All Research
Op-Ed
Congress Shouldn’t Create Another Newborn Benefit
…while slowing economic growth. Policies intended to help children may unintentionally make them worse off in the long run. The fiscally responsible way to address the financial strain of parents…
Working Paper
The Value of Reliable Statistics
Abstract On August 1, 2025, President Trump fired the head of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and claimed that the agency’s data were “rigged.” In the aftermath, measures…
Op-Ed
There Are Many Reasons to Cheer Up About the State of the Middle Class
This piece originally appeared at National Review Online and is reprinted here with permission. Statistics show that the middle class is healthier and more secure than ever before. This week, Michael…
Op-Ed
How Much AI-Driven Productivity Growth Do We Want?
As AI advances, societies must consider how to strike a balance between the disruption caused by rapid productivity growth and its many benefits, including rising incomes and living standards. Fortunately,…
Blog Post
Young Men Aren’t Checked Out. We’ve Closed the Paths That Once Guided Them
…between aspiration and attainment; a quiet but consequential form of social strain. It is tempting to interpret this gap as evidence of disengagement. But consider what the data actually show….
Op-Ed
No, It Doesn’t Make Sense to Give Cash to a Drug-Abusing Parent
…authors assert that “the most persistent threats to families with a substance-using parent stem from housing insecurity, economic precarity, strained relationships and the absence of reliable material and social support.”…
Op-Ed
The Wrong Way to Fix Foster Care
…hardly surprising that advocates are straining to justify its existence. The federal program, which has enrolled around 40 million children and cost Americans tens of billions of dollars since its…
Op-Ed
The Democrats’ Fraud Problem
…benefit. Of course, not everyone in the Democratic Party shares Mamdani’s views or those of other progressives. But the influence of their political strain has only grown during the first…
Article
The End of Work? Not Yet—Maybe Not Ever
…voluntarily. As my AEI colleague Michael Strain, a labor economist, has put it: Do human beings have a deep desire to contribute to the world or not? Are business leaders interested…
Article
Capital Gains Rules on Home Sales and Senior Homeowner Lock In
…addition, unlocking the housing stock could affect labor mobility, potentially enhancing productivity and taxable income. From a cost perspective, optimizing the allocation of housing among households could alleviate strain on…
Op-Ed
Everything You Thought About the US Labor Market Is Wrong
…to restrain an increase in stock prices, prevent GDP growth from accelerating, or induce a worrying increase in the unemployment rate. Despite this, the Fed cut its policy rate at…
Journal Publication
The Heterogeneous Effects of Large and Small Minimum Wage Changes on Hours Worked: Evidence Using a Partially Pre-Committed Analysis Plan
…as Clemens and Strain’s (forthcoming) analysis of employment, we can directly compare the resulting employment and hours elasticities. We find that these elasticities were very similar in our empirical context….