Skip to main content

Research Archive

Welcome to Our Research Archive

Search and filter by content type, issue area, author, and keyword

September 10, 2024

Event: New Census Data on American Families’ Economic Well-Being

Event Summary On September 10, AEI’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility gathered leading experts to analyze the new poverty and economic numbers from the US Census Bureau for 2023. AEI’s Kevin Corinth began by summarizing the data’s main findings. Median household income rose, and the official poverty measure (OPM) showed that poverty declined while…

July 26, 2024

Two Cheers for Shrinking Black-White Opportunity Gaps

The latest in a series of important reports on social mobility by the research group Opportunity Insights is out, and it’s another conversation-changer. Across a variety of outcomes in adulthood and adolescence, the gap between black Americans who grew up with low-income parents and their white counterparts has narrowed over time. This news is certainly…

June 18, 2024

Economic Opportunity and Social Mobility

Years ago, I worked at the Pew Charitable Trusts on something called the Economic Mobility Project. In 2009, we commissioned a survey covering opportunity, mobility, and the American Dream. One revealing question we asked was the following: The term American Dream means different things to different people. Here are some ways some people have described…

May 30, 2024

The Truth about Trends in Worker Pay

Time was, only progressives made outlandish claims such as that hourly wages have been stagnant for more than half a century. But with the rise of populism on the right, “doomerism” now transcends ideology. It’s the national-conservative group American Compass that is now saying that the typical worker makes only 1 percent more today than he…

May 20, 2024

Indivar Dutta-Gupta and Scott Winship on the 60th Anniversary of LBJ’s “War on Poverty” on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal”

Indivar Dutta-Gupta and Scott Winship talked about the 60th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” speech and the war on poverty.

May 16, 2024

Critiquing Bastian (2022, 2023, 2024, and forthcoming):On Child Tax Credit Reform and the Sensitivity of Single Mothers to Work Incentives

Abstract In 2021, Congress passed and President Biden signed a major, but temporary, reform to the Child Tax Credit (CTC). Among other reforms to the credit, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) made it available to non-workers on the same basis as workers. Attempts to make this reform permanent foundered, in part, due to opposition…

May 14, 2024

Understanding Trends in Worker Pay over the Past 50 years

Key Points Executive Summary Doomers on the political left and right agree that economic growth has failed to translate into higher wages for American workers, with some claiming that pay has barely risen in 50 years. Such sentiments have been buttressed by flawed analyses that, comparing apples to oranges in a variety of ways, have…

March 28, 2024

An Early Look at the Child Tax Credit Changes in the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024

Abstract The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which the US House of Representatives passed on January 31, 2024, and the Senate is now considering, would make important changes to the child tax credit (CTC) if enacted. The legislation would increase CTC payments for families with lower earnings, apply a one-year…

February 7, 2024

Child Tax Credit Bill Would Increase Marriage Penalties for Working Single Mothers

H.R. 7024, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, was passed by the House last week and is now moving to the Senate for consideration. The bill would change the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in several ways. The two most contentious changes are a one-year lookback for the refundable portion of…

January 30, 2024

How Sensitive Are Single Mothers’ Work Decisions to a Change in Incentives? Correcting Misperceptions of the Evidence

Let’s start with a table. (With apologies to our mobile audience…) Evidence on Extensive Margin Employment Elasticities for Single Mothers   Reported Revised Consistent w/ 0.75? Notes Reviews or Based on Reviews Corinth et al. (2021, rev 2022) 0.75 —   p. 22; based on midpoint of McClelland and Mok (2012), p. 5 (below); unpublished…