August 30, 2022
Biden’s Student Loan Debt Plan is Driven by Politics, Not Economics
On Wednesday, President Biden announced his long-awaited plan to cancel student loans — effectively wiping away up to $10,000 for borrowers with individual income below $125,000 (and couples with joint income below $250,000). The administration’s plan forgives up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients under the same income limits. The move, which will cost taxpayers…
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…
June 15, 2022
Second Time’s the Charm?
Early last year, Senator Mitt Romney proposed a new approach to family policy that exposed some significant rifts among right-leaning policy wonks who care about fighting poverty and supporting family formation. This week, Romney (together with fellow Republicans Richard Burr and Steve Daines) has offered a revised version of the idea that might just have what it takes…
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…
November 16, 2021
The Changing Face of Social Breakdown
Last month, two of my colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute (Brad Wilcox and Lyman Stone), along with co-authors from the Wheatley Foundation and the Institute for Family Studies, published an important new paper on the state of family formation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s a fascinating study, well worth your while, which reviews…
October 20, 2021
Public Places and Commercial Spaces: How Neighborhood Amenities Foster Trust and Connection in American Communities
Key Points Read the PDF.
August 23, 2021
Policies to Help the Working Class in the Aftermath of COVID-19: Lessons from the Great Recession
By Richard V. Burkhauser, Kevin C. Corinth, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated government-mandated shutdowns caused a historic shock to the U.S. economy and a disproportionate job loss concentrated among the working class. While an unprecedented social safety net policy response successfully offset earnings losses among lower-wage workers, the risk of…
July 2, 2021
Addressing the Shortcomings of the Supplemental Poverty Measure
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary The US Census Bureau publishes the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) each year to provide important information on low-income Americans’ well-being. In early 2021, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) panel formed to evaluate and recommend improvements to the SPM. To inform the NASEM panel and…
August 3, 2020
Replace the Federal Student Loan System with an Income Share Agreement Program
Key Points Read the PDF. Introduction We hear a lot about how student loans are unaffordable for borrowers. That notion was central in the 2020 Democratic primary race, with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) proposing to wipe away massive amounts of debt. Student loans—an oft-forgotten policy issue in days past—were addressed in…
May 4, 2020
How To Educate an American
In the years after A Nation at Risk, conservatives’ ideas to reform America’s lagging education system gained much traction. Key items like school choice and rigorous academic standards drew bipartisan support and were put into practice across the country. Today, these gains are in retreat, ceding ground to progressive nostrums that do little to boost the…