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December 5, 2024
More High-Skill Immigration Is Popular. Let’s Act on That
This might be one of the most underappreciated facts of American public opinion: As controversial as the subject of immigration is, high-skill immigration isn’t controversial at all. A Pew Research Center poll in September found 71 percent of Donald Trump supporters and 87 percent of Kamala Harris supporters favored admitting more high-skilled immigrants. Likewise, a survey last summer from…
November 4, 2024
Again, Tariffs Didn’t Make American Manufacturing Great
Nationalist/populist conservatives, including the Republican nominee, claim that US economic history supports their views of trade protectionism. Donald Trump says “tariff” is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” and that America “in the 1890s was probably the wealthiest it ever was” because of its tariff system. First, per capita GDP is, conservatively, seven times higher…
April 9, 2024
The Child Tax Credit: My Long-Read Q&A with Kevin Corinth
The Child Tax Credit is a tax benefit available to many American families for the purpose of reducing their federal income tax liability. It’s specifically designed to help offset the cost of raising children. The CTC of today, however, differs starkly from its pre-pandemic structure. Many economists, including Kevin Corinth, think that the post-pandemic changes were a step…
April 5, 2024
What’s Wrong with the US Economy? Anything?
Economists were expecting 200,000 net new jobs added in March. Instead it was 50 percent more. Unexpected strength, but maybe not so unexpected, really, for an economy that continues to deliver surprise after surprise. It’s been a great run lately for economic optimists: real wage gains, faster labor productivity, and gobs of jobs. A tight summary…
August 22, 2023
Is Paid Leave a Pro-Growth Policy?
Some pro-growth public policies seem super obvious, like attracting more high-skill immigrants or reducing the federal paperwork needed to build clean energy facilities and infrastructure. Paid leave, whether mandated by Washington or funded by new taxes on rich people and large companies, might seem like another obviously good thing. Rarely do I ever hear about…