May 31, 2023
Ending the Small Checks Scam
It’s no secret that strengthening work requirements for key welfare benefits has been a flashpoint in the debt limit negotiations. House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), insisted on including stronger work requirements in any agreement that raises the debt limit. Meanwhile President Joe Biden vacillated. At first, he noted his past support for work requirements and seemed open…
May 31, 2023
Children Are Dead Because Activists Say It’s Racist for ACS to Act
When a child is found dead with bruises on her wrists and torso, the first question is always: Were there warning signs? In the case of 6-year-old Jalayah Eason, the answer is undoubtedly yes. It wasn’t just the upstairs neighbor who heard the child “screaming for her dear life” and yelling, “Stop, stop, stop!” Who told…
May 31, 2023
Sending the Wrong Signals
The New York City Council has added another misguided new progressive policy to those, like bail reform and safe drug-injection sites, that make life worse for the poor in the name of helping them. By a vote of 41 to seven—and in the face of Mayor Eric Adams’s opposition—the council voted last week to pass…
May 30, 2023
Parenting While High
Last month, Albuquerque police launched an investigation into how they handled the case of a seven-month-old baby who died in 2022 of asphyxiation. The death was ruled accidental—the child fell between a couch and a windowsill—even though he also had methamphetamines in his system. Three other children in the home also tested positive within a few days,…
May 27, 2023
How Newborns Are Becoming Victims of Legalized Marijuana Use
The Administration for Children’s Services has engaged in “pervasive discriminatory practices,” according to a lawsuit filed by Chanetto Rivers in federal court last week. Rivers, who is black, claims that the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) removed her newborn baby from her custody as part of the agency’s “disparate treatment of Black families” which “cause[s]…
May 24, 2023
Don’t Be So Shocked That People Still Want Marriage and Children
Four writers at Curbed, the millennial-run, New York-centric real estate site, undertook an ambitious project. To put a price tag on living in New York, they asked young people to describe their ideal life and then tried to calculate how much it would cost. “We decided to put a price tag on the dream lives of a wide…
May 23, 2023
Will Biden Cross a Line on Poverty?
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences seeks to redefine poverty. The NAS presents the effort as a matter of science: “An accurate measure of poverty is necessary to fully understand how the economy is performing across all segments of the population and to assess the effects of government policies on communities and families.” But…
May 23, 2023
An Unexpected Role for AI in the Workplace
WHEN MICHAEL POLANYI, the underappreciated twentieth-century physicist, philosopher, and economist, is remembered nowadays, it is most often for having observed that much of human knowledge, in both practical and abstract matters, is “tacit” rather than explicit. Most of what we know is not written or verbalized anywhere, yet it nonetheless exists as a foundation for our consciously…
May 23, 2023
Public Housing Should Have Work Rules, Too
Thanks to the debt-ceiling showdown, Republicans appear to have a fighting chance to add a work requirement for those receiving SNAP (food stamp) and Medicaid benefits. They should also turn their attention to another major federal program that fosters dependency and discourages work: housing assistance. Local experiments across the country suggest that requiring those in…
May 23, 2023
Biden Courts Another Mortgage Crisis
The Biden administration is making moves that could imperil the safety of the housing finance system. Recent mortgage pricing changes, which have generally decreased fees for borrowers with lower credit scores and increased fees for those with higher scores, have rightly garnered public outcry, but they are the tip of the iceberg. The administration’s other…