Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which refers to itself as America’s Black think tank, researches and advances actionable policy solutions to eradicate persistent barriers to the full freedom of Black people in America. It is the trusted forum for leading experts and scholars to participate in major public policy debates and promote ideas that advance Black communities on a wide range of issues, including the future of work, technology, economic policy, and impact of COVID-19. The Joint Center, 50 years old in 2020, regularly brings together racially, ethnically, and politically diverse groups, often to address problems underlying political polarization, and it produces groundbreaking research, including on the diversity of Congressional staff.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies was founded in 1970 to lend a hand to Black leaders as they traveled the uncharted road from civil rights activism to the political establishment. Its mission is to inform and illuminate the nation’s major public policy debates through research, analysis, and information dissemination in order to improve the socioeconomic status of Black communities in the United States, expand their effective participation in the political and public policy arenas, and promote communication and relationships across racial and ethnic lines to strengthen the nation’s pluralistic society.