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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

October 26, 2023

Working from Density

Is the COVID-19-driven surge in remote work temporary or permanent? To assess how the geography of work may evolve, we analyze the pre-pandemic status quo. Casual theorizing might suggest that workers with teleworkable jobs in the pre-pandemic era were more likely to live in the less dense, peripheral neighborhoods in their metropolitan area. Instead, we…

By Stan Veuger | Leah Brooks | Phillip G. Hoxie

October 25, 2023

The Freedom to Choose

When appraising American social cleavages, we should avoid lapsing into two unfortunate trends in conservative thinking: despair and polarization. In “Conservatism and Class,” Bruce Frohnen argues that conservatives should embrace class analysis albeit in a more heterodox and less exclusively economic way than we typically think of it. His argument makes compelling points, especially in the way it extends the Madisonian principle of…

By Brent Orrell

October 25, 2023

Dispelling Myths About The Child Tax Credit

Every culture has its famous myths, such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, and the world of politics is no different. Take, for example, President Joe Biden’s claims that he is a unifier or that ” Bidenomics” is working . The president offered another mythical claim last month when he said that “we cut child poverty by nearly half ……

By Matt Weidinger