Her work focuses on the economics of well-being, gender, and public K-12 education. She has conducted research in these areas in wide detail, from Amartya Sen’s capability approach to economic development to the assessment of measured economic well-being of American households. She has also worked at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College on their extended-income measure, and on policy issues related to gender equality, economic vulnerability, human resilience, and human development while working at the United Nations in New York. Mahoney received her doctorate in economics from The New School for Social Research.