ISABELLA CAMACHO-CRAFT
Communications Manager
Isabella Camacho-Craft is the Communications Manager at the Economic Security & Opportunity Initiative at the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. Isabella leads the center’s communications and external relations.
Previously, Isabella worked at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, helping to develop state-level communications and advocacy campaigns to protect and strengthen health care and food assistance programs. She also worked at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, where she focused on web development and communications.
Isabella is an M.P.P. candidate at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and received her B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Isabella’s work takes inspiration from her family, especially her grandfather, a farmworker and organizer with the United Farm Workers of America. She loves baking pies, dancing, and hot sauce.
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Equity Through Engagement
To advance child health equity in California, The Children’s Partnership, the California Children’s Trust, and the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality launched The Equity Through Engagement (ETE) project. This project examines opportunities to integrate community partnerships and interventions into California’s Medi-Cal financing and delivery systems to advance child health equity, including through addressing social drivers of health (SDOHs).
Unrepayable Debt: How Economic, Racial, & Geographic Inequality Shape the Distribution of Parent PLUS Loans
Each year, millions of parents across the U.S seek to help their children pay for higher education using the only source of federal financial aid for parents: the Parent PLUS loan program. Despite offering an additional college financing option, Parent PLUS disproportionately distributes unrepayable debt by income level, race and ethnicity, geography, and higher education sector, burdening low-income parents with immense debt. This chartbook examines key features of Parent PLUS loan borrower experiences, finding that Parent PLUS burdens parents and students from low-income households, Black families, and students attending postsecondary institutions in the South. Understanding this uneven distribution of Parent PLUS debt is vital in order for policymakers, postsecondary administrators, and advocates to redesign the program and develop a more equitable higher education financing system for parents and students.
Six Ways Predominantly White Institutions Can Interrupt Occupational Segregation
Predominately white institutions (PWIs) educate about 70% of all bachelor’s degree graduates and about half of all students of color. Students at PWIs tend to be segregated across fields of study, with women and people of color overrepresented in majors that lead to lower-paying occupations. Administrators at PWIs have a major opportunity to interrupt this segregation and promote inclusion and success of students of color in postsecondary education. This brief offers six key recommendations that administrators at PWIs can implement to reduce field of study segregation and shape a more equitable and dynamic future workforce.
From Exclusion to Opportunity: The Role of Postsecondary Education in Labor Force Segregation & Recommendations for Action
A four-year postsecondary degree offers opportunities for a higher income and upward economic mobility. However, postsecondary education—historically inaccessible to people of color and women—also plays a key role in reproducing and amplifying societal inequities by sorting students into specialized fields of study by race and gender, contributing to a segregated labor force. This report examines the link between postsecondary field of study and labor market segregation using an original quantitative analysis. This report presents four principles and corresponding recommendations that postsecondary institutions and policymakers can use to reduce racial and gender segregation across fields of study, increase degree attainment, and ultimately, ameliorate labor market segregation.
A Growing Problem: How Market Power in Agriculture Fuels Racial & Economic Inequality
Market power and corporate consolidation have increased in recent decades, concentrating economic and political power among fewer corporations across the country. This report examines the implications of market power in the agricultural sector–particularly in crop production, animal production, and animal slaughtering. Market power, deeply intertwined with economic inequality and structural racism, contributes to low pay, dangerous working conditions, and other harms to workers of color.
GCPI Co-Executive Director Indivar Dutta-Gupta Stepping Down to Lead the Center for Law & Social Policy
After nearly eight years with GCPI, including five as the founding leader of GCPI’s Economic Security and Opportunity Initiative, Indivar Dutta-Gupta (Indi) will step down to lead the Center for Law and Social Policy.
Celebrating Indi
Join us in celebrating the impact and tenure of Indi Dutta-Gupta at GCPI, as he prepares to embark on a new chapter in the fight against poverty and inequality.
Concentrated Power, Concentrated Harm: Market Power’s Role in Creating & Amplifying Racial & Economic Inequality
Market power exists when one or more companies can profitably set prices for goods, services, and wages; and determine the quality, accessibility, and availability of goods and services. Market power, intertwined with deeply entrenched structural racism and class inequality, can have life-or-death consequences. This report explores the real-world impact of market power on the lives of people of color and people with low incomes–as workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs–their communities, and society at large. The research shows that market power contributes to economic insecurity and hardship in low-income communities and communities of color, including by driving down wages and benefits; limiting and controlling the availability of goods, services, and jobs; and undermining American prosperity and democracy.
Administrative Data in the 2020 Census: Considerations for Civil Rights Groups
Since its inception at the turn of the 20th century, the Census Bureau has pioneered cutting edge methods and technologies to meet the vast and increasingly complex challenge of counting everyone in the United States. Civil rights organizations often work with the Census Bureau to ensure that innovations advance the accuracy and fairness of the decennial census. This brief focuses on one of the most significant areas of innovation over the past century: the use of “administrative data'' (AD). AD are typically collected by government agencies and private-sector organizations while administering a program or service. For example, the U.S. Postal Services collects address information while delivering mail, creating an address dataset. This brief provides a definition of AD and a summary of how AD were used in the 2020 Census. The brief also introduces some key equity considerations regarding AD usage and offers potential next steps for civil rights groups.
Here’s how to boost employment for people facing tough times
Eighteen months after the largest job losses in U.S. history, unemployment is still high as workers, particularly Black and Hispanic workers, continue to struggle. While some indicators suggest the economy continues to recover, that recovery is uneven and fragile. America urgently needs a solution that supports workers, employers and communities alike, without leaving anyone behind. One proven and adaptable strategy that policymakers at all levels of government can mobilize now is subsidized employment.
