August 30, 2024
Harris’s Child Tax Credit Plan Punishes Working Families
Vice President Kamala Harris recently announced an economic plan for her presidential campaign. A centerpiece is the transformation of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) into a child allowance. If it became reality, the policy would discourage parental employment and risk harming the long-run prospects of children. These unintended consequences together with the plan’s cost should…
June 18, 2024
Answering Key Questions About Unemployment Insurance Reforms
Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and members of the Work and Welfare Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony on potential improvements to the nation’s unemployment insurance (UI) system to better support American workers, businesses, and taxpayers. My name is Matt Weidinger, and I am a Rowe Scholar in poverty studies at the…
May 10, 2024
A Jumble of Standards: How State and Federal Authorities Have Underestimated Child Maltreatment Fatalities
Key Points Read the full PDF. “There is no standard, mandated reporting system for child abuse or neglect deaths in this country. Definitions, investigative procedures, and reporting requirements vary from state to state. Attributing a child’s death to abuse rather than to an accident or natural cause is often extremely difficult. The death of a…
April 5, 2024
The US Is Failing Substance-Exposed Infants
Key Points Read the full pdf. Introduction The stark human and societal cost of the drug epidemic is undeniable, directly taking over 100,000 lives each year since 2021.1 Due to infrequent and inconsistent testing,2 there is no reliable count of how many children are exposed to substances in utero, but, even before the current drug epidemic began,…
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…
February 6, 2024
Research by a Top Biden Administration Economist Reinforces the Importance of Work Incentives in the Child Tax Credit and the Safety Net
For the past two years, economist Jacob Bastian has been the main researcher dedicated to trumpeting the virtues of a child tax credit (CTC) expansion. Writing first as an economist from academic perches at Rutgers and Princeton, later as an affiliate of moderate think tanks like the Niskanen Center and the R Street Institute, and…
January 31, 2024
How Should State and Local Governments Respond to Illegal Retail Cannabis?
Introduction Legal cannabis has become a fact of life in much of the United States. The District of Columbia and 24 states now permit the sale of recreational marijuana; they, and 14 additional states, also permit marijuana sale for supposedly medical purposes. Of course, the Food and Drug Administration has not actually approved marijuana for…
January 31, 2024
Long COVID for Public Schools: Chronic Absenteeism Before and After the Pandemic
Key Points Read the PDF.
January 29, 2024
The Value of a Bachelor’s Degree
Key Points As public confidence in higher education has declined, Americans have become less sanguine about the bachelor’s degree and skeptical of its potential return on investment. Nonetheless, four-year degrees continue to be associated with significant economic and noneconomic benefits for individuals and communities. For those who want to attend college, have adequate financing options, and can finish their degrees, the benefits of…
January 29, 2024
Let’s Not Turn the Child Tax Credit Into Welfare
A renewed effort to expand the child tax credit (CTC) is currently making its way through Congress. The proposed policy would increase benefits for low-income families—especially those with multiple children—automatically grow the credit with inflation, and most contentiously, eliminate the work requirement for families who had earnings in the prior year. In debating these changes and even…