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October 20, 2023

Revenge of the Rust Belt: The Surprising Forces That Have Made the Midwest the Hottest Housing Market Around

In the Fortune article below Shawn Tully discusses the resurgence of the Midwest’s housing market with Ed Pinto, the Director of AEI’s Housing Center. According to American Enterprise Institute data, eight of the nine cities achieving the highest appreciation in housing prices for the 12 months ended Aug. 31 hail from the Midwest. In the pandemic-driven housing…

October 18, 2023

Vocation: A Cure for Burnout

In a recent article for The Atlantic, former AEI president Arthur Brooks makes the case that to prevent burnout at work we need to create “meaningful boundaries” between work and the rest of our lives. As usual, Brooks has excellent advice about how to navigate life’s trenches and stay motivated and happy. Yet there is one piece missing: encouraging reflection on what drives us, what makes us tick,…

October 17, 2023

Understanding Poverty Measurement

COSM scholars and AEI affiliates include some of the nation’s foremost experts on poverty measurement. On October 17, COSM gathered several of these scholars to provide a primer on opportunity in the United States. Angela Rachidi began by exploring the meaning of poverty, outlining the most fundamental decisions in measuring it and describing how different…

October 17, 2023

Measuring Value in Higher Education

Event Description As Republicans and Democrats on the Hill and in state legislatures nationwide seek to address the rising debt burden facing college graduates, new focus has been placed on institutions of higher learning and how well they prepare graduates for entering the workforce and paying off accrued debt. This event explores the prospect of…

October 17, 2023

What Poor Children Need

When it comes to helping poor children in America grow up to enjoy successful adult lives, progressives and conservatives each have half the truth on their side. There is strong evidence to support both broad public spending programs and policies designed to encourage personal responsibility and stable households. What is the best way to help…

October 16, 2023

Serve Students, Not Institutions

More than 20,000 physical therapists left the profession in 2021 alone, notes a recent report. It’s therefore hard to imagine why anyone would want to discourage universities from offering more physical therapy programs to help renew the ranks. Unfortunately, that’s just what the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) did recently when it voted to stop…

October 13, 2023

Liberals Reap Consequences Of Their Homeless Policies

It’s cliche to observe that socially conservative views emerge when liberals are “mugged by reality.” But when it happens to the governor of California and the local leadership of Portland and Seattle, it’s not trite — it’s important. That’s exactly what has happened in the form of a push by leaders from every Western state asking the…

October 12, 2023

The GOP Should Be the Party of Parents

Republicans looking to expand their party’s coalition have a problem. The public identifies them above all with Donald Trump, who is decidedly unpopular. Voters who can possibly stand Trump (and even some who can’t) are already Republicans. And when Republicans talk about something other than Trump, it is generally the Democrats. So swing voters know that the…

October 12, 2023

Now the Administration Is Legislating on Welfare, Too

Last week the Department of Health and Human Services issued a proposed rule related to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. TANF is the cash welfare block grant Congress created in the 1996 welfare reform law, which was central to that legislation’s efforts to promote more work and less welfare receipt. For a capital already familiar with…

October 12, 2023

Blue States Are Getting More Federal Money Than They Should

The late New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan long complained — and commissioned data — about New York’s status as a “donor state,” for sending more in tax dollars to Washington than it received in return in the form of grants. This was always a misunderstanding of the virtues of the U.S. being a vast free-trade…