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May 22, 2024
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson’s proposed Farm Bill reauthorization, The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024, heads to committee markup today. The Farm Bill is a tough reauthorization normally, and even more difficult in a tightly divided House. While there are provisions that would improve the program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) needs…
May 20, 2024
Indivar Dutta-Gupta and Scott Winship talked about the 60th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” speech and the war on poverty.
May 16, 2024
Abstract In 2021, Congress passed and President Biden signed a major, but temporary, reform to the Child Tax Credit (CTC). Among other reforms to the credit, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) made it available to non-workers on the same basis as workers. Attempts to make this reform permanent foundered, in part, due to opposition…
May 14, 2024
Key Points Executive Summary Doomers on the political left and right agree that economic growth has failed to translate into higher wages for American workers, with some claiming that pay has barely risen in 50 years. Such sentiments have been buttressed by flawed analyses that, comparing apples to oranges in a variety of ways, have…
May 8, 2024
Every year, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) releases a report detailing the share of US households who are “food insecure”—defined as those that have “limited or uncertain access to adequate food” due to insufficient resources. Last month, the USDA released a report combining six years of data (2016-2021) to show how food insecurity rates…
May 6, 2024
If you ask why these privileged college students are bringing their campuses to a halt over an issue that has almost nothing to do with their universities, the answer is likely to expand beyond Gaza into a story of a broader struggle and trauma this generation has endured. This contention, that Generation Z has grown up in a uniquely…
April 23, 2024
Birthrates are low and falling in the United States, and commentators and policymakers are starting to realize this is a problem. It’s tempting to assume that this is about affordability: People aren’t getting married and having children because they can’t afford it! This is partly true, and so it’s partly true that we can drive up birthrates by giving money…
April 18, 2024
Hunger in the US is rising at an alarming pace – or is it? Last year’s annual report on food insecurity in the US led lawmakers to believe hunger is on the rise, and, unsurprisingly, federal lawmakers are using rising levels of food insecurity to advocate for expansions to federal government programs. Unfortunately, policymakers are conflating hunger and…
April 17, 2024
Abstract Homelessness is arguably the most extreme hardship associated with poverty in the United States, yet people experiencing homelessness are excluded from official poverty statistics and much of the extreme poverty literature. This paper provides the most detailed and accurate portrait to date of the level and persistence of material disadvantage faced by this population,…
April 17, 2024
The Wyden-Smith tax bill, which combines an expanded child tax credit (CTC) with a variety of business tax breaks, has been in limbo in the Senate for the past three months. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised to bring up the bill if there’s enough support, but so far, these votes have not been forthcoming…