About

Scott W. Allard is the Daniel J. Evans Endowed Professor of Social Policy at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. He served as Associate Dean for Research and Engagement from 2021 to 2025. His primary areas of research expertise include urban poverty, employment among low-skill workers, food security, safety net utilization, and the spatial accessibility of governmental and nongovernmental safety net programs. Allard is affiliated with the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) and the West Coast Poverty Center at UW, and he is a research affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he served on the National Advisory Board from 2018 to 2020. He has also been a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program from 2010 to 2020. His previous faculty positions include roles at Syracuse University, Brown University, and the University of Chicago. Allard has authored books on poverty and social welfare, and his research examines the geography of poverty, social service delivery, and the impact of policies such as minimum wage ordinances. His work is supported by various research grants, and he has contributed to numerous academic journals and policy discussions related to social policy and urban poverty.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Business
• Marketing
• Medicine
• Economics
• Geography
• Computer Science
• Economic growth
• Developmental psychology
• Psychology
• Demographic economics
• Nursing
• Environmental health

Selected publications

• Meeting Older Adults' Food Needs During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons and Challenges from Washington State

  2025-05-08

  book-chapterSenior author

  The COVID-19 pandemic threatened the ability of nutrition providers to address food insufficiency among older adults. Findings from Household Pulse Survey data and interviews with 23 service leaders in Washington state during the summer of 2020 point to key organizational practices that should inform future emergency food assistance planning. Organizations deeply connected to and trusted by racially and ethnically diverse, unhoused, and low-income older adults are critical to addressing disparities in food insufficiency. Stable and flexible increases in funding would allow these organizations to maintain the effective and culturally-relevant service adaptations they implemented in the first months of the pandemic.

  PublisherDOI

• The spatial inequality of early care and education centers

  Early Childhood Research Quarterly · 2024-10-03 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Volatility and Change in Suburban Nonprofit Safety Nets

  RSF The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences · 2023 · 18 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Economic growth
  • Environmental health

  Rising poverty in suburbs has led to increased interest in how well suburban safety nets function. Apart from public assistance programs, community-based nonprofit health and human service organizations play a central role in suburban efforts to address racial and economic inequalities. Understanding how nonprofit services are distributed across the suburban and urban landscape, therefore, is critical to assessing how communities may be able to address need. In this paper, we examine the presence and volatility of nonprofit health and human service expenditures in suburban and urban counties across the United States from 2000 to 2017. We find the nonprofit safety net to be more responsive in urban centers than in suburban places, and less robust in suburban areas experiencing high rates of poverty or with a larger share of residents who are Black. Nonprofit health and human service spending also appears less countercyclical than is commonly understood. Suburban-urban disparities in nonprofit health and human service spending persist after controlling for several county-level demographic and socioeconomic factors.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Following Transformative Projects As Pathways to Confronting Inequality

  Sociological Forum · 2022-09-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Access to Early Care and Education in Rural Communities: Implications for Children’s School Readiness

  RSF The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences · 2022 · 28 citations

  • Political Science
  • Economic growth
  • Geography

  This study links county-level early care and education (ECE) program, economic, and demographic data to child-level data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2010-2011 to examine geographic variation in ECE program participation and provision. We find that public ECE programs, particularly Head Start, occupy a larger role in nonmetropolitan communities than in metropolitan areas. By contrast, children in rural counties are less likely to attend private center-based ECE, and nonprofit childcare program expenditures in rural areas lag. We also find rural-metropolitan differences in school readiness diminish when geographic characteristics are controlled. Results suggest that county-level context and state-level policy features shape children's early experiences, and that public ECE investments are key in narrowing disparities in ECE attendance and in children's outcomes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Meeting Older Adults’ Food Needs During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons And Challenges from Washington State

  Journal of Aging & Social Policy · 2022-11-11 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  The COVID-19 pandemic threatened the ability of nutrition providers to address food insufficiency among older adults. Findings from Household Pulse Survey data and interviews with 23 service leaders in Washington state during the summer of 2020 point to key organizational practices that should inform future emergency food assistance planning. Organizations deeply connected to and trusted by racially and ethnically diverse, unhoused, and low-income older adults are critical to addressing disparities in food insufficiency. Stable and flexible increases in funding would allow these organizations to maintain the effective and culturally-relevant service adaptations they implemented in the first months of the pandemic.

