January 10, 2024
Even Congress’s “Tax Extenders” Are About More Benefits
Congress’s long list of unfinished business for the new year includes “tax extender” legislation, which is normally considered before lawmakers adjourn for the holidays in December. The fact that this legislation has lingered into January isn’t the only oddity. In an era of already rapidly rising spending, the more troubling anomaly is much of that supposed…
January 9, 2024
Let’s Expand the Child Tax Credit a Little Bit
A bipartisan group of senators is trying to hash out a deal on extending some of the Republican tax cuts from 2017. If Congress does nothing, the child tax credit will drop down to $1,000 per child from its current level of $2,000. Some lawmakers want to expand the child tax credit massively. Others don’t. There’s a middle course that involves moderately growing…
January 9, 2024
The Success Sequence for Unmarried Mothers
As covered on these pages before, the success sequence—graduating high school, working full-time, and marrying before having children—has been proven to be an effective way for young people to avoid poverty. Research consistently finds that young people who follow these life steps have poverty rates dramatically below those who do not follow these steps. In a new study, I show that…
January 8, 2024
How to Actually Triumph over Poverty
On this day in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared an unconditional war on poverty in America during his State of the Union address. Six decades later, the nation has made tremendous strides, including a sizable reduction in the poverty rate as Americans enjoy an improved standard of living. Yet we have not won the war. Success…
January 4, 2024
To Fix Their Housing Shortage in 2024, Cities and States Should Turn To Market
States and cities considering housing supply reforms in the new year to combat worsening affordability should unleash the free market rather than rely on the Department for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulatory solutions. HUD’s recommendations tilt towards heavy-handed government interventions that lack thorough analysis and proven results. A particularly egregious example is HUD’s latest assessment of…
January 2, 2024
Billionaire-Built Cities Would Be Better Than Nothing
A company backed by Silicon Valley’s most powerful investors, including the LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, assembled a land empire outside San Francisco and announced a bold vision to build a brand-new city — and was immediately castigated by the world’s urbanists. Critics describe the effort by the company, Flannery…
January 2, 2024
We Can Make Chicago Safer By Prioritizing Stronger Families
It was a cold winter morning in 2021 when my youngest son ducked into a local gas station to grab a snack before heading to work. As he came out and entered his car, a gunman approached, yanked on his door, pointed a gun at him and commanded him to give up his car. My…
December 31, 2023
Forget Eric Adams’ Flawed Housing Plan — Let’s Make ALL NYC Neighborhoods “High-Opportunity”
New York City residents are facing the ill-effects of drastic, across-the-board budget cuts affecting the most basic city services. It would hardly seem to be the right time for the Adams administration to undertake an expensive new housing program with the city’s own funds. Yet that’s exactly what the Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced last week….
December 26, 2023
Safe-Injection Sites and Crime
Only two government-sanctioned “safe-injection sites” operate in the U.S., one in East Harlem, the other in Washington Heights. Their impact—on both those who use their facilities to inject hard drugs under medical supervision and on the neighborhoods where they are located—is thus of national significance. Other states, cities, and the federal government are doubtless closely…
December 21, 2023
Our Policies to Address Homelessness Are Failing
Official data released last Friday show that 2023 was the worst year ever recorded for homelessness, and it’s not even close. The 12 percent rise in homelessness quadrupled the previous record for a single-year increase. Our homeless population is now the largest it has ever been. Policy-makers must wake up to this national crisis. Our…