Faculty Affiliate Jennifer Romich, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, combines the disciplines of economics and human development in her research on employment, family processes and use of tax and social benefits by low-income families. Her current work focuses on intrafamilial resource exchanges and the structure of marginal taxation facing low-income workers.

Major Research Projects:

• Give and Take: Child Agency in Resource Allocation
• Punished by Progressivity: Do High Effective Marginal Tax Rates Trap Low-Income Workers?
• Financial asset-building strategies and the well-being of children and youth in poverty.
• How much does work pay? New data on combined marginal tax rates

Sample Publications:

• Romich, Jennifer L., Shelly Lundberg, and Kwok Ping Tsang. (in press). "Independence giving or autonomy taking? Young adolescents’ influences on family decision-making." Journal of Research on Adolescence.
• Plotnick, Robert, Jennifer L. Romich and Jennifer Thacker. 2009.  “The impacts of tolling on low-income persons in the Puget Sound region.”  Research report, Washington State Transportation Center, Seattle, WA.
• Lundberg, Shelly, Jennifer L. Romich and Kwok Ping Tsang. 2009.  "Decision making by children." Review of Economics of the Household 7(1): 1-30.
• Romich, Jennifer L. 2009. "Trying to keep children out of trouble: Child characteristics, neighborhood quality, and within-household resource allocation." Children and Youth Services Review 31(3): 338-345.
• Romich, Jennifer L., Jennifer Simmelink & Stephen D. Holt. 2007. "When working harder does not pay: Low-income working families, tax liabilities, and benefit reductions." Families in Society 88(3): 418-426.
• 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.  
• Romich, Jennifer L. 2006. "Difficult calculations: Low-income workers and marginal tax rates". Social Service Review 80(1): 27-66.
• Romich, Jennifer L. 2006. "Randomized social policy experiments and research on child development". Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 27: 136-150

Contact Information:

Jennifer Romich
Email: romich@u.washington.edu
Homepage: http://socialwork.uw.edu/faculty/jennifer-jennie-romich
Jennifer Romich’s CV [ PDF ]