June 13, 2024
Why Married Fathers Matter
The eighth grade girls cleaned up at the middle school graduation I attended last week. Of the four major awards, three went to girls, and just one to a boy. This pattern is all too typical in American life today. Two-thirds of high school students in the top 10% are girls, while boys dominate the…
June 13, 2024
A Deal to Trump Student Loans
Last month, President Joe Biden bragged about how he forgave another $7 billion in student loans. “The Supreme Court blocked me,” he said, “but they didn’t stop me.” These billions were added to the administration’s tab that already exceeds $400 billion. And that doesn’t count the $500 billion the Supreme Court blocked him from forgiving, or the over $1 trillion he’s effectively trying to…
June 12, 2024
Our Homeless Problem is Getting Out Of Control — What Can We Do?
The ongoing debate over fining individuals for sleeping in public spaces is currently being deliberated by the Supreme Court in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. The case underscores a critical juncture in how we address homelessness. While the court’s decision will undoubtedly carry weight, it risks overshadowing the more pressing issue at hand: the urgent…
June 10, 2024
The Economic World We’ve Lost
Populism has infected both major parties in the United States, leading to policies that previous generations of economic policymakers would immediately recognized as foolhardy and counter-productive. But whether the country can escape its self-destructive pessimism is anyone’s guess. WASHINGTON, DC – The past decade has brought a sea change in US economic policy, and not…
June 7, 2024
An Epidemic of Loneliness in the Age of Boundaries
Social media features a different viral villain every day. If we’re lucky, he or she tells us something about ourselves. In just such a case, a man named Marcus Shepard got more than 12 million views on his post bragging of a breakup with a friend with whom he hadn’t had “meaningful offline contact in almost…
June 6, 2024
How New Graduates Can Thrive in a Workplace Dominated by AI
Dwight Eisenhower’s advice about plans and planning is still relevant today On June 6, the world will mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the 40th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “the Boys of Pont du Hoc” speech honoring those who helped turn back the Nazi threat on the beaches of Normandy. We are now as far from Reagan’s speech as the speech was…
June 4, 2024
What Comes After Neoliberalism?
The steep tariff increases on Chinese goods that US President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced are just the latest in a long string of interventionist economic policies that fly in the face of decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. And the Biden administration is hardly alone: a growing number of governments, economists, and institutions are rethinking the…
May 31, 2024
ACS Has Lost the Plot
It’s been almost a year, but Lynija Eason Kumar was finally charged with murder last month in the death of her six-year-old daughter, Jalayah Eason. The child, according to New York City’s medical examiner, died as a result of blunt-force injuries, malnourishment, and positional asphyxia. According to the New York Times, she “died after Ms. Eason…
May 30, 2024
The Contradictions in Democrats’ Child Tax Credit Expansion Promises
Politicians regularly vie for the support of parents with promises of good schools, bigger family benefits, and tax relief. President Joe Biden did just that last week in calling for increased funding for public education, child care, and more. Sometimes just the language of the proposal—like the president’s call to expand the child tax credit (CTC)—appears to…
May 24, 2024
The First National Calculation of Mortality of the US Homeless Population
It is well established that those with lower incomes tend to have worse health outcomes. But whether this relationship extends to the most disadvantaged in society – people experiencing homelessness – has rarely been examined. This column explores the relationship between homelessness and health outcomes in the US. It finds that after accounting for demographic…