Senior Research Associate

Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity

Position:
Senior Research Associate

Job Number: 43200

The Agency You’ll Join

The NYC Mayor's Office administers all city services, public property, most public agencies, and

enforces all city, state, and federal laws within New York City. New York City’s Mayor, Eric Adams is

head of the executive branch of New York City's government. Mayor Adams has served the people of

New York City as an NYPD officer, State Senator, and Brooklyn Borough President. The Adams’

Administration is leading the fight to make New York City’s economy stronger, reduce inequality,

improve public safety, and build a stronger, healthier city that delivers for all New Yorkers. As an

agency, we value fairness, helpfulness, transparency, leadership and build our teams around these

values. For current job opportunities visit our careers page.

The Team You’ll Work With

The Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity) helps the City apply evidence and

innovation to reduce poverty and increase equity. We work to improve the systems of government by

advancing the use of research, data and design in program and policy development, service delivery,

and budget decisions. Our work includes analyzing existing anti-poverty approaches, developing new

strategies, facilitating the sharing of data across City agencies, and rigorously assessing the impact of

key initiatives.

NYC Opportunity manages a discrete fund and works collaboratively with City agencies to design, test

and oversee new programs and digital products. NYC Opportunity also produces research and analysis

of poverty and social conditions, including its influential annual Poverty Measure, which provides a

more accurate and comprehensive picture of poverty in New York City than the federal rate. Part of

the Mayor’s Office of Operations, NYC Opportunity is active in making equity a core governing principle

across all agencies.

The Problems You’ll Solve

Reporting to the Deputy Director, Poverty Research Unit (PRU), the Senior Research Associate will work

on both data management and data analysis tasks. Data management includes streamlining the

production of poverty metrics with version control, managing query efficiency, and adjusting data

structures and toolsets as needed to meet evolving requirements. Data analysis that will be related to

poverty metrics, anti-poverty policies, and equity issues.

The position includes primary responsibility for maintaining and advancing NYC Opportunity’s poverty

metrics and assisting in production of the NYCgov poverty measure. The position requires collaboration

within the team and with cross-functional teams to extract insights from various data sources, build

and maintain data pipelines, and develop impactful visualizations.

The NYCgov poverty measure has become an important tool for evaluating policies, assessing the

progress the city has made over time in reducing poverty, and designing new policies to reduce current

levels of economic deprivation. NYC Opportunity also releases an annual brief on the economic

condition of immigrants in New York City, connecting economic outcomes to legal status.

Responsibilities include:

• Data Architecture Leadership:

o Structuring and cleaning data for Poverty Research Unit.

o Coordinate and manage data across income-components and version control of poverty

metrics.

o Streamlining production of poverty research data to ensure fast access to metrics.

o Documenting research databases including description of content, context, and

changes; enhancing ability to promote discovery through use of data.

o Reviewing annual releases of American Community Survey for data changes,

implementing compatibility with existing data and code, advising on potential impact in

production of poverty metrics.

• Data Analysis and Visualization:

o Contributing to annual production of the NYCgov poverty measure.

o Responding to rapid data requests.

o Supporting modeling of policy alternatives and their comparative outcomes (anti-

poverty impacts and distributional consequences).

o Identifying key stories (e.g., disparities in economic well-being across population

cohorts) to drive engagement and decision-making across city agencies.

• Hands-on leadership in applied statistics:

o Actively participating in technical projects and providing guidance to other team

members including semi-parametric modeling, missing data imputation, principal

components analysis techniques.

• Data Insights and strategies:

o Formulate hypotheses and economic measures to drive insights and value creation.

o Collaborate with the product team to create user-friendly applications to help the city

agencies use our data products.

• Data pipeline management and collaboration:

o Build and maintain various indicator data pipelines with city agencies and external

partners, ensuring efficient data flow and integrity.

o Own the development and maintenance of data pipelines including new data on

economic security and risks.

• Efficiency Optimization

o Guide data architecture towards modern and efficient approaches.

o Manage query efficiency and adjust data structures and toolsets as needed to meet

evolving requirements.

About You

• You have a Master's degree from an accredited college in economics, public policy, data

science, statistics or other relevant field and a Minimum two or three years of responsible full-

time research experience in the appropriate field of specialization or;

• You have one year of full-time experience in a responsible supervisory, administrative or

relevant research capacity with relevant Doctorate.

• You have substantial progress towards a doctorate or extensive experience in advanced data

analytics is strongly preferred.

• You have proven experience in architecting and managing data systems is also preferred.

• You have proficiency in at least one of the following languages is required: R, Stata or Python.

• You have hands-on experience with AWS services.

• You have familiarity with anti-poverty policies and benefit programs at the federal, state or

local level such as SNAP, the Earned Income Tax Credit or housing assistance programs.

• You have experience in policy, government, or non-profit, in particular with low-income and

vulnerable youth, families and immigrant populations is a plus.

• You have familiarity with administrative data or large datasets such as the American

Community Survey, Current Population Survey or the NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey.

• You must be able to work both independently and in a collaborative setting.

• You have excellent verbal and written skills.

• You have the ability to work under occasional deadline pressure.

Salary

The City of New York Office of the Mayor’s compensation package includes a market competitive

salary, equity for all full-time roles and exceptional benefits. Our cash compensation range for this role

is $92,301 to $106,146.

Final offers may vary from the amount listed based on candidate experience and expertise, and other

factors.

Apply Now!

Equal Opportunity | Diversity Equity & Inclusion Statement

The Office of the Mayor is an is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and

retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and

harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not

limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual

orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.

The Adams Administration values diversity — in backgrounds and in experiences that is reflective of

the city it serves. Applicants of all backgrounds are strongly encouraged and welcome to apply.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran, you may request a reasonable

accommodation if you are unable or limited in your ability to access job openings or apply for a job on

this site as a result of your disability. You can request reasonable accommodations by EEO at

EEO@cityhall.nyc.gov.

New York City Residency Is Required Within 90 Days of Appointment