Research + Innovation
Tipping Point strategically invests in research that advance our mission to fight poverty in the Bay Area.
Tipping Point strategically invests in research that advance our mission to fight poverty in the Bay Area.
We invest in research and innovation when there is potential for large scale impact. Through research to better understand an issue or by evaluating a unique pilot program, we identify promising poverty-fighting solutions and interventions that can impact the entire Bay Area.
New research from Tipping Point with the University of California provides a snapshot of the state of poverty in the Bay Area both prior to the pandemic and at the height of it. The latest results from Taking Count––which surveyed the same group of Bay Area residents in 2019 and again in 2021––found that our region’s poverty levels have held steady, with about 1 in 5 residents living in poverty. This report sheds light on the critical role government and nonprofit support have played to keep people from falling into poverty, despite dramatic economic disruption, as well as the continued and unequal economic fragility experienced by many throughout the Bay Area.
Taking Count 2021: A Study on Poverty in the Bay Area Found
- 1 in 5 Bay Area residents is living in poverty, similar to findings before the pandemic.
- Government and nonprofit response played a critical role in keeping 200,000 people out of poverty.
- Twice as many households needing support turned to nonprofit organizations.
- The toll of job loss and the mental, physical, financial, and emotional strain of the pandemic, while felt across the Bay Area, weighed disproportionately on low-income, Black, and Latinx community members.
Taking Count 2021: A Study on Poverty in the Bay Area | In partnership with University of California, Berkeley and the Othering & Belonging Institute.
Tipping Point partners with organizations and major donors through a four-year initiative to spur the development of new solutions to poverty through Mobility LABs. Core to this project is the belief that people who are closest to the challenges are closest to the solutions.