Talk Policy To Me

When news articles talk about the county's declining fertility, there tends to be a tone of panic and often of judgment. But what is the truth of fertility rate declines? What role does policy play in impacting these rates? And how does the nature of fertility rates influence policy? In this episode, Sarah Edwards (MPP 20) turns to a local expert, demography PhD Leslie Root. Leslie helps us unpack...

It's 2020 and Talk Policy to Me is back with a brand new series on Demographic Shifts. Over the next few episodes, we'll dive into some of the most pressing demographic shifts taking place here in California, and discuss what their implications are for policymaking both here in California and across the country. In this short kickoff episode, hosts Colleen (MPP '21) and Sarah (MPP '20) ground us i...

Grab a warm drink and cozy up under your favorite blanket, listeners! In Talk Policy To Me's final episode of 2019, we got all five hosts in one room to talk about... talking policy during the holidays. Join our hosts Reem, Khalid, Colleen, Spencer, and Sarah as they explore how policy gets personal during the holidays when we gather with family and friends, reckon with hometown and childhood memo...

We're not used to thinking about transportation as a raced policy area. But, like all other policy areas, transportation policy has the potential to improve racial equity or widen racial disparities. But writer and historian Dr. Ibram X. Kendi asserts that all ideas, actions, and policies are either racist or anti-racist, removing the gray area of so-called 'race neutrality' in his recently publis...

Who benefits most from the tax system? What did the Trump tax cuts achieve? How do taxes affect inequality? What's the relationship between taxes and democracy? Tax policy seems like it was designed by, of, and for the rich. But, as our guest today Gabriel Zucman points out, the U.S. tax code was once a vastly different beast. Zucman is an associate professor of economics at UC Berkeley, director...

What options do we have in our toolkit as policymakers when it comes to policy design? Are the tools government typically chooses to wield the most effective ones? If not, how can we get government to invest in a new approach to policy design? In episode three of our series on policy design and implementation, Colleen Pulawski (MPP '21) speaks with Brandon Greene of the Oakland Civic Design Lab an...

Talking School Integration  Was school integration a "failed experiment"? Is the impact of policy limited when it comes to education?  In this episode, Goldman Professor Rucker Johnson debunks the myths around school integration and shares the insights from his new book, Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works. In this second episode of our series on Policy Design and Implementation, S...

What do Healthcare.gov, police officer recruitment, and 911 call centers have in common? All can be improved through smart policy design tweaks! In this episode, Goldman Professor Elizabeth Linos and TPTM host Spencer Bowen (MPP '20) discuss how small changes in policy design can result in big differences in impact. The first in our ongoing series on Policy Design and Implementation, this episode...

The Talk Policy to Me team is back for Season 3! This season, our three hosts from last year(Spencer, Reem, and Sarah) are joined by two new hosts, Colleen and Khalid. Host Spencer Bowen (MPP 2020) leads a conversation with the team about how policies we take for granted were once policy choices. Hear from all five hosts as to what "status quo" policies they can't let go of. See show notes and ful...

It's often assumed that a college student living on ramen or going to events for free pizza is just part of the experience of being a "starving student." But the data show a much grimmer reality: 56% of college students nationally have experienced housing insecurity and 40% of students at UC Berkeley are food insecure. How can this issue be tackled when the narrative downplays the depth of the pro...

Parks. Freeways. Street lamps. You might not group those together, but they're all public goods – the goods and services that prop up a functioning society. They're also things that our market-based economy doesn't supply in the right places and right amounts without some thoughtful public policy. Spencer Bowen (MPP '20) sat down with his fellow MPP candidate Eric Harris Bernstein to talk about pu...

Jaunary 2019 marked the one-year anniversary of the legalization of recreational cannabis use in California, and the launch of the Cannabis Research Center  at UC Berkeley. Sarah Edwards (MPP '20) sat down with Michael Polson , researcher and anthropologist, to discuss the impact of legalization on the growers and on the rural communities whose economies often center on cannabis cultivation. Tune...

