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June 11, 2024

The Social Workplace: A Compendium

Key Points Executive Summary In an era marked by a decline in social capital across American institutions, the workplace has become a crucial arena for fostering social connections. Through their careers, Americans not only satisfy their economic needs but also find personal fulfillment, build social networks, and seek—and often discover—a sense of meaning and purpose…

June 7, 2024

An Epidemic of Loneliness in the Age of Boundaries

Social media features a different viral villain every day. If we’re lucky, he or she tells us something about ourselves. In just such a case, a man named Marcus Shepard got more than 12 million views on his post bragging of a breakup with a friend with whom he hadn’t had “meaningful offline contact in almost…

April 26, 2024

Human Capital Spillovers and Health: Does Living Around College Graduates Lengthen Life?

Abstract Equally educated people are healthier if they live in more educated places. Every 10 percent point increase in an area’s share of adults with a college degree is associated with a decline in all-cause mortality by 7%, controlling for individual education, demographics, and area characteristics. Area human capital is also associated with lower disease…

March 27, 2024

Narcan Babies

“As medical professionals who work with pregnant patients, you face numerous medical, legal, and ethical decision points when treating a patient for substance use during pregnancy, and when providing care to a neonate with drug or alcohol exposure.” So begins a pamphlet of advice for doctors and nurses that discourages them from reporting mothers for substance abuse…

March 12, 2024

Family Dinners Offer a Silver Lining in a Bleak Social Capital Landscape

Across a variety of indicators, social capital in America is deteriorating. But one trend appears to be cutting across conventional wisdom—gathering the family around the dinner table. Dinners offer an especially valuable chance for family members to come together and share the day’s highs and lows; discuss personal issues, current events, and big questions of…

February 5, 2024

Why We All Rely On the Organized Kindness of Strangers

Our church caught fire [i] a few weeks ago. The pastor and a few other leaders had just gotten out of a Monday night meeting when they found the sanctuary was filled with smoke and the entrance to the church was covered in flames. Fortunately, firefighters[ii] responded to the immediate 911 calls and saved the…

January 31, 2024

Perspective: The ‘social workplace’ and why it matters to Zoomers

Social connections are increasingly as important as pay to younger workers. A mission-led workplace can help In his 1759 book “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Adam Smith observed that human sociality is the taproot of economics. The instinct to “truck, barter and exchange,” Smith argued, arises out of our need for others and is the…

January 17, 2024

A Midwest State of Mind

This is an excerpt of a piece original published in American Purpose here. Although many now worry that it is endangered, American civil society has long been an important element of what has made the United States an “exceptional nation.” Historian Jon K. Lauck argues that in 19th century America, the surprising epicenter of that civil…

December 19, 2023

Sins of Omission: Public Broadcasting Fails to Reach a Broad Cross-Section of America

Increasing numbers of Americans get their news from Facebook and Apple but nonetheless, every day, six American television networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN and PBS — continue to broadcast a nightly newscast. Only one of these, however, is subsidized by taxpayers. The PBS NewsHour receives direct annual support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB); it…

November 13, 2023

Family’s Place in America’s Social Fabric

The family is arguably the most basic building block of community life.[i] But even as Americans continue to say their own families are centrally important in their lives[ii], family life in the United States more broadly has changed dramatically in recent decades. At the same time, adults are finding satisfaction in their relationships with friends…