September 15, 2023
Why Industrial Policy Fails
With Democrats and Republicans alike supporting a shift from free markets toward government planning, the United States has clearly entered a new era of economic policymaking. Yet all the reasons why such strategies generally fail to make good on politicians’ promises are as valid as ever. WASHINGTON, DC – Industrial policy is all the rage…
September 15, 2023
What Does a Good Economy Look Like?
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve written one column arguing that the economic situation for working class America is now better, relative to a decade ago, than some pessimistic populists make it sound, and another arguing that the eating-away at American wages because of inflation explains some important measure of President Biden’s political difficulties. I think both of…
September 14, 2023
The Privilege Hiding in Plain Sight
The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind, by Melissa S. Kearney (University of Chicago Press, 240 pp., $25) Imagine you are twelve years old and your public-school teacher asks you and your seventh-grade classmates to stand side by side in a line. The instructor lists a series of personal attributes and…
September 12, 2023
Who Is Happiest? Married Mothers and Fathers, Per the Latest General Social Survey
Social media and mainstream media are replete with stories suggesting marriage and parenthood are not fulfilling, especially for women. Not surprisingly, many Americans now believe the key to being happy is a good education, work, and freedom from the encumbrances of family life—not getting married and having a family. These cultural developments raise an important question answered by this Institute for Family…
September 12, 2023
Time Is a School’s Most Precious Resource. Where Does It Go?
In schools, it can feel like there’s never enough time. Even though American students spend as much or more time in school as their peers around the globe (a fact that’s not widely known), valuable units, lessons, conversations, and projects are always running into time constraints. Teachers, for instance, articulate a clear set of priorities for which…
September 6, 2023
Why Staten Island seceding from NYC makes sense — for multiple reasons
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is right that Staten Island is not likely to succeed in seceding from the city of New York. The borough needs the approval of both the City Council and the state Legislature — neither of which agreed to the idea even after Staten Islanders voted to split off from Gotham in a 1993 referendum,…
September 1, 2023
Paying People to Have Kids Can Only Do So Much When You’re in a Spiraling Baby Bust
“Frankly, whenever elections come up politicians tend to unveil grand measures aimed at resolving the birthrate issue,” Choi Seul-ki, a demographer in South Korea, told the Wall Street Journal. “But cash is a limited incentive in changing people’s outlook on life.” Indeed, South Korea has spent more than $210 billion in the past decade in an effort to…
August 31, 2023
Where Are The Energy Stamps, Joe?
As summer temperatures rise , the Biden administration has pushed its green energy agenda hard — all the while ignoring the financial pain those policies disproportionately cause lower-income Americans. Last month, the Department of Transportation released fuel economy standards constituting a de facto mandate to purchase new electric vehicles. With the average EV price exceeding $60,000 , government subsidies may help the well-off…
August 29, 2023
How to Reengage Parents in Their Children’s Schooling
I wrote recently about the opportunity (and need) to rethink the parent-educator partnership. Inevitably, a bunch of practical questions arise about how to do that. After all, for every frustrated parent who feels unwelcome or out of the loop, there’s an equally frustrated teacher who has stories of parents not showing up for meetings or not responding…
August 28, 2023
Here’s a Kind of Job-Training Program That Works
JOB-TRAINING AND WORKFORCE-DEVELOPMENT programs have long been plagued by weak wage and job-persistence outcomes. Since the United States spends markedly less on these types of programs than do other developed nations, it’s reasonable to ask whether the weak outcomes are a function of the programs or the funding. Likely, it is a combination of both. The good…