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September 12, 2023

Please, Gen Z Aren’t “Doomed to be the First Generation of Americans Who Will Grow Up with a Lower Standard of Living Than Their Parents”

One could easily fill all the waking hours in the day—and non-waking hours, too!—with pointed responses to all the bad economic opinions expressed on social media. That said, I like to dip in every now and then with a humbly offered counterpoint. This week’s 9/11 anniversary, for example, meant the recycling of this passage from…

September 12, 2023

Time Is a School’s Most Precious Resource. Where Does It Go?

In schools, it can feel like there’s never enough time. Even though American students spend as much or more time in school as their peers around the globe (a fact that’s not widely known), valuable units, lessons, conversations, and projects are always running into time constraints. Teachers, for instance, articulate a clear set of priorities for which…

September 12, 2023

Housing Finance Watch (Week 35 & 36, 2023)

PDF to full report  Key takeaways:

September 8, 2023

Is Vote Dilution Necessarily Bad?

There really is no obvious way to defend the congressional district map drawn by the Alabama state legislature—and struck down by a federal court for unconstitutionally diluting the African-American vote in that state. More than 25 percent of Alabama’s population is black, yet only one of its seven members of Congress is. At the same…

September 7, 2023

AI Closes the Gaps

It’s a perennial hazard of the policy and opinion space that just about the time one is ready to hold forth on a topic, another, smarter, faster writer jumps in. On the one hand, it’s a bummer; on the other, the explanation of the issue is so good and comprehensive, all one can do is…

September 6, 2023

Why Staten Island seceding from NYC makes sense — for multiple reasons

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is right that Staten Island is not likely to succeed in seceding from the city of New York. The borough needs the approval of both the City Council and the state Legislature — neither of which agreed to the idea even after Staten Islanders voted to split off from Gotham in a 1993 referendum,…

September 6, 2023

Working from Home Has Increased More Modestly Than Many Believe

The shock of the COVID-19 pandemic created urgent demand for “high frequency” national statistics. Prior to the pandemic, many economic indicators were available only on an annual basis (or even less frequently). One important exception was the unemployment rate, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates every month. The unemployment rate jumped more than threefold—from…

September 5, 2023

Trump’s Tariffs Won’t Address the Trade Deficit

Last month, the Washington Post reported that former president Donald Trump plans to enact a 10 percent tariff on all imports if reelected. After facing sharp criticism, Trump defended his proposal in a letter to the Wall Street Journal. He argued that the trade deficit is a “loss” for the US economy and that his tariffs would be the “best way” to…

September 5, 2023

Audit Finds California Continues to Mismanage Unemployment Benefits

A scathing report released by the California State Auditor on August 24 finds that the state’s Economic Development Department (EDD) continues to mismanage the unemployment insurance (UI) program, resulting in “a substantial risk of serious detriment to the State and its residents.” The California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which oversees EDD, was formerly led by Julie…

September 5, 2023

Trump’s Tariffs Won’t Address the Trade Deficit

Last month, the Washington Post reported that former president Donald Trump plans to enact a 10 percent tariff on all imports if reelected. After facing sharp criticism, Trump defended his proposal in a letter to the Wall Street Journal. He argued that the trade deficit is a “loss” for the US economy and that his tariffs would be the “best way” to…