Jodie Levin-Epstein

Jodie Levin-Epstein is Deputy Director of Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). Her focus is on working conditions—issues such as paid leave and workplace flexibility, particularly as they impact on low income workers. Her numerous CLASP publications in this area include Getting Punched: The Job and Family Clock; she was recently published in Mother Load , a special report by The American Prospect. She has been involved in efforts to create paid sick days legislation, working to mobilize progressive businesses to support new labor standards. Ms. Levin-Epstein has also played a key role in the re-emergence of poverty in recent public discourse. Her 2006 report Targeting Poverty: Aim at a Bull's Eye describes and identifies recent efforts around the nation to set targets for the elimination or reduction of poverty.

In addition, Ms. Levin-Epstein is responsible for creating, managing, and hosting CLASP's widely acclaimed national audio conferences on low-income and poverty issues. Her earlier work with CLASP included initiating a network of state contacts and establishing CLASP's reproductive health project.

Prior to joining CLASP, Ms. Levin-Epstein was the deputy director of Advocates for Youth. She also has served as an aide to Sen. Dick Clark and as a political appointee at the Department of Agriculture in the Carter administration. She was selected to be a member of several prestigious working groups, including a White House Task Force on Hunger and the National Academy of Sciences World Hunger Study Team.

Ms. Levin-Epstein is a graduate of Grinnell College.

Mark H. Greenberg

Mark H. Greenberg is Director of Policy. Since coming to CLASP in 1988, Mr. Greenberg has focused on issues relating to federal and state welfare reform efforts, with particular attention to job programs, education and training, and child care issues. His current work focuses on welfare reauthorization, child care, state implementation of the 1996 federal welfare legislation and advancement of supports for working families.

Mr. Greenberg has written extensively on issues arising out of state implementation of the Family Support Act of 1988, and on the array of new state initiatives that have arisen through the waiver process in recent years. Since 1996, he has written extensively and addressed issues presented by the implementation of the new federal welfare reform legislation. He has presented to such diverse audiences as the National Governors Association, the American Public Human Services Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of State Budget Officers, the Urban Institute, Manpower Demonstration and Research Corporation, National Partnership for Women and Families, National Urban League, the Bipartisan Welfare Reform Seminar for Senior Congressional and Administration Staff, and numerous community organizations and state advocacy groups. He has also made presentations and met with state officials and administrators in a number of states across the country on how states can use TANF and state funds to effectuate more creative and innovative social welfare policies. This work was featured in the March 14, 1997 issue of the Wall Street Journal. During parts of 1997-1998, he was on an Atlantic Fellowship at the Department of Political and Social Studies, University of York, UK.

Prior to joining CLASP, Mr. Greenberg worked for 10 years in legal services programs; first at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid in Florida, and then at the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Los Angeles. During his time in legal services, Mr. Greenberg was extensively involved in litigation and policy issues relating to AFDC, General Assistance and the Food Stamp Program, unemployment insurance, minimum wage issues, and the Medicaid program.

Mr. Greenberg is a 1975 graduate of Harvard College and a 1978 graduate of Harvard Law School.