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 21, 2023
Four Shocking Truths about the American Economy! (Well, Shocking to Some.)
I recently wrote a brief essay, “Generative AI and Economic Growth,” for Exponential View, the great newsletter by Azeem Azhar. And I knew one particular passage would be sure to raise eyebrows: A lengthy and fundamentally solid expansion would allow the economic progress of the pre-pandemic period — falling inequality, rising real wages across the income…
August 10, 2023
The Real Reason People Leave Religion
More than a decade ago, the Pew Research Center released a path-breaking study on people without religion: “Nones” on the Rise. At the time, I was in graduate school studying political science and working full-time as a pollster. Partly inspired by this work, I wrote my dissertation exploring why people leave religion: “And Then There Were Nones:…
July 18, 2023
The Great Recession, COVID-19, Interest Hikes Left a 15-Year Mark on Housing
How have the Great Recession in 2007, the COVID-19 pandemic that hit in 2020, and the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes that started in 2022 affected mortgages in the region? Here’s the short answer: Each year, researchers at George Washington University use the State of the Capital Region report to do a deep dive on a policy…
June 30, 2023
The U.S. Could Learn a Lot from This School in the U.K.
Last month, I took advantage of a trip to the U.K. to spend a day observing at London’s legendary Michaela School, which serves about 800 students ages eleven to 18, a short distance from Wembley Stadium. Katharine Birbalsingh, who has gained fame in her country (some say infamy) as “Britain’s strictest headmistress,” invited me for an entire day…
June 30, 2023
It’s Time to End Legacy Admissions
The Supreme Court’s decision in the UNC and Harvard cases was received, as most news is these days, in two quite different ways on the two sides of our political aisle. But one theme seemed to resonate with both supporters and opponents of affirmative action: that in the spirit of ending unfair admissions practices, elite…
June 26, 2023
Why There Are So Few Black Kids at Stuyvesant: Private Schools and Charter Schools Pull Top Students Out of the System
Once more there is hand-wringing as only a handful of Black students are in the 2023 entering Stuyvesant class; and very limited numbers at Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech: the three flagship New York City high schools. These numbers are virtually the same as the previous year. As usual, most liberals again demand that the…
June 7, 2023
The Price We’ll Pay for Our AI Future: More Loneliness
Americans are trapped in a loneliness epidemic. Across the country, people are having fewer social interactions, spending more time alone, and reporting fewer close friends. These trends aren’t just a symptom of the COVID-19 pandemic — while the last few years may have accelerated the loneliness crisis, the shift toward a more solitary life has been happening…
June 7, 2023
Don’t Give Away the Farm Bill
Republicans have one more chance to roll back out-of-control welfare spending this year. The farm bill—must-pass legislation that authorizes food stamps and other agriculture programs—will be voted on by December. GOP lawmakers should focus on reining in President Biden’s unprecedented and expensive food-stamp hike. The American Rescue Plan’s temporary 15% increase in food-stamp benefits was…
June 2, 2023
America’s Baby Bust Is Back on Track
America’s birthrate has been falling steadily since the Great Recession 15 years ago, and the brief uptick of 2021 proved to be a statistical blip, as new birth data show a small drop in births in 2022. Speculation of a COVID baby boom hasn’t panned out. Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and…