Jodie Levin-Epstein is Deputy Director of CLASP. She established CLASP’s reproductive health project upon passage of the 1996 welfare law. This project focuses on the interaction between pregnancy prevention and welfare policy; the project is moving beyond welfare to the mainstreaming of pregnancy prevention into other social service programs. More recently, she has shepherded CLASP’s efforts around work/life balance and improving job quality through paid leave and flexible workplaces.  In addition, she is responsible for creating, managing, and hosting CLASP’s widely acclaimed national audio conferences on low income and poverty issues. 

Prior to joining CLASP, she was the deputy director of the Center for Population Options (now called Advocates for Youth), a national, nonprofit organization concerned with unintended adolescent pregnancy. Ms. Levin-Epstein also has served in the federal government, as an aide to Senator Dick Clark (D-IA) and as a political appointee at the Department of Agriculture in the Carter Administration. She was selected to be a member of several prestigious working groups, including a White House Task Force on Hunger and the National Academy of Sciences World Hunger Study Team. Ms. Levin-Epstein was awarded an Ian Axford (New Zealand) Public Policy Fellowship and in 2004 worked in the New Zealand Ministry of Social Development examining policies related to paid sick days and to paid parental leave.

She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Grinnell College.