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Perspectives on Opportunity

About

AEI’s Perspectives on Opportunity is a policy report series published by the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility (COSM). Contributions to this series include empirical and theoretical analysis of issues related to opportunity in the United States and evidence-based policy proposals to expand opportunity, promote upward mobility, and strengthen social capital. COSM Deputy Director Kevin Corinth is the editor of Perspectives on Opportunity.

Small-Dollar Demonstration Projects Can’t Hide That a National Guaranteed Income Program Would Cost Trillions

While some have declared that short-term guaranteed income demonstrations (patterned on universal basic income schemes) are working almost universally, such cheerleading misses a major drawback: the enormous costs that would arise if such programs operated at a national level, as proponents intend. This report reviews the costs of some recent proposals to operate such national guaranteed income programs, which stretch into trillions of dollars per year and are generally layered on existing welfare and related programs.

January 12, 2024 | By Matt Weidinger

Blue-State Benefits: How Federal Grants Fail to Consider Population Shift

The federal government annually awards hundreds of billions of dollars in grants to states. In this report, I examine funding for the largest federal grant programs for 2020–22, focusing on grants-in-aid that do not fully adjust for population change. For states losing population, I calculate “avoided reductions,” the difference between the grants a state received in 2022 and what it would have received had grant funding been reduced proportionate to population loss. I find that the sums of avoided reductions differ greatly among states, with California, Illinois, and New York spared the most.

October 12, 2023 | By Howard Husock

The Cost of Thriving Has Fallen: Correcting and Rejecting the American Compass Cost-of-Thriving Index

Our improvements to Cass’s estimates indicate the cost of thriving rose by 10 weeks rather than 22. After accounting for the better quality of the goods and services he tracks, the increase was four weeks. The cost of thriving declines when we account for falling federal taxes or include all full-time workers. The after-tax cost of thriving for this broader group fell by 7.5 weeks. These improvements aside, we reject the COTI approach as inadequate for assessing changes in living standards.

June 22, 2023 | By Scott Winship and Jeremy Horpedahl

Promoting Mobility Through SNAP: Toward Better Health and Employment Outcomes

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is among the nation’s largest safety-net programs, helping low-income households afford food, improve nutrition, and support employment. As program expenditures continue to grow, assessing SNAP from the perspective of employment and health outcomes is crucial. We analyze administrative and survey data to document trends in employment and health outcomes for adult SNAP recipients from 1996 to 2019.

May 1, 2023 | By Angela Rachidi and Thomas O'Rourke

Latest Updates

Protected: How Fixing SNAP’s Payment Error Rate Formula Would Change State Cost Shares

August 17, 2026 | Kevin Corinth

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

The Ongoing Battle to Defend Welfare Reform

August 15, 2026 | Scott Winship and Kevin Corinth

Welfare reform replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) 30 years ago this month. At the time, opponents warned that child poverty would surge as time limits and work requirements curbed reliance on welfare benefits. In reality, as noted by our colleague, Matt Weidinger, falling...

The Misleading Narrative About the ‘Hollowing Out’ of the Middle Class

August 12, 2026 | Scott Winship

The prevailing media narrative after years of mounting economic inequality is that the middle class is being hollowed out. But Scott Winship, a senior fellow and the director of the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility at the American Enterprise Institute, has argued in a recent New York Times op-ed and a...

The Cautionary Tale of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan

August 9, 2026 | Naomi Schaefer Riley

“If they knew they were going to stop investing in our community,” Angelica Cardenas told The Wall Street Journal, “it should have been spoken about earlier on.” Cardenas, whose 3-year-old daughter was enrolled at The Primary School, a private institution funded by Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan, was distraught to learn...