Welcome to Our Research Archive
Search and filter by content type, issue area, author, and keyword
August 2, 2024
Democrats’ Automatic Stimulus Proposals Undermine the Administration’s “Strongest Economy” Claims
Today’s US jobs report finds the nation’s unemployment rate increased to 4.3 percent in July. According to a measure often cited by liberal policymakers, that suggests the US has entered…
July 17, 2024
Key Takeaways from a New Report on Potential Unemployment Insurance Reforms
Yesterday, the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) released the final report of its Unemployment Insurance (UI) Task Force, of which I am a member. The task force was created…
May 29, 2024
Liberals Should Decide Whether Being a Homemaker Is Demeaning or Worthy of Huge New Government Benefits
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker struck a nerve. In a commencement address at Benedictine College in Kansas, he ventured to female graduates that some “careers in the world” are less fulfilling…
April 29, 2024
New “Scorecard” Report Promotes Better Use of Data to Prevent Unemployment Fraud
…those data are used to evaluate system functioning, efficiency, and readiness for surges in claims—and to prevent future fraud attacks. In a new follow-on report released today (Measuring What Matters: Context and Recommendations…
April 26, 2024
Washington, District of Benefit Cliffs
As the welfare state expands while policymakers struggle to contain its costs, one unintended result is the creation of significant benefit cliffs. A little-noticed September 2023 report authored by Elias Ilin and Alvaro Sanchez…
April 10, 2024
The Political Landmines Buried in the Latest Jobs Report
CNN on Friday dubbed the latest monthly jobs report a “blowout,” pointing to 303,000 net new jobs created in March. President Joe Biden immediately claimed credit, saying the report “marks a…
February 29, 2024
Recalling Pandemic Lessons on “Self-Certifying” Eligibility
Sometimes what is left unmentioned can be far more important than what is said. A good example is obscure guidance issued last week by the US Department of Labor (DOL) encouraging workforce…
December 7, 2023
The White House Council of Economic Advisers Contradicts the President’s Poverty Talking Points
Before Thanksgiving, the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) released a blog post titled “The Anti-Poverty and Income Boosting Impacts of the Enhanced CTC.” That’s a reference to the temporary—and now…
December 1, 2023
Making the Child Tax Credit “Fully Refundable” Converts It into Welfare Checks
In what is becoming an annual ritual, news accounts and DC sources suggest liberals’ end-of-year legislative wish list once again includes reviving the worst part of Democrats’ partisan 2021 child tax credit (CTC) expansion….
November 20, 2023
The Next Time States Are “Swimming in Money” Make Them Repay Their Federal Loans
The pandemic was full of firsts, including the first time states received hundreds of billions of federal dollars they could use to shore up their depleted state unemployment insurance (UI) programs. The…