Social/Family Policy

Part III of Stone Center Senior Scholar Paul Krugman’s three-part series on the U.S. healthcare system, originally posted in his Substack newsletter, considers the U.S. healthcare system from an international perspective and concludes by looking at the future. What kind of system is workable in the U.S.? How has the political economy of U.S. healthcare reform changed? And what is a possible path forward?

Part II of Stone Center Senior Scholar Paul Krugman’s three-part series on the U.S. healthcare system, originally posted in his Substack newsletter, discusses U.S. health care on the eve of the second Trump administration, 80 years of U.S. health politics, the Obamacare story, and the new assault on healthcare.

Part I of Stone Center Senior Scholar Paul Krugman’s three-part series on the U.S. healthcare system, originally posted in his Substack newsletter, discusses why markets can’t be trusted to deliver healthcare, routes to universal healthcare, and what works.

J. van der Naald, S. K. Bruch, and J. C. Gornick. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 67–95. 2026.

When Junior Scholar Bobbie Justin came to the Graduate Center, she already had more than a decade of experience working directly with patients as a medical social worker. She entered the Ph.D. program in Social Welfare determined to focus her research on improving care for older adults with disabilities.

Kenworthy, a professor of sociology and the Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought at the University of California, San Diego, discusses the findings in his latest book, which examines whether reducing income inequality would have beneficial effects on living standards, health, economic opportunity, the functioning of democracy, and subjective measures of happiness.

In the West, China is easily misunderstood. Is it capitalist or communist, an adversary or a vital economic partner, a modernized nation or a retrograde regime? Yong Cai, Qin Gao, Rongbin Han, and Branko Milanovic, address these questions in a panel moderated by John Torpey.

Marai Hayes, one of the Stone Center's new postdoctoral scholars, discusses her research projects, how she became interested in the connections between health and inequality, and the likely impacts of recent health policy changes at the federal level.

A panel of experts helps us understand the complex realities of China today.

Y. Berman and T. Hovland. Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper Series. no. 105. 2025.