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November 2, 2023

How Churches Can Make a Difference in the Lives of Children Who Need Foster Care

Who is willing to foster a child? It’s a question that has vexed policymakers and civic leaders for decades. Most states have experienced a chronic shortage of foster families. Public service announcements tout the need, with the most recent theme being, “You don’t have to be perfect to be the perfect parent.” But fostering a…

By Naomi Schaefer Riley

November 1, 2023

The Ultimate Social Capital: A Story to Save the Union

The American Republic is on the brink; a revived civic national story can help us all come together to pull ourselves back from the abyss That the bonds holding the United States have been weakening has been obvious for more than a decade now, a phenomenon this research series has been probing in regards to…

By Colin Woodard

October 31, 2023

Lawmakers Continue Trying to Revive Pandemic-Style Benefits

In 2008, Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff to President-elect Barack Obama, famously issued Rahm’s rule: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Lawmakers applied Rahm’s rule liberally during the pandemic, providing record stimulus…

By Matt Weidinger

October 31, 2023

It Takes Two

It is indisputable that children are better off living with two nurturing parents who are in a stable, loving relationship compared to any other living situation. But it gets more contentious from there. Does “stability” require marriage? How important is it to live with two biological parents? What if one (or both) adults are not…

By Scott Winship

October 30, 2023

The Effect of Elevating the Supplemental Poverty Measure on Government Program Eligibility and Spending

Abstract A recent National Academy of Sciences report recommends elevating the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to the “nation’s headline poverty statistic.” I project how making the SPM the official poverty measure would affect eligibility for government assistance programs whose eligibility thresholds are tied to the official poverty line. Making the SPM the official poverty measure…

By Kevin Corinth

October 30, 2023

Does Wage Theft Vary by Demographic Group? Evidence from Minimum Wage Increases

Using Current Population Survey data, we assess whether and to what extent the burden of wage theft — wage payments below the statutory minimum wage — falls disproportionately on various demographic groups following minimum wage increases. For most racial and ethnic groups at most ages we find that underpayment rises similarly as a fraction of…

By Michael R. Strain | Jeffrey Clemens

October 27, 2023

Food Insecurity in the US and Inflation

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released its annual report on household food security—a survey that measures whether US households have “access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle.” The report documented the largest yearly increase in food insecurity since the Great Recession—increasing from 10.2 to 12.8 percent of all US households…

By Angela Rachidi

October 27, 2023

What Happened to the American Dream?

In the agonized debates over how it can possibly be that Donald Trump has such a strong chance of being returned to the White House in 2024, it’s important to stress the ways in which the Trump economy, before the arrival of Covid, departed in positive ways from the trends of the last half-century. Trump’s presidency was…

By Ross Douthat

October 27, 2023

What liberals don’t understand about men and marriage

There’s no question the bond between fatherhood and marriage is weaker today than it was 60 years ago. Whereas almost 80% of children were raised in an intact, married home with their father in the early 1960s, today only about 51% have that privilege. In the face of what seems like a fraying father-marriage bond, some left-leaning men’s advocates…

By W. Bradford Wilcox | Wendy Wang | Elizabeth Self

October 26, 2023

New Report Sheds Light on Expansive Biden Student Loan Forgiveness Scheme

Last week, the Urban Institute published a new report examining, in detail, the implications of President Biden’s latest scheme to forgive as much student debt as possible before the next election cycle: the SAVE repayment plan. This report brings much needed clarity to the question of exactly how Biden’s misguided attempts to forgive student debt through executive…

By Beth Akers