Senior Associate, Fiscal 50

Application deadline: Monday, October 6, 2025 at 5PM EST

The Government Performance Portfolio within Program    

Pew's Government Performance team provides the nonpartisan research, solutions, and momentum decisionmakers need to ensure our institutions improve the health of people in the United States and enable them to successfully climb the economic ladder.  

Those goals are pursued through a wide range of the portfolio’s policy-focused projects (with explorations into new areas underway)—from ensuring states’ finances are prepared for future volatility, to unlocking gateways to mental health care, to addressing the nation’s lack of attainable housing.    

Pew’s Government Performance team is successful when we:   

• Foresee systemic challenges that could be avoided, mitigated, or resolved before they become insurmountable or politically toxic.   

• Fill information gaps with data, research, and proven models.   

• Hold leaders of institutions accountable to ensure they anticipate future challenges and operate efficiently.   

• Minimize missed opportunities when people intersect with our nation’s institutions.   

We hope for policymakers, funding partners, and other stakeholders celebrate when Pew’s Government Performance team enters a new policy space, launches a new effort, or expands an existing project because they recognize we help:   

• Elevate the public profile of a problem  

• Demonstrate that success is possible   

• Bring cohesion to siloed fields  

• Create momentum for broader and lasting change 

Fiscal 50, State Fiscal Policy 

Fiscal 50 is a high-visibility online platform that brings together Pew’s most relevant and timely state fiscal data and policy insights and provides insights into states’ long-term fiscal health on a range of metrics. This platform selectively presents data and analyses that help states look beyond their current budgets, size up their progress over time, consider different ways to measure performance, and easily compare their outcomes with neighbors or peers that have similar resources and challenges. 

Position Overview

As part of the team, the senior associate contributes to all aspects of Fiscal 50, a high-visibility interactive online platform that brings together Pew’s most relevant and timely state fiscal data and policy insights. The senior associate conceives and conducts independent research, analyzes and visualizes data, writes articles and other analytic content, develops clear and compelling narratives from findings, and helps execute the project’s communications and outreach strategy.

Located in Pew’s Washington, DC, office, this position reports to the associate manager, Fiscal 50, and participates in Pew’s hybrid work program with core days in the office and the flexibility to telework the remaining days. Staff also enjoy four telework “flex weeks” per year.

Responsibilities

• Foster a work environment that inspires excellence, values impact, encourages transparency, builds mutual trust and respect, embraces and values diversity, and is collaborative, caring, and compassionate.
• Work independently and with other researchers on the Fiscal 50 team and across Pew’s other fiscal teams to research and write a range of relevant content that informs policymakers, the media, and other stakeholders and draws connections between Pew’s research on promising fiscal management practices for states, fiscal data, and emerging news and policy developments from the states. Conduct interviews with state officials and other key stakeholders.
• Collect, organize, analyze, and visualize 50-state economic, fiscal, and demographic data. Build and maintain datasets, conceptualize data visualizations, and collaborate with graphic designers to develop and refine static and interactive graphics for use in a wide range of publications.
• Cultivate and maintain a broad knowledge of state-relevant fiscal and economic research, current trends and news developments. Participate in conferences, seminars and other professional development activities to keep current in areas of focus and be prepared to draw connections that inspire or inform Pew research.
• Contribute to the project’s communications and outreach efforts by developing effective presentations of research findings for internal and external audiences, including presenting independently when appropriate, providing research and talking points for use in media interviews by senior staff, and producing social media content and other means to present research findings to key audiences.
• Maintain an unwavering commitment to accuracy in all work. Review and fact-check pro