November 12, 2024
The National Assessment of Educational Progress Recompete: Is It Real Change or Lipstick on a Pig?
Key Points Read the PDF. The American government runs on contracts between government agencies and private companies (both for- and not-for-profit).1 When things go awry, it is often because a long-term incumbent contractor lacked the incentive to provide more cost-effective services or accountability for a poor product, both of which have been made clear by the…
November 12, 2024
Government Contracting for “America’s Report Card” Is Broken
If you tried to apply for federal student aid this 2024–2025 school year, you would have been met with a glitch-filled online form created using 40-year-old code, released three months behind schedule, and that might have arrived too late for a college to offer you the aid you applied for. This failure of the Education Department and…
November 12, 2024
Irresistible Policy, Meet the Unmovable Labor Market
Gad Levanon, chief economist at The Burning Glass Institute, analyzed data relating to the share of undocumented workers in a wide variety of trades and lower-wage, lower-skilled occupations, as well as higher-skilled jobs in construction and manufacturing. Bear in mind that many of these occupations are related to housing, the largest contributor to our recent bout of high…
November 10, 2024
The Risks of Nonprofit Local Journalism
The decision of Washington Post owner/Amazon founder Jeff Bezos not to allow the paper’s editorial board to endorse a presidential candidate has stirred disappointment cum outrage among the paper’s readers — some 250,000 have gone so far as to cancel their subscriptions. Bezos, with the deepest of pockets, was once viewed as the Post’s savior — now he’s the devil in…
November 9, 2024
NYC Safe Injection Sites Reduce OD Deaths—but Not in the Worst Neighborhoods
There is a glimmer—the slightest bright spot—of good news about drug overdoses in New York. The city’s Health Department reports that overdose deaths in 2023 declined compared to the previous year—but they fell just one percent, from 3,070 to 3,046. A close look at that number reveals not only is it tiny, but that an important indicator…
November 8, 2024
It’s Time for Conservatives to Reclaim Our Place in Ed Reform
As the results of the election came into focus Tuesday night, Chuck Todd made a keen observation on NBC: Republicans’ biggest gains among Hispanic voters came in Florida and Texas, states that “have been very aggressive about expanding school choice.” That’s not a coincidence. Conservatives have long understood that school choice is a winning issue, especially in…
November 7, 2024
Key Data on Federal Benefits Paid to Illegal Immigrant Households
Soaring illegal immigration during the Biden-Harris administration was a major campaign theme, with a pre-election Harvard poll finding Americans considered immigration the second-most important issue—right behind inflation and ahead of the economy. An AP exit poll seconded that ranking, with 39 percent of voters citing the economy as their top issue, followed by immigration at 20 percent—up from three…
November 7, 2024
Introducing the “More Accurate Consumer Price Index”
Abstract Particularly since the 1990s, federal statistical agencies have worked to improve the ability ofvarious price indexes to measure changes in the cost of living. However, in recent years, somehave sent mixed signals to researchers about the relative merits of different measures. As aresult, academic and policy researchers routinely use theoretically and empirically inferior priceindexes…
November 5, 2024
Never Let a Crisis End
New York City’s perennial housing crisis—the city has regularly declared a housing “emergency” since 1971—is back on the city council’s agenda, with two proposals to address it. On the surface, the two plans, one championed by Mayor Eric Adams, the other by City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, seem complementary; both promise more housing. But a…
November 5, 2024
Harvard Professor Edward Glaeser on the U.S. Housing Crisis
Why are U.S. housing prices so high? Edward L. Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University, is an expert in housing and urban economics. His work highlights the relationship between housing supply, urban growth, and economic prosperity, offering insights for policymakers to create more sustainable and equitable urban environments through…