Urban Institute Launches Economic Mobility Solutions Center to Expand Opportunity Across America

WASHINGTON, DC, November 12, 2026 - The Urban Institute today announced the launch of its Economic Mobility Solutions Center, a new effort to help community leaders, philanthropies, and state and local governments turn evidence and promising approaches into stronger investments and strategies that expand economic opportunity.

In places across the country, community leaders are developing innovative approaches to improving economic mobility, even as shifts in technology, labor markets, public resources, and pathways to financial security create new challenges. Their experiences offer practical lessons about what is working, while research and data are deepening our understanding of what drives economic mobility and which strategies are most likely to improve outcomes in different places.

The Solutions Center will build on these efforts, combining lessons from communities with Urban's research, data, modeling, and experience supporting local partners to help leaders make informed investment decisions, adapt effective strategies to local conditions, and achieve lasting improvements in economic mobility.

Drawing on Urban's more than 50 years of research, work with communities, and expertise across education, employment, housing, health, and other domains that influence economic mobility, the Solutions Center will focus on two complementary areas of work:

Supporting Better Investment Decisions

The Solutions Center will help philanthropic and public-sector leaders identify where investments can have the greatest impact, assess the likely effects of different approaches, understand tradeoffs, and use evidence to guide resource allocation and strategy development.

Strengthening Community Capacity to Drive Place-Based Solutions

The Solutions Center will work alongside community leaders to build on promising approaches, adapt evidence-based strategies to local conditions, strengthen local capacity, coordinate efforts across sectors, and use data to track progress and refine approaches.

The Solutions Center will also expand access to Urban's data and mobility outcomes modeling capabilities, develop tools to support decision-making, and explore how emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, can help leaders better understand local conditions and evaluate potential solutions.

"In communities across the country, local leaders are working hard to create greater economic opportunity and help people get ahead, even in the face of daunting forces making mobility more and more elusive," said Sarah Rosen Wartell, Urban Institute president. "The Economic Mobility Solutions Center will build on and spread practices that are working; translate research knowledge into practical advice and useful tools; help communities coordinate across silos, measure results, and use data to refine their strategies; and support the sustained work needed to improve people's lives."

The Solutions Center draws on Urban's established portfolio of economic mobility initiatives, including the Upward Mobility Initiative, Student Upward Mobility Initiative, WorkRise, and the Economic Mobility Outcomes Simulator. These efforts have contributed research, tools, and partnerships that help communities expand access to opportunity.

An Advisory Group of nationally respected economic mobility experts-including philanthropists, policymakers, community leaders, practitioners, and researchers-will help guide the Solutions Center's work. Using their experience advancing economic mobility in communities, advisors will help shape the Solutions Center's agenda, identify emerging challenges and opportunities for collaboration, and ensure the Solutions Center's work is grounded in the needs and experiences of people and places.

Learn more about the Economic Mobility Solutions Center and its Advisory Group at EconomicMobilitySolutions.urban.org.

About the Urban Institute

The Urban Institute is a nonprofit research organization founded on one simple idea: To improve lives and strengthen communities, we need practices and policies that work. For more than 50 years, that has been our charge. By equipping changemakers with evidence and solutions, together we can create a future where every person and community has the opportunity and power to thrive.

Media contact:

Linda Argueta, Urban Institute: [email protected]; (202) 261-5283