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…
August 29, 2024
It’s Time for Radical Reform in Higher Education
There were many years when Republican and Democratic lawmakers weren’t too far apart on higher education policy. Their rhetoric reflected different priorities, but neither party really pushed for a radical departure from the status quo. Debate about reform was largely at the margins. But times have changed. The Overton window on higher education has shifted…
August 28, 2024
Race, Ethnicity, and Measurement Error
Abstract Large literatures have analyzed racial and ethnic disparities in economic outcomes and access to the safety net. For such analyses that rely on survey data, it is crucial that survey accuracy does not vary by race and ethnicity. Otherwise, the observed disparities may be confounded by differences in survey error. In this paper, we…
August 28, 2024
Some Context Behind JD Vance’s Child Tax Credit Comments
Recently, GOP Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance said on Face the Nation “We should expand the child tax credit… I’d love to see a child tax credit that’s $5,000 per child.” He further proposed that the expanded credit be extended to “all American families,” emphasizing disparities in the availability of the current child tax credit…
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…
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…
August 24, 2024
Harris’s Child Tax Credit Proposal Could Backfire, Perpetuating Poverty
A centerpiece of Vice President Harris’ newly released economic plan is a revamped Child Tax Credit, which would send families $6,000 for each newborn and up to $3,600 for older children, up from the existing $2,000 per child credit. Her proposal follows Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s recent call to increase the credit to $5,000…
August 23, 2024
Can Kamala Harris Learn the Housing Lessons from Her Own History?
In a biographical aside in her Thursday night nomination-acceptance speech, Kamala Harris spoke eloquently, and perhaps inadvertently, about “affordable housing” policy. She recalled the neighborhood in the East Bay where her mother rented an apartment: In the Bay, you either live in the hills or the flatlands. We lived in the flats — A beautiful, working-class neighborhood…
August 22, 2024
Active Fathers Are Exacerbating the Two-Parent Privilege
Fathers today are doing more than ever. Not only are they taking on more housework—doing laundry, cooking, and cleaning—but they are more involved with child care as well. They help with homework and serve as chauffeurs, coaches and role models. Fathers with young kids spend, on average, nearly two hours a day caring for their kids. The division…
August 20, 2024
The Robots Are Going to Take These Jobs. Thank Goodness.
Today, The Verge profiled a new Tesla project aimed at training robots for routine materials movement. The company is hiring workers between 5’7” and 5’11” to move 30-pound packages while wearing sensor arrays and virtual reality goggles. These workers will provide the motion capture data to train Tesla’s Optimus robots, which will eventually begin taking over this…