1

Week #4

Hey all!

I’ve had a very good week, and am enjoying the projects I’ve been working on – I’m learning a lot of new things and like working together with my boss. This past week we’ve focused on the importance of early childhood care and education (i.e. pre-k and kindergarten), which is huge in terms of academic and social development. Mainly, we’re looking at how access and quality to these services determine outcomes later in school and life, and what sorts of disparities (stratified alone income and racial strata, mainly) exist. Considering how this is not the sort of topic that I had previously really engaged with in an academic sense, I’ve been learning a lot and been exposed to a whole lot of new material.

To me, it also shows the breadth of issues that EPI deals with. EPI was created in 1986 as a think-tank oriented to ensure that the needs of low and middle-income workers were targeted and met through policy at all different levels. Accordingly, EPI does independent research on related topics. These range vastly, however, as there are so many different aspects that matter in maintaining a health and prosperous middle class (and ensuring opportunity for the working class).

Given it’s non-profit status, EPI needs to continuously look for funding. That’s certainly not exactly easy in DC (with all of the different think-tanks competing for funds), but EPI’s reputation of quality, pro-middle/working class research and advocacy has helped it maintain continuous support from a variety of organizations.

In addition to the work that I’ve been doing at EPI, I’ve found DC to be a really interesting city. On Monday, I attended an event hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Stitftung, where a panel discussed the development of a new progression vision in the context of many of the reactionary movements currently gripping many parts of the Western world. I found the event to be very interesting, and was able to talk to two panelists at the reception that followed. One, a (fellow) Austrian, is currently a member of the European Parliament and offered many interesting perspectives on why a progressive vision has been overtaken by many populist/reactionary movements. Similarly, a member of the Australian parliament offered much food for thought.

Besides the many new ideas I took away from talking to the panelists, I thought it was fascinating to talk to some other attendees. Mainly, it was interesting to see the incredible breadth of topics and areas of interest/research that they had, and how it related to the topic of the discussion. One woman works for a forestry advocacy group, and spoke to me about how government can sometimes feign environmental conservation efforts to remove indigenous people from land – a perspective I had never considered (I had previously always simply applauded conservation efforts, never realizing what they can be misused for).

All in all, a very good week.