All Research
Book
A Safety Net for the Future: Overcoming the Root Causes of Poverty
…1996 welfare reform reduced poverty dramatically by putting millions of poor Americans on a path to self-sufficiency, but policymakers have since increased the number of Americans receiving unconditional transfers. Policymakers…
Op-Ed
The Myth of Income Stagnation
…the former. This is not to suggest that wages and incomes have been growing fast enough, or that policymakers should be satisfied with where we are. Increasing participation in the…
Op-Ed
Less Activation in US Social Assistance Programs?
…continued to result in real annual cuts in the value of the TANF block grant, which is not adjusted for inflation.[1] Meanwhile, recent years have seen policymakers on the left as…
Op--Ed
Biden’s Student Loan Debt Plan is Driven by Politics, Not Economics
…be facing higher prices and less conservative borrowing as a result of last week’s cancellation announcement. I’ve spent the past decade working to help policy makers and the public better…
Op-Ed
Dynamism as a Public Philosophy
…celebration of that ethic. The right’s pivot to populism occurred because conservatives overlearned the lessons of the 2012 presidential election, when “makers” were prioritized over “takers.” In the years that followed, many conservatives rediscovered…
op-Ed
The Changing Face of Social Breakdown
…broadly understood, a recognition of the changing face of social breakdown ought to mean looking for ways to help people find and follow this better path. Policymakers have to translate…
Op-Ed
Democrats’ Stealth Plan to Enact Universal Basic Income
…welfare benefits with no expectation of work would reduce employment and earnings, establish lifelong government dependency for millions of Americans, and increase unwed childbearing. Democratic lawmakers may be happy to…
Blog Post
‘Child Allowances’ Revive Welfare as We Knew It
…as any proposal that directs more checks to low-income families will appear to do. But if making families less poor on paper were the sole goal of social policy, lawmakers…
Report
Replace the Federal Student Loan System with an Income Share Agreement Program
Replace-the-federal-student-loan-system-with-an-income-share-agreement-programDownload…
Book
Rethinking Reentry
Summary Policymakers and researchers have been searching for a solution to persistently high rates of recidivism for decades. While the number of incarcerated individuals under federal and state jurisdiction has decreased in recent…
Journal Publication
Work, Family, and Community
…guide policy-makers and analysts moving forward, and we comment on challenges and potential solutions offered in this collection of work. We conclude with some suggestions for how the safety net…
Op-Ed
Policies Favoring Welfare over Work Are Not Answers for Ending Poverty
…work will not liberate anyone. It will only harm the very people policymakers are claiming to help by making it harder for them to escape poverty for good. Matt Weidinger…