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September 3, 2024
Material hardship among American children has never been lower. Yet children born to the most disadvantaged parents today are just as likely as they were in the past to become the most disadvantaged adults when they grow up. In a new edited volume, Doing Right Kids: Leveraging Social Capital and Innovation to Increase Opportunity, leading scholars…
August 28, 2024
Recently, GOP Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance said on Face the Nation “We should expand the child tax credit… I’d love to see a child tax credit that’s $5,000 per child.” He further proposed that the expanded credit be extended to “all American families,” emphasizing disparities in the availability of the current child tax credit…
August 2, 2024
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 a recession, undercutting President Biden’s boast just last week that the US has “the strongest economy in the world.” That grinding contradiction is only reinforced…
August 1, 2024
As a U.S. senator, Vice President Kamala Harris had a remarkably slim record of accomplishments, shepherding only a handful of minor resolutions across the finish line. But that’s far from the last word on her legislative record. In fact, two bills she introduced (that went nowhere) may best define her past, and potential future, priorities…
July 17, 2024
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 in December 2020, as state UI agencies were besieged by record pandemic benefit claims and unprecedented fraud. I was one of several members added in late 2023. The purpose…
February 27, 2024
H.R. 7024, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, passed the House on January 31, 2024 and now faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. The bill is intended to offer something for both Republicans and Democrats—business tax cuts and an expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC). But this bargain—which…
January 19, 2024
Abstract Senior House and Senate tax committee leaders agreed to a framework for modifying the Child Tax Credit on January 16, 2024. The most consequential reform would eliminate the Child Tax Credit’s annual income requirement by allowing individuals to calculate their eligibility using their current or prior year’s income, whichever year maximizes the family’s benefit….
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), focuses on earnings and cash-like government benefits, such as Social Security, unemployment, and welfare checks. A second, known as the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), also…
December 9, 2022
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary The COVID-19 pandemic saw unemployment claims reach a high of over 33 million in June 2020—over two and a half times the prior record set during the Great Recession. From March 2020 until temporary federal programs expired in September 2021, nearly 1.6 billion weeks of benefit checks were…
September 21, 2022
Chairman DeSaulnier, Ranking Member Allen, and other members of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, thank you for inviting me to testify at this morning’s hearing examining the administration of the Unemployment Insurance system. My name is Matt Weidinger, and I am a senior fellow and Rowe Scholar in poverty studies at the…