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The thing that keeps me up at night actually is the crushing challenge of the diminishing healthcare workforce in our country. We keep opening medical schools, modestly expanding graduate medical [...], In the official reduced form models used by the CBO, Treasury, and the Social Security and Medicare Trustees for projections and policy analysis, many key variables, like real interest rates, health care cost and economic growth, are assumed, often based on a continuation of past trends. By contrast, in our model, these variables are outcomes produced by supply and demand, based on logical functional forms and deep parameter estimates from the literature or empirical analysis. This latter approach provides a more credible and realistic basis for projections with changing underlying conditions and less subject to optimistic hopefulness. We find that, within the next five to ten years, the deficit relative to national income will grow significantly beyond historical experience, and with the prospect of continued increases, without policy changes, may be regarded as unsustainable. In particular, we project that debt-to-GDP will be 132 percent in 2032, compared to CBO's recent projection of 115 percent. In 2052, we project 258 percent compared to CBO's 189 percent. Our projection of national health care spending relative to GDP in 2072 is 29.9 percent, compared to 28.4 percent by CMS, used by the Medicare Trustees. Longer term, our projections show even worse outcomes for debt, deficits, Social Security, Medicare, and health care spending than official projections, and declines in the rate of welfare improvement. These results mainly owe to higher rates of health care inflation, arising from labor shortage effects because health care is produced in a low productivity, labor-dependent sector, and real interest rates rise in the long-run because of increasing debt, bringing about the vicious cycle of growing deficits and debt. Acknowledgements: We appreciate helpful comments from and discussion with James Capretta, Jagadeesh Gokhale, and Steve Robinson. All opinions expressed and mistakes made are our own and not theirs, nor our organizations'.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, formerly called the Food Stamp Program) provides food benefits to 40 million Americans each month at a total cost of over $110 billion [...], 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. We find the fastest-growing groups of the adult caseload suffer from low employment levels and poor health outcomes. These results suggest that program reforms should focus on not only reducing hunger but also improving employment and nutrition.

Have workers stopped moving to the highest-density, highest-productivity places in the country because of a decline in the urban wage premium, or because the rent is too high? We analyze how important these two explanations are by studying them in one and the same empirical analysis. We find that that non-college workers now effectively face a housing-inclusive urban wage penalty, while workers with college education continue to face a significant urban wage premium. We relate these findings to the share of native-born cross-state migrants across different parts of the country, and find that native-born cross-state migrants, especially non-college workers, have become less likely to live in the highest-productivity areas. Keywords: Density, Housing, Migration, Skills, Wages JEL: J24, J31, J61, R21, R31, R53, Economists have long recognized the tendency toward a bifurcated labor market marked by the disappearance of middle-skill occupations in both manufacturing and services jobs (e.g. Autor, Katz, and Kearney, 2006). [...]

April 26, 2023 Thank you. Chairwoman Stephanie Bice, ranking member Kilmer, and members of the subcommittee for holding this hearing. I am honored to testify once again before Congress about [...]

Families are the foundational unit of our social order. Countless social activities and institutions branch from the family unit. It is under the guidance of the family that young men [...], Over the past several years, a major part of the political debate has centered on whether young adults have enough money to raise a family in the US. Indisputably, the data show that fewer Americans are getting married than in decades past, and if they do, they are marrying later in life and having fewer children. Combined with concerns over declining fertility rates generally, there is also a concern over an increasing share of Americans who have children--especially those with low incomes--outside of marriage, which carries a host of social and economic challenges in the US. It has become nearly omnipresent in American political discourse--on both right and left--to blame these declines in family formation on economic hardship. The ascendant narrative suggests that it has become harder for the average American to afford forming a family, which in turn has driven down marriage and fertility rates. In other words, as the relative economic fortunes of Americans have worsened, raising a family has become less financially viable over time. This report takes a closer look at the "family affordability" hypothesis when it comes to our half-century decline in marriage and childbearing. In all, a close and comprehensive look at measures of income and expenses today in comparison to the past suggests that the true causes for declines in family formation are more complex than simply an increase in the financial burdens of raising a family. By most measures, incomes have grown slowly but steadily over the past several decades in real terms. And although incomes have grown much more quickly at the top than the bottom, they have nonetheless grown in real dollars for almost everyone. Some populations, like single mothers with children, face particular financial challenges, but both the growing safety net and increased earnings have made them better off than they were in previous generations. Additionally, contrary to conventional wisdom, the costs of raising a family--including housing, childcare, and higher education costs--have not grown so substantially over the past several decades that they indicate an affordability crisis. The data do show that certain costs have increased in recent years for some populations. For example, the costs of housing for low-income and working-class renters in certain parts of the country and childcare for high-income families have risen sharply in recent years. These financial "pinch points" help explain the plausibility of the "family affordability" hypothesis. However, it is difficult to tease out whether increasing costs in these areas reflect changing preferences among families for a higher standard of living (such as larger homes or higher-quality childcare) or an affordability crunch. If incomes have grown and costs reflect preferences, why does the affordability crisis narrative persist? One reason is that standards and perceptions change. Some goods and services that people need or perceive as necessary today may have been seen as luxury goods in years past. And in some cases, tastes have outgrown means--evidenced by increased consumption, vehicle ownership, and housing size. Another reason is that our stock of social capital--the value of our social networks--has declined in recent times. Strong connections to individuals and institutions offer social support, which can reduce the costs of raising a family. When these connections decline, so can the affordability of family life. Based on my review of the evidence, declining incomes and rising costs from years past are not the primary force driving a deterioration of family life. Certainly, some groups, such as low-income renters, single mothers, and families forced into center-based childcare, may face higher costs than in the past. But these changes are not sufficient to explain the pervasive sense that it is more difficult for the average American to raise a family today than it was in past generations. Instead, incomes not keeping pace with changing preferences likely are behind perceptions of an affordability challenge, as is the availability of less social support than in years past.

