Dr. Caroline Ratcliffe (Economist and Senior Fellow, Urban Institute) is an expert in the poverty and asset building fields and brings over 20 years of experience researching financially vulnerable and underserved consumers. She has published and spoken extensively on persistent childhood poverty, the dynamics of poverty, welfare programs and policies, and wealth inequality. Her research has incorporated both the official and supplemental poverty measures. Ratcliffe testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture and the District of Columbia’s City Council on implications of persistent child poverty. She has also provided testimony to the US Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee on wealth inequality and closing the racial wealth gap. She has led several roundtable convenings, bringing together experts on topics related to wealth inequality and family financial security. Ratcliffe’s research has been published in academic journals, including American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, Demography, and Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. She also published a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Poverty. Her work has been cited in elite media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and the Economist, and she has appeared on C-SPAN, NPR, and Marketplace. She holds a PhD in economics from Cornell University.