February 12, 2024
Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization
Fewer Americans are getting married and starting families, and that is a bad sign for the country. That’s because nothing matters more for the pursuit of happiness and the health of the American Dream than strong and stable marriages. In his new book, Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save…
February 12, 2024
Millennials Are Doing Better than You Probably Think
“Each generation is worse off than the one before.” It’s one of the primary tenets of the notion that American capitalism has failed and that we live in the final days of “late capitalism.” But have things really been all downhill since the Boomers became adults? Maybe not, according to the new study “Has Intergenerational…
February 9, 2024
Resolving to Learn Lessons from Record Pandemic Fraud
Congress doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions, but if it did, digesting our new report on pandemic fraud would be a good one. Released last week, the new report (“Pandemic Unemployment Fraud in Context: Causes, Costs, and Solutions”) details the how and why of record unemployment benefit fraud during the pandemic. Enacting even some of our policy resolutions…
February 9, 2024
Don’t Buy the Soulmate Myth
Taylor Swift’s hit song “Lover” is the perfect anthem for this Valentine’s Day, especially since she is in the midst of a very public romance with her latest boyfriend, Travis Kelce. “There’s a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you,” she sings to her “magnetic force of a man.” This gets the start of a…
February 9, 2024
The Upside of the College Enrollment Downswing
Enrollment in education after high school peaked in 2010, with 21 million students enrolling in two-or four-year degree programs that fall. Since then, enrollment has steadily declined, and even projections that predict a modest increase in the coming years top out at 20 million enrollees in 2031. The steepest declines in enrollment were seen at two-year colleges,…
February 8, 2024
CTC Expansion Rooted in Desire to Roll Back Work-based Welfare
Modifications to the child tax credit (CTC) are included in H.R. 7024, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which the House of Representatives approved on January 31, 2024. That legislation pairs an extension of expired business tax relief policies, generally sought by Republicans, with an expansion of the CTC, which…
February 8, 2024
Chronic Absenteeism After the Pandemic
Event Summary On February 8, AEI’s Nat Malkus presented on his research into post-pandemic chronic absenteeism and then discussed the phenomenon with a panel of experts. During his presentation, Dr. Malkus argued that a proper understanding of post-pandemic chronic absenteeism must consider both school pandemic closures and school pandemic responses more broadly. Dr. Malkus then…
February 8, 2024
Another Flawed Analysis Shows that Single Mothers are Highly Sensitive to Changes in Work Incentives
Tuesday, I published a critique of a paper by Council of Economic Advisers senior economist Jacob Bastian related to the debate over expanding the child tax credit (CTC). In that paper, Bastian sought to discredit analyses claiming that single mothers are highly sensitive to work incentives. Specifically, he argued that the “labor supply elasticities” used…
February 7, 2024
Solving Benefit Cliffs in SNAP
At their best, safety net policies in the US reduce poverty by spurring upward mobility among the most disadvantaged. This requires identifying disadvantaged families and scaling benefits according to their need, all while trying to encourage employment and other mobility-inducing behaviors in the process. When safety net programs do not meet this charge, families can…
February 7, 2024
Child Tax Credit Bill Would Increase Marriage Penalties for Working Single Mothers
H.R. 7024, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, was passed by the House last week and is now moving to the Senate for consideration. The bill would change the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in several ways. The two most contentious changes are a one-year lookback for the refundable portion of…