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June 10, 2024

Employment and Labor Supply Responses to the Child Tax Credit Expansion: Theory and Evidence

AbstractThe 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion increased government benefits to families, andespecially to families with the lowest incomes. Economic theory predicts that this policyintervention would have led to a reduction in labor supply among adults in those families. Ourreview of available research suggests that employment within broadly defined demographicgroups was not reduced by the…

June 10, 2024

The Economic World We’ve Lost

Populism has infected both major parties in the United States, leading to policies that previous generations of economic policymakers would immediately recognized as foolhardy and counter-productive. But whether the country can escape its self-destructive pessimism is anyone’s guess. WASHINGTON, DC – The past decade has brought a sea change in US economic policy, and not…

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…

June 6, 2024

How New Graduates Can Thrive in a Workplace Dominated by AI

Dwight Eisenhower’s advice about plans and planning is still relevant today On June 6, the world will mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the 40th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “the Boys of Pont du Hoc” speech honoring those who helped turn back the Nazi threat on the beaches of Normandy. We are now as far from Reagan’s speech as the speech was…

June 4, 2024

What Comes After Neoliberalism?

The steep tariff increases on Chinese goods that US President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced are just the latest in a long string of interventionist economic policies that fly in the face of decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. And the Biden administration is hardly alone: a growing number of governments, economists, and institutions are rethinking the…

May 31, 2024

ACS Has Lost the Plot

It’s been almost a year, but Lynija Eason Kumar was finally charged with murder last month in the death of her six-year-old daughter, Jalayah Eason. The child, according to New York City’s medical examiner, died as a result of blunt-force injuries, malnourishment, and positional asphyxia. According to the New York Times, she “died after Ms. Eason…

May 30, 2024

Building a High Tech Workforce for the Future

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that a bidding war has broken out among the tech giants for scarce and valuable generative AI talent. This scramble is part of a much bigger talent shortage that looms over the US economy in coming years as AI becomes critical business infrastructure. Since generative AI (GAI) burst onto the scene in late 2022, the technology has sped ahead, driven…

May 30, 2024

The Contradictions in Democrats’ Child Tax Credit Expansion Promises

Politicians regularly vie for the support of parents with promises of good schools, bigger family benefits, and tax relief. President Joe Biden did just that last week in calling for increased funding for public education, child care, and more. Sometimes just the language of the proposal—like the president’s call to expand the child tax credit (CTC)—appears to…

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 29, 2024

Liberals Should Decide Whether Being a Homemaker Is Demeaning or Worthy of Huge New Government Benefits

Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker struck a nerve. In a commencement address at Benedictine College in Kansas, he ventured to female graduates that some “careers in the world” are less fulfilling than many believe. He also suggested that being a homemaker is “one of the most important titles,” praising his wife Isabelle for “living her vocation…