  PublisherDOI

• How Do Employers Belonging to Marginalized Communities Respond to Minimum Wage Increases? The Case of Immigrant-Owned Businesses in Seattle

  Economic Development Quarterly · 2022-04-11 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Minimum wage opponents often argue that businesses owned by marginalized communities, which include woman-owned, Black-owned, and immigrant-owned businesses, are exceptionally vulnerable to minimum wage increases. Little research has investigated this claim. Using a unique survey of Seattle businesses that includes owners’ nativity status and was administered while the city began to phase in its $15 minimum wage ordinance, the authors find that immigrant-owned businesses respond to the higher minimum wage in ways that largely conform to the responses of other businesses. Nevertheless, immigrant-owned franchises are less likely than other franchises to fire employees, reduce employees’ hours, or lower the wages of employees earning more than $15 per hour. Evidence suggests that immigrant franchisees have a lower likelihood of passing the increased labor costs onto employees because they use fewer employees and rely more heavily on family labor compared to other franchisees. The authors’ findings suggest that firms owned by marginalized and nonmarginalized groups respond to municipal-level minimum wage increases in comparable ways. Nevertheless, marginalized status may matter more in certain sectors of the economy than in others.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Spatial Context of Food Assistance: Examining Local Food Assistance Environment in the Context of SNAP

  Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition · 2021 · 6 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Business
  • Computer Science

  We develop the concept of the local food assistance environment to examine how spatial access to different local food assistance resources might shape food assistance program participation. Using unique survey data capturing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation in metropolitan Detroit, we explore how spatial access to local food assistance resources (e.g., SNAP offices, food retailers, charitable food assistance programs) may be associated with SNAP receipt. Descriptive analyses find that closer proximity to food assistance resources and retailers who accept food assistance benefits is positively associated with self-reported SNAP receipt.

  PublisherDOI

• The Initial Nonprofit Exposure and Response to Seattle’s Minimum Wage Ordinance

  Social Service Review · 2020-06-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Nearly 40 local governments adopted minimum wage rates higher than the federal minimum in the last decade. Research on such laws focuses on employment and price adjustments of for-profit firms. Higher minimum wage rates, however, may pose unique challenges to community-based nonprofit organizations, many of which serve vulnerable communities and have limited ability to modify business practices. We use survey and in-depth interview data with more than 125 nonprofit executives to explore how nonprofit organizations were exposed to, understood, and responded to the initial phase-in of Seattle's $15 minimum wage ordinance. Although most nonprofits with low-wage workers do not report substantial programmatic changes in response to the minimum wage, we do find evidence nonprofits are pursuing several avenues to raise revenue to cover higher anticipated labor costs. Results suggest that the channels of adjustment available to nonprofits have a different character than those available to for-profit firms.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• CARING FOR WASHINGTON’S OLDER ADULTS IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: INTERVIEWS WITH ORGANIZATION LEADERS ABOUT THE STATE OF SOCIAL AND HEALTHCARE SERVICES

  ResearchWorks at the University of Washington (University of Washington) · 2020-10-09 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The COVID-19 pandemic presents significant and costly disruptions to social service and health care systems. Eight in ten deaths from the COVID-19 virus in the U.S. have occurred in people age 65 and older (CDC, 2020). In addition to the mortality risk, the pandemic presents grave health and economic risks by disrupting services to older adults that prevent institutionalization, emergency room visits, and other negative health outcomes. This report examines how the pandemic has affected the operation of social service and healthcare organizations that support Washington’s 1.7 million older adults (60+), including 107,000 people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Drawing on surveys and interviews with 45 senior leaders of social services and health care organizations serving older adults throughout Washington State, this report identifies current challenges confronting service delivery and client care, as well as those that will persist to shape future strategy and planning. Several key findings and themes emerge relevant to policy and practice.

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Maria V. Wathen

  Loyola University Chicago

  8 shared

• R. Mark Greenwood

  7 shared

• Roy Suddaby

  Washington State University

  7 shared

• Jennifer L. Romich

  6 shared

• Michael Lounsbury

  University of Alberta

  5 shared

• Anne K. Althauser

  5 shared

• Sandra K. Danziger

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  4 shared

• Bryant A. Hudson

  Institut d'Economie Scientifique Et de Gestion

  4 shared

Awards & honors

• Louis Brownlow Award for best Public Administration Review a…