April 2023 Key Points * Since the Chinese economy has matured and the policy trend is established, long-term forecasting should be more accurate. It's still imprecise, of course, and vulnerable [...]

April 2023 Key Points * Efforts to deinstitutionalize foster care have significantly reduced placement capacity and forced older children and those with higher levels of need to live in a [...]

April 2023 The Honorable Cathy McMorris Rodgers 1. I was encouraged to read in the 2023 Medicare Trustees Report that CMS actions, most notably removing hip and knee procedures off [...]

The defense budget is burdened with a significant and increasing number of programs and activities that do not produce military capability. Absent intervention, this trend is likely to continue. In [...]

Chair Warren, Ranking Member Kennedy, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony on the dangers of default and near-default. It is an honor. Running [...]

This formal comment is submitted to the Council on Environmental Quality on its Interim Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change for environmental reviews under the National [...]

AEI Housing Market Indicators: An Introduction * Provide accurate and timely metrics for the housing market. These include: ** Mortgage Risk/Leverage *** Particular attention is paid to agency first-time buyer [...]

US policy to defend Taiwan from Chinese aggression is overly focused on the risk that China will attempt an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. The US is not paying sufficient heed to Chinese efforts to regain control of Taiwan through persuasion and coercion, and US strategies to block a Chinese invasion may actually undermine efforts to block the persuasion and coercion roads to Chinese success. Xi Jinping likely prefers to accomplish his aims by means short of war. Those roads offer Xi the prospect of success at much lower risk and cost than fighting a war. The US must develop strategies to defeat these campaigns while deterring an invasion. Beijing faces a difficult set of choices between military considerations and geopolitical dilemmas that US discussions of a putative Chinese invasion often fail to consider adequately. A militarily optimal Chinese invasion strategy would require that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) strike American bases in Japan, a US treaty ally, and Guam, US territory, early in a conflict. Such attacks would bring the US fully into the war and expand the conflict to include Japan and other East Asian states. American strategists may worry that the US would not commit fully even after Guam was attacked or that the Japanese would try to remain neutral, but neither scenario is likely. Xi has no reason to be confident in outcomes that would be optimal for China. Such attacks, after all, would be even more radical moves than Vladimir Putin's have been in Europe. American strategists cannot take for granted that the US and its allies will behave optimally, but Xi cannot dismiss the possibility that they would. He will thus face an unpleasant choice once he decides to invade--accept the risk of expanding the war greatly or leave fully operational the bases from which a possibly devastating US military response might come. These considerations, among others, make strategies of persuasion, coercion, and military isolation short of invasion far more attractive to Xi. China's persuasion and coercion campaigns target the will of Taiwan, the United States, and America's allies to support and defend the island. Ongoing Chinese demonstrations of military capability accompanied by 'lawfare'--the weaponization of legal arguments for political purposes--and information operations aim to convince the American people, US allies, and the Taiwanese people that the Taiwan issue is a domestic Chinese matter that other countries should leave to Beijing to 'resolve.' They also try to demonstrate that Taiwan is not defensible and that any use of force to resist Chinese aggression would result in a catastrophe for Taiwan and any intervening force. China's persuasion campaign works to rewrite history and convince other nations of things that are not true in order to erode resistance to its aggression against Taiwan. China's coercion campaign is a form of 'violent bargaining' meant to use means short of large-scale war to force other nations to comply with its demands and defer to its interests. China also aims by persuasion and coercion to set the conditions for a campaign of compellence: the use of force through blockade or invasion. That is why it is vital Washington not allow Beijing to isolate Taipei, push America into a standoff defensive posture that pulls the bulk of its military forces outside the Chinese anti-access and area-denial zones within which US forces are most at risk, and undermine US efforts to build a coalition. A blockade accompanied by other means of isolating Taiwan is an attractive option for China. Beijing could force ships en route to Taiwan to