All Research

September 12, 2024

Surgeon general’s dour picture of parenthood misses the mark

Fifteen years ago, after we had adopted five children, I thought my wife and I were done having children. Boy, was I wrong. She got pregnant with twins in 2009 and, after the girls were born, I was shellshocked by the double dose of diapers, late nights and extra parenting demands — not to mention…

By Brad Wilcox | Wendy Wang | Alysse ElHage

September 11, 2024

As America’s housing crisis intensifies, the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act of 2024 has emerged as a high-profile yet expensive solution.

The bill comes with a $500 billion price tag and endorsements from leading Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris. Moody’s, a major financial services company, has also blessed the act, predicting it will lower rents and significantly boost the supply of affordable housing. But before the country embraces this rosy outlook, it must confront a stark reality: Government interventions in housing…

By Tobias Peter | Edward J. Pinto

September 9, 2024

The Nanny State Is Not the Answer to Parents’ Challenges

The chaos of summer is over. Kids have gone back to school. But fall brings a whole new set of challenges. We parents have spent the past few weeks creating complex matrices — schedules for child care, after-school activities, and car pools. But by next week, someone will get sick, or a babysitter will quit, and…

By Naomi Shaefer Riley | Brad Wilcox

September 5, 2024

Hurt Pennsylvania’s Workers to Win Pennsylvania’s Votes?

Have populist politics gotten so out of control that politicians believe they need to hurt Pennsylvania’s workers in order to win Pennsylvania’s electoral votes? Yesterday, the Washington Post reported: President Joe Biden is preparing to announce that he will formally block Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, according to three people with knowledge of the…

By Michael R. Strain

September 4, 2024

Kamala Harris’s Housing Plan Would Be Worse Than Doing Nothing

Originally appeared in Newsweek On August 16, presidential candidate Kamala Harris unveiled a series of housing proposals that recycle the same failed strategies that have plagued federal housing policy for decades. Among the key components are subsidies for the construction of 3 million new housing units over four years, as well as a total of $100 billion…

By Edward J. Pinto | Tobias Peter

September 2, 2024

This Is How to Fix the Housing Crisis

Vice President Kamala Harris correctly identified one of America’s biggest problems when she said that “there’s a serious housing shortage.” America’s affordable-housing crisis exacerbates wealth inequities, leads low-income parents to live in neighborhoods with less upward mobility and reduces our country’s capacity for economic growth, innovation and adaptation to regional shocks. Unfortunately, her proposed solutions…

By Edward L. Glaeser

August 30, 2024

When It Comes to Declining Donations, There’s More to the Story

To the Editor: New research showing a sharp decline in giving in 2018 — the year after passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — must be tempered by a consideration of the extent of nonitemized giving, which is often difficult to capture. Rasheeda Childress’s article “Donors Likely Giving $16 Billion Less Each…

By Howard Husock

August 29, 2024

Kamala Harris Wants to Turn the Tax Code into a Mammoth ATM

Given her liberal record, it’s no surprise that Vice President Kamala Harris’s recently released economic agenda calls for vast increases in benefits for low-income adults. But it should be surprising for that spending to be cast as tax relief since low-income adults pay few, if any, federal income taxes in the first place. That’s the spin Harris…

By Matt Weidinger

August 27, 2024

Poverty Isn’t Neglect, and Money Isn’t Always the Answer

“I think about the families separated in Missouri over the years, not because of abuse or neglect, but because they could not afford to pay a bill or new clothes for their kids.” That was House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) last month, announcing the Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act. This idea that children are removed…

By Naomi Schaefer Riley

August 26, 2024

Vouching for Self-Sufficiency

It’s hard to sympathize with the Parkoff Organization, the New York real estate firm that owns some 4,000 apartments across the city. According to a new lawsuit, housing “testers” caught the group discriminating against potential tenants whose rent would have been subsidized by housing vouchers. The Fair Housing Justice Center (FHJC), which brought the suit, claims that Parkoff…