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March 10, 2026
Don’t Tax the Public Housing Poor Like They’re Rich
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed the most dramatic low-income housing policy change in decades, potentially affecting the more than 5 million tenants in public and voucher-subsidized housing. The new…
February 13, 2026
What Harvard’s Raj Chetty Overlooks About Upward Mobility
The Harvard economist Raj Chetty, justly famous for his studies of the factors that enable upward mobility in America, is back with a new analysis that has attracted wide attention. Thanks to access to…
February 10, 2026
Trump Houses Are a Good Idea—If
Facing public concern about high home purchase prices, the Trump Administration is said to be considering the idea of “Trump Houses,” starter homes to be built privately but with some…
January 22, 2026
Democrats Face Stark Choice on Housing Affordability
Affordability, especially lowering housing costs, enjoys bipartisan political support — at least in theory. But affordability is a goal, not a specific program, and even progressive Democrats can break with each other…
November 19, 2025
Real Estate Red Flag: How Hidden Blue-State Policies are Pricing Out Homeowners
A telling new analysis of rising home maintenance costs from the real estate listing service Zillow, in conjunction with Thumbtack, which tracks the cost of local services, should remind those promoting the…
September 25, 2025
The Golden Age of Public Housing—and Why It Didn’t Last
If Americans have any shared image of public housing, it is one of dilapidated and even dangerous “projects” and locations of concentrated poverty. But there was a time—a brief shining…
September 24, 2025
Subsidized Housing and Upward Mobility
In 1983, Harvard scholars Mary Jo Bane and David Ellwood sought to determine the length of time participants in Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) spent in the program….
June 24, 2025
Public Housing and Rental Subsidies
Since the 1930s, the federal government has subsidized local housing projects aimed at uplifting the poor. The specific policies have evolved, but the theory has been that federal aid is…