February 1, 2023
The Change in Poverty from 1995 to 2016 Among Single‐Parent Families
Whether poverty has risen or fallen over time is a key barometer of societal progress. Between 1970 and 2020, the official poverty rate in the United States fell by just 1.2 percentage points (9.5 percent), suggesting limited economic gains for the disadvantaged despite large investments in anti‐poverty programs. In contrast, several recent studies have found much…
January 5, 2023
Faith After the Pandemic: How COVID-19 Changed American Religion
Key Points Read the PDF. Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic touched nearly every aspect of American life. Schools, offices, grocery stores, and churches faced daunting challenges in the early days of the pandemic in their efforts to operate while keeping their employees, members, and the broader community safe. For churches and religious organizations, concerns over COVID-19…
December 14, 2022
Bringing Home the Bacon: Have Trends in Men’s Pay Weakened the Traditional Family?
Key Points
December 9, 2022
“Automatic Stimulus”: How It Would Have Increased the Record Unemployment Benefits Paid During the Great Recession and Pandemic
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary The COVID-19 pandemic saw unemployment claims reach a high of over 33 million in June 2020—over two and a half times the prior record set during the Great Recession. From March 2020 until temporary federal programs expired in September 2021, nearly 1.6 billion weeks of benefit checks were…
December 6, 2022
Fixing Our Child Welfare System to Help America’s Most Vulnerable Kids
Every day, more and more children in America lack a safe, permanent, and loving home. Evidence increasingly shows that child welfare agencies and family courts aremuch more concerned with adults’ needs and sensibilities than with children’s safety.While reform must come from many different corners of this field, Congress should committo creating a stronger and smarter…
November 28, 2022
Public School Instructional Offerings and Enrollment Changes: Evidence from Two Years After the Pandemic
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary We examine how COVID-related reopening policies during the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years affected enrollment in public school districts. We use difference-in-differences and event study designs to estimate plausibly causal effects of different reopening policies on public school enrollment. Consistent with prior research, we find that public school…
September 30, 2022
Off Track: An Assessment of Wisconsin’s Early Care and Learning System for Young Children
Preface Raising children, as can be fully appreciated only after you’ve done it, takes place in realtime. They eat, sleep and grow whether you’re ready or not. So as parents supply childrenwith the most crucial material treasure they ever will receive — a stable, loving home — manyrely on some outside help in caring for…
September 12, 2022
Section 199A and “Tax Parity”
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary In 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included a new deduction for business income: Section 199A. This provision allows taxpayers to deduct up to 20 percent of qualifying business income against their taxable income and provides a special tax benefit for “pass-through” businesses—those not subject to the…
August 10, 2022
A Failure to Respond: Public School Mask Mandates in the 2021–22 School Year
Key Points From September 2021 to late February 2022, school district mask mandates were in place for 61 percent of students in the US.During that period, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance advised all students and teachers to mask indoors, with no flexibility based on local conditions.On February 25, 2022, the CDC adopted…
February 23, 2022
The Case Against Universal Free Lunch
Key Points Read the PDF. Introduction Who should feed children? Parents or the government? Before the pandemic, more than half of American public school students were eligible for free or reduced price school lunch (FRL).1 Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has proposed expanding the program to provide free breakfast, lunch, and dinner to every American public school…