In Part 2 of our 2-episode carbon footprint series, TPTM hosts Reem, Spencer, and Sarah reflect on the results of their two-week-long challenge to drastically reduce their personal carbon emissions through changes to their diets, commutes, consumption habits, and electricity use. But do individual emissions reductions matter when corporations and industries continue to pollute with impunity? We ca...

For this special edition episode, hosts Reem, Spencer, and Sarah talk about what it means to "talk policy." How do they explain policy and policy school? Why do they think that it is important to talk about policy?  Our three hosts are first-year students at the Goldman School of Public Policy's Master in Public Policy Program. They each bring different perspectives and background to the master's...

1.5 degrees Celsius. According to a special 2018 report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that's the maximum global temperature increase allowable before we see catastrophic impacts on food security, ecosystems, water access, frequency and extremity of weather events, and more. The report warns global leaders and policymakers that failing to limit the Earth's temperature inc...

How can we fix the stigma around welfare? Welfare is deeply politicized and often stigmatized. Social support programs are strongly centered around beneficiaries working. Has it always been this way? Are we destined to be stuck with these political perspectives? In today's episode, UC Berkeley MPP student Sarah Edwards wraps up the three-part series around Universal Basic Income and the Social Saf...

NIMBYism, geographical limitation, and weaponized policies have led the state to the biggest housing crisis in state history. Can state-level policies fix a very local problem?   California housing is an undeniable problem. Rents are too high and there is not enough housing for those who need it in the places they want it. But how did we get here? Why has the development of solutions shifted from...

UC Berkeley will spend $30 million on building new softball and beach volleyball teams. While Title IX is widely understood to be a sports equity law, its historical advancement of feminist interests and its application at Cal today reveal a more ambitious and inclusive agenda. Not merely a mechanism for intercollegiate sports, Title IX advocates for building holistic inclusive collegiate experien...

In our  last episode  on universal basic income, or UBI, a conversation between UC Berkeley MPP '20 student Sarah Edwards and Economics and Public Policy Professor Hilary Hoynes revealed that the landscape for UBI proposals and experiments is ripe. In this episode, Goldman School student Sarah Edwards interviews Lori Ospina, about Stockton's guaranteed income program, Stockton Economic Empowerment...

Professor of Economics Hilary Hoynes and UC Berkeley MPP Student '20 Sarah Edwards probe whether work is a solid foundation on which to build the welfare of American society. Can and should income from working really provide a stable base for all Americans? And can more universal coverage social safety nets for non-working adults alleviate the stigma of government support? While welfare reform of...

Streets littered with bicycles and scooters represent the latest skirmish between Bay Area city administrators and the technology sector. In a region ready to confront carbon emissions and ready to embrace pedestrian-friendly streets, scooters have become the next item in an evergreen local debate on what mode of transport should dominant city streets, who should decide, and how to keep city resid...

As rents continue to skyrocket in the Bay Area, housing displacement is disproportionately affecting people of color. A "geography of racialized inequality" has long been set in the region -- but today's segregation is taking a new configuration as new housing market preferences take root. 80 percent of neighborhoods in the East Bay experiencing gentrification were previously redlined, according t...

Young voter turnout is lower than overall voter turnout. But, as we approach the 2018 midterm elections, UC Berkeley public policy student Sarah Edwards speaks with Buffy Wicks, Sarah Anzia, and others to find that there are reasons to be optimistic about young voter engagement: Millennials are opinion leaders -- and have helped transform the social, cultural and political landscape in the last de...

Food surrounds us -- and yet we can become careless about how food is transformed from the farm to something palatable on our plate. UC Berkeley public policy student, Reem Rayef, interviews Nina Ichikawa at the Berkeley Food Institute about what consumers should be thinking about in their individual consumption choices, but also what the impact the aggregation of those choices means for food over...

Tara Regan Anderson (MPP '10) is the Director of Policy for the San Francisco District Attorney's Office. She spoke with Jonathan Stein (MPP/JD '13) about the impact incarceration can have on children and families and why criminal justice reform is not just for advocates. See show notes and full transcript here: https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/news/podcast/episode-2-2-talking-policin...