stop for inspections, disrupting the supply of resources to the island. The Chinese Communist Party could then attempt to use the PLA to convince the American people and US allies that a US response to break the blockade would be escalatory. Chinese persuasion and coercion campaigns are meant to induce precisely such responses should Beijing escalate to the overt use of force on a limited basis. The US must urgently reorient its approach to defending Taiwan against all three of China's roads to controlling the island. Deterring and ability to defeat an invasion are necessary but insufficient conditions for success in maintaining the status quo: a de facto independent Taiwan. US approaches to those challenges must reinforce rather than undermine US and coalition efforts to defeat China's persuasion and coercion campaigns. US strategy for defending Taiwan must defeat each of China's interrelated campaigns separately and all of them together. Policymakers must explain and defeat Chinese information operations aimed at the American and global publics so that they understand and can resist China's persuasion campaign. The US must demonstrate its commitment to the defense of Taiwan to its own public, Taiwan and potential coalition partners, and Xi himself. America must defend the rules-based international order specifically as it applies to Taiwan against the incremental escalations of Beijing's coercion., China has been moving along three roads to fully integrating Taiwan into the People's Republic of China (PRC) and extinguishing Taiwan's autonomy: persuasion, coercion, and compellence. (1) American policy has [...]

The United States Department of Defense purchases more goods, services, and software than all federal agencies combined and is often the target of scrutiny and reform. But the majority of what the military buys is no longer equipment or tangible items but rather labor and technology. Reformers have yet to keep up and continue to overfocus on weapons acquisition when hardware is increasingly the commodity. Despite near-constant attempts at reform, encompassing no less than 14 different efforts over the past eight sessions of Congress, change has not fully met the moment but typically served as short-term budget bogey exercises. Too often, changes are imposed on the Pentagon by Congress--a body that creates many of the problems reforms fail to fix. The Defense Department is a victim of the instability caused by continuing resolutions and lack of clarity, yet Congress further ties its hands regarding finances and sticks to rules from a bygone era when the defense budget was a tiny fraction of the size it is today. This report explains where past reform efforts focused and charts a new course for the Information Age when urgency, flexibility, transparency, and action are the watchwords. It reviews defense reform initiatives of the past decade and more and provides a series of policy recommendations borne out of the belief that to truly reform the Pentagon, change must not be additive. Defense reforms instead must roll back unnecessary strictures, byzantine regulations, and outdated bureaucracy and reduce time, tasks, and attention on unnecessary work. Pentagon reforms should also increase accountability for passing appropriations on time and help realize the true costs of running the US military. The end goal of these reforms is to reduce workload, mission, and the constant churn of forces that are burning out man and machine too quickly. As a result, implementing them will allow the United States to better deter, compete with, and, if necessary, defeat America's great-power adversaries., Washington is rarely without ideas for how to next, and better, reform the Department of Defense. Indeed, there have been so many efficiencies drills over the past two decades that [...]

Profound changes in technology and climate, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic shock, have fundamentally changed the nature of work for firms and employees. Affected business owners, students, parents, incarcerated individuals, [...], Profound changes in technology and climate, combined with the COVID-19 pandemic shock, have fundamentally changed the nature of work for firms and employees. And, because most labor markets are local, that change requires rethinking how data and evidence can be generated in a timely and actionable way to inform local decisions. The emergence of new types of local data, new cloud-based platforms allowing state and local agencies to securely share de-identified confidential data, and new training programs to build state workforce capacity means that there is new potential for programs that are designed and shaped at the local level. A new workforce information system--a National Collaborative for Local Workforce Information (NCLWI)--can be designed that is driven by local needs and that is timely, actionable, and responsive. This report describes why and how such a system should be constructed. The approach, inspired by the successