June 18, 2024
Economic Opportunity and Social Mobility
Years ago, I worked at the Pew Charitable Trusts on something called the Economic Mobility Project. In 2009, we commissioned a survey covering opportunity, mobility, and the American Dream. One revealing question we asked was the following: The term American Dream means different things to different people. Here are some ways some people have described…
June 11, 2024
The Social Workplace: A Compendium
Key Points Executive Summary In an era marked by a decline in social capital across American institutions, the workplace has become a crucial arena for fostering social connections. Through their careers, Americans not only satisfy their economic needs but also find personal fulfillment, build social networks, and seek—and often discover—a sense of meaning and purpose…
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…
May 13, 2024
Do Mothers Have “Societal Support”? Does It Count if It Comes from Neighbors?
It is an annual tradition, for some reason, for folks on social media to dump all over Mother’s Day. Some on the fringe decide it’s sexist or cisnormative or something to believe only women can be mothers or that mothers are special. The abortion lobby hates the idea that womanhood is associated with motherhood. But last year, I stumbled across an anti-Mother’s…
May 6, 2024
How States and Communities Can Strengthen Marriages
Family is the greatest source of social capital, providing the setting in which people grow, develop, and anchor their lives. Stable and healthy marriages are at the foundation of strong families. Marriage is associated with myriad positive outcomes, including greater happiness and satisfaction with life, less loneliness, and better health.[1] Children raised in intact families…
May 2, 2024
A New Lost Generation: Disengaged, Aimless, and Adrift
More than a quarter of America’s school-aged children were absent from school 10 percent or more of the time last year. There’s no shortage of explanations on offer for this surge in “chronic absenteeism,” mostly blaming the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath: lockdowns; lowered expectation; health and hardship; bullying and school safety issues. Remote learning…
March 27, 2024
Narcan Babies
“As medical professionals who work with pregnant patients, you face numerous medical, legal, and ethical decision points when treating a patient for substance use during pregnancy, and when providing care to a neonate with drug or alcohol exposure.” So begins a pamphlet of advice for doctors and nurses that discourages them from reporting mothers for substance abuse…
March 12, 2024
Family Dinners Offer a Silver Lining in a Bleak Social Capital Landscape
Across a variety of indicators, social capital in America is deteriorating. But one trend appears to be cutting across conventional wisdom—gathering the family around the dinner table. Dinners offer an especially valuable chance for family members to come together and share the day’s highs and lows; discuss personal issues, current events, and big questions of…
February 5, 2024
Why We All Rely On the Organized Kindness of Strangers
Our church caught fire [i] a few weeks ago. The pastor and a few other leaders had just gotten out of a Monday night meeting when they found the sanctuary was filled with smoke and the entrance to the church was covered in flames. Fortunately, firefighters[ii] responded to the immediate 911 calls and saved the…
January 17, 2024
A Midwest State of Mind
This is an excerpt of a piece original published in American Purpose here. Although many now worry that it is endangered, American civil society has long been an important element of what has made the United States an “exceptional nation.” Historian Jon K. Lauck argues that in 19th century America, the surprising epicenter of that civil…