April 26, 2024
Human Capital Spillovers and Health: Does Living Around College Graduates Lengthen Life?
Abstract Equally educated people are healthier if they live in more educated places. Every 10 percent point increase in an area’s share of adults with a college degree is associated with a decline in all-cause mortality by 7%, controlling for individual education, demographics, and area characteristics. Area human capital is also associated with lower disease…
April 18, 2024
The Real Story Behind Food Insecurity in the US
Hunger in the US is rising at an alarming pace – or is it? Last year’s annual report on food insecurity in the US led lawmakers to believe hunger is on the rise, and, unsurprisingly, federal lawmakers are using rising levels of food insecurity to advocate for expansions to federal government programs. Unfortunately, policymakers are conflating hunger and…
April 18, 2024
Put Growth Back on the Political Agenda
In a campaign season dominated by the past, a central economic topic is missing: growth. Rapid productivity growth raises living standards and incomes. Resources from those higher incomes can boost support for public goods such as national defense and education, or can reconfigure supply chains or shore up social insurance programs. A society without growth…
April 17, 2024
Homelessness and the Persistence of Deprivation: Income, Employment, and Safety Net Participation
Abstract Homelessness is arguably the most extreme hardship associated with poverty in the United States, yet people experiencing homelessness are excluded from official poverty statistics and much of the extreme poverty literature. This paper provides the most detailed and accurate portrait to date of the level and persistence of material disadvantage faced by this population,…
April 11, 2024
The Right Has an Opportunity to Rethink Education in America
The casual observer can be forgiven if it looks like both the left and the right are doing their best to lose the debate over the future of American education. On the left, public officials and self-righteous advocates practically fall over themselves working to subsidize and supersize bloated bureaucracies, hollowed-out urban school systems, and campus…
April 10, 2024
Biden Irresponsibly Encourages Borrowers to Enroll in SAVE Plan
President Biden is hard at work encouraging student borrowers to enroll in his new SAVE Plan, a de facto loan forgiveness program that faces increasing legal scrutiny. 11 states, led by Kansas, filed a lawsuit. Just recently, Missouri and six other states announced that they would also sue the Biden Administration, bringing the total to 18 states. He…
April 9, 2024
Maddow Spreads Misinformation on Student Loan Cancellation
Last night, progressive television pundit Rachel Maddow took jabs at Republicans concerned with President Biden’s latest effort to cancel student debt. But her jabs were actually sucker punches. She took advantage of the public’s being uninformed on the issue of student debt to spread misinformation, aimed at scoring partisan points and defending Biden’s indefensible vote-buying…
April 9, 2024
The Child Tax Credit: My Long-Read Q&A with Kevin Corinth
The Child Tax Credit is a tax benefit available to many American families for the purpose of reducing their federal income tax liability. It’s specifically designed to help offset the cost of raising children. The CTC of today, however, differs starkly from its pre-pandemic structure. Many economists, including Kevin Corinth, think that the post-pandemic changes were a step…
April 9, 2024
Biden Knows Student Loan Cancellation Is a Bad Idea
This morning, President Biden announced new details about the latest effort to cancel student debt that he says will reduce balances or completely cancel student debt for over 30 million Americans. First, he plans to cancel up to $20,000 of accumulated unpaid interest, regardless of the borrowers’ income. Second, the administration plans to automatically cancel debt for…
April 8, 2024
The $1,000 Tax Hike on Middle-Class Families
When Americans file their taxes in the coming weeks, one group will be singled out for a tax hike: middle-class families with children. This April, a family with three children making at least $42,000 will pay about $950 more in (inflation-adjusted) federal income taxes than they paid in 2018 — when the Tax Cuts and Jobs…