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November 21, 2023
Thirty years ago, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D., N.Y.) wrote a seminal essay titled “Defining Deviancy Down.” He argued that Americans had “become accustomed to alarming levels of crime…
November 20, 2023
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…
October 31, 2023
In 2008, Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff to President-elect Barack Obama, famously issued Rahm’s rule: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that…
October 25, 2023
Every culture has its famous myths, such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, and the world of politics is no different. Take, for example, President Joe Biden’s claims that…
October 17, 2023
COSM scholars and AEI affiliates include some of the nation’s foremost experts on poverty measurement. On October 17, COSM gathered several of these scholars to provide a primer on opportunity…
October 12, 2023
Last week the Department of Health and Human Services issued a proposed rule related to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. TANF is the cash welfare block grant Congress created…
September 29, 2023
Overview The coronavirus pandemic tested the nation’s unemployment benefits system more than any prior recession. Not only did far more individuals file claims for weekly benefits than ever before, but…
September 29, 2023
Last week, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) added a startling new figure to the ever-growing estimates of abuse inflicted on unemployment benefits during the pandemic, finding that “between $100 billion and $135 billion”…
September 19, 2023
The House Budget Committee, headed by Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX), today released a draft budget proposal detailing the majority’s spending priorities and proposed changes across a range of government benefits and programs….
September 15, 2023
On Tuesday, the Census Bureau released its latest income and poverty estimates covering calendar year 2022, including two assessments of poverty in America. One, called the Official Poverty Measure (OPM),…