Email Updates

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email Address
Focus Magazine

About the Joint Center

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies is one of the nation's premier research and public policy institutions and the only one whose work focuses exclusively on issues of particular concern to African Americans and other people of color. For over three decades, our research and information programs have informed and influenced public opinion and national policy to benefit not only African Americans, but every American.

The Joint Center's current research and analyses address critical issues in three key areas: political participation; economic advancement; and health policy. In conducting research and policy analysis and in disseminating our products, we seek to build partnerships and coalitions with Black Elected and Appointed Officials at every level of government and with like-minded organizations in order to broaden and strengthen the impact of our work.

Joint Center Mission

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies informs and illuminates the nation's major public policy debates through research, analysis, and information dissemination in order to: improve the socioeconomic status of black Americans and other minorities; expand their effective participation in the political and public policy arenas; and promote communications and relationships across racial and ethnic lines to strengthen the nation's pluralistic society.

Joint Center Fact Sheet


Upcoming Events


Did You Know?

Did you know that only 29 percent of African American adults surveyed in an October-November 2005 Joint Center poll expected Social Security to be their major source of retirement income? Fewer of them (20 percent) expected an employer-sponsored pension plan to be their major source of income, and more (42 percent) expected that their major source of income would be their own retirement savings and investments.

Source: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, National Opinion Poll of African American Adults About Social Security and Wealth, 2005.