Challenge to Leadership: Economic and Social Issues for the Next Decade

by Isabel Sawhill

As a result of economic, demographic, and other developments, the United States is changing in ways that will require adjustments in our thinking and in our public policies. If this rethinking is not done, our political and economic position in the international arena will erode and our domestic living standards will suffer. Isabel Sawhill provides us with an overview of the problems that will confront us in the 1990s, and of the insights offered by the other contributors to the volume. Topics and authors living standards which are no longer improving at the same rate as in the past, by "Joseph J. Minarik"; what we can do to improve our long-term economic prospects, "Rudolph G. Penner"; the issues of trade and competitiveness that arise from living in a more economically-interdependent world, "Charles F. Stone"; changes in the family and how they affect child care, "Andrew Cherlin"; human health and life, especially the implications of AIDS and technologies that artificially extend human life, "Thomas C. Schelling"; the slow progress against poverty, "Isabel V. Sawhill"; the dilemmas of the aging American population, "John L. Palmer"; and options for reducing current budget deficits, "Joseph J. Minarik" and "Rudolph G. Penner."

326 pages, Paperback

First published June 28, 1988

About the author

Isabel V. Sawhill is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. She serves as co-director of the Budgeting for National Priorities project and co-director of the Center on Children and Families. She holds the Cabot Family Chair. In 2009, she began the Social Genome Project, an initiative by the Center on Children and Families that seeks to determine how to increase economic opportunity for disadvantaged children. She served as vice president and director of the Economic Studies program from 2003 to 2006. Prior to joining Brookings, Dr. Sawhill was a senior fellow at The Urban Institute. She also served as an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget from 1993 to 1995, where her responsibilities included all of the human resource programs of the federal government, accounting for one third of the federal budget.

Her research has spanned a wide array of economic and social issues, including fiscal policy, economic growth, poverty and inequality, welfare reform, the well-being of children, and changes in the family. In addition, she has authored or edited numerous books and articles including Creating an Opportunity Society with Ron Haskins; Restoring Fiscal Sanity 2005 Meeting the Long-Run Challenge and Restoring Fiscal Sanity How to Balance the Budget, both with Alice Rivlin; One Percent for the Kids New Policies, Brighter Futures for America s Children; Welfare Reform and Beyond The Future of the Safety Net; Updating America s Social Contract Economic Growth and Opportunity in the New Century; Getting Ahead Economic and Social Mobility in America; and Challenge to Leadership Economic and Social Issues for the Next Decade.

Dr. Sawhill helped to found The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and now serves as the President of its board. She has been a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law School, Director of the National Commission for Employment Policy, and President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. She also serves on a number of boards. She attended Wellesley College and received her Ph.D. from New York University in 1968.