Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies

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.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies is a nonprofit public policy organization that produces ideas, research, and policy solutions for elected officials who serve communities of color. The Center builds and supports networks of elected and appointed officials and scholars with roundtables, research reports, and other programming. It regularly brings together racially, ethnically, and politically diverse groups in its programming, much of which addresses problems of polarization. The Center also produces the groundbreaking work analyzing the changes in congressional staff, particularly in mid- and top-level positions.