Robert Doar

Robert Doar is the Morgridge Fellow in Poverty Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where his research focuses on how improved federal and state antipoverty policies and safety net programs can reduce poverty, connect individuals to work, strengthen families, and increase opportunities for low-income Americans and their children. While at AEI, Mr. Doar has served as a co-chair of the National Commission on Hunger and as a lead member of the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity, which published the report titled "Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream." He is also the editor of "A Safety Net That Works: Improving Federal Programs for Low-Income Americans," an AEI publication in which experts discuss major federal public assistance programs and offer proposals for reform. Before joining AEI, he worked for Mayor Michael Bloomberg as commissioner of New York City's Human Resources Administration. While administering 12 public assistance programs, including cash welfare, food assistance, public health insurance, child support enforcement services, and others, he oversaw a 25 percent reduction in the city's welfare caseload. Before joining the Bloomberg administration, he was commissioner of social services for the state of New York, where he helped to make the state a model for the implementation of welfare reform. Mr. Doar has testified numerous times before Congress, and his writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Hill, and National Review, among other publications. Mr. Doar has a bachelor's degree in history from Princeton University.