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A Valuable New Perspective on America’s War on Poverty
I suppose if you’re someone who thinks American capitalism has failed and unironically uses the phrase “late capitalism,” there’s probably no changing your mind. So I guess this post is meant for...
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When It Comes to the State of the American Economy, Let’s Keep It Real
Here we go again. An oft-repeated economic claim on social media is that most Americans lack the means to cover a $400 emergency expense. More evidence that most of us in “late capitalist” America...
View ArticlePoverty and Mental Health
Dr. Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), passed away earlier this month at age 100. His contributions resulted in a profound shift in the way we think about mental illness,...
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It’s Not Just Conservatives Who Support Teaching Students the Success Sequence
Graduate from high school, get a job, and get married before having kids. To many, this prescription seems uncontroversial, even like common sense. Data shows that the vast majority of those who...
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Building Upwardly Mobile Families: Highlights from My Conversation with Scott...
Federal anti-poverty “safety-net” programs have worked miracles for tens of millions of Americans, helping to drastically reduce “consumption poverty” — the number of people who lack sufficient...
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Poverty Rate Reduction of the Expanded Child Tax Credit Underwhelms
Advocates for the Child Tax Credit (CTC) have highlighted its positive effects on child poverty as a main reason for policymakers to support expanding it. Now that it looks like the CTC expansion will...
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What Is the ‘evidence’ on Poverty and the Child Tax Credit?
Multiple media outlets have reported claims from scholars and commentators that the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) from 2021 reduced child poverty by one-third, keeping “3.8 million children out of...
View ArticleCan Antipoverty Policies Affect Children’s Brain Development?
The Baby’s First Years program is one of many throughout the US currently giving unconditional cash payments to people to see whether they improve individual and family outcomes. In the case of Baby’s...
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The Poor Side of Town: Highlights from My Conversation with Howard Husock
On this episode of “Hardly Working,” I am joined by Howard Husock to discuss his new book, “The Poor Side of Town: And Why We Need It.” The book lays out a history of American housing policy and a...
View ArticleSocial Security and the Poverty Line
Living off Social Security alone, the financial website Motley Fool warns, “your income would be barely above the poverty level.” Georgetown University retirement policy expert Angela Antonelli...
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Why Even Permanent Benefit Expansions Are Never Enough
Key Democratic leaders have proposed future unemployment benefit expansions that significantly exceed even recent pandemic policies, which resulted in a record $900 billion in state and federal...
View ArticleBrett Favre, Welfare Fraud, and the TANF Block Grant
A scandal involving former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and the federal welfare program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) exploded last week following new revelations that Mississippi...
View ArticleSome Thoughts on Moving Beyond “Neoliberal Globalization”
If I had started reading the recent column by Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar, “Free trade has not made us free,” in the middle of the piece, I would have first come across this sentence: “Our...
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When It Comes to Reducing Global Poverty, Bono Is Right and the...
The rock group U2 has sold some 175 million records globally, but I get that they might not be everybody’s cup of Irish tea. Maybe you don’t like their post-punk, anthemic music style. Maybe you think...
View ArticleNew Research Shows the Importance of Family Environment on Upward Mobility
Over the past several years, there has been a robust debate over the best way to reduce child poverty in the US. One point of view believes that poverty is fundamentally a problem of limited income;...
View ArticleA Working Family Credit That Could Fundamentally Alter Child Poverty
Despite Democrats’ failed efforts over the past two years to permanently expand the child tax credit (CTC), recent reports suggest that some progressive lawmakers in Washington want to block an...
View ArticleDid We Lose the War on Poverty? My Long-Read Q&A with Scott Winship
Populists in both parties tell the story of a stagnant American economy where little progress has been made in reducing poverty. In today’s America, they claim, it’s almost impossible to raise a...
View ArticleTwo Sentences Will Strengthen SNAP’s Support for Work
The debt ceiling deal, agreed to by President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, will improve the federal safety net’s effectiveness in helping people rise out of poverty. It modestly enhances work...
View ArticleThe End of Affirmative Action Calls for a Renewed Conservatism of Opportunity
Only about 40 percent of adults in their late 20s have a bachelor’s degree, and that’s true of only 25 to 30 percent of blacks and Latinos in that age range. Just 20 to 25 percent of black and Latino...
View ArticleIt Really Is More Expensive to Give Everyone $1 Than to Give Some People $1
In a piece from last year, Matt Bruenig of the People’s Policy Project argues (in the title of the piece) “Universal Benefits Cost Less Than Means-Tested Benefits.” He lays out his central claim in...
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The Role of Full-Time and Part-Time Work in SNAP
Like most means-tested safety net programs, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP) reduces benefits as households earn more—meaning that families with the lowest incomes receive the...
View ArticlePutting This Year’s Poverty Numbers in Context, Part I
On Tuesday, the Census Bureau released its latest income and poverty estimates covering calendar year 2022, including two assessments of poverty in America. One, called the Official Poverty Measure...
View ArticlePutting This Year’s Poverty Numbers in Context, Part II
In a prior blog post, we reviewed key issues needed to understand the overall picture in this week’s Census poverty report. Next, we turn to the important subject of child poverty. Whenever the Census...
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Food Insecurity in the US and Inflation
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released its annual report on household food security—a survey that measures whether US households have “access at all times to enough food for an active,...
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