19.

Policy Council Member and Chair of the Communications and Web Committee, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), 2012-15.

Advisory Council, Publius:  The Journal of Federalism, 2008 to present.

Faculty Director, the University of Chicago Urban Network, 2012-14

Somashekhar, Mahesh, James Buszkiewicz, Scott W. Allard, and Jennifer Romich. “How Do Immigrant-Owned Firms Respond to Minimum Wage Increases? Evidence from Seattle.”  Under review.

Allard, Scott W., Elizabeth Pelletier, and Taryn Morrissey. “Kids and Community: Understanding the Spatial Contours of Social Assistance for Young Children.”

Sullivan, Laura and Scott W. Allard. “The Organizational Structure and Capacity of Emergency Food Assistance Providers in the Detroit Metropolitan Area.”

Allard, Scott W. and Patricia Ruggles. “The Spatial Context of Food Prices and Food Shopping: Linking Local Retailer Access and Pricing to Household Outcomes.”

Allard, Scott W. and Elizabeth Pelletier. “Volatility and Change in Suburban Nonprofit Safety Nets.”

2018 winner of the Louis Brownlow Award for best Public Administration Review article by a practitioner and/or for a practitioner audience: Allard, Scott W., Emily Wiegand, Colleen Schlect, A. Rupa Datta, Robert Goerge, and Elizabeth Weigensberg. 2018. “Agencies’ Use of Administrative Data for Improved Practice: Needs, Challenges, and Opportunities.” Public Administration Review 78(2): 240-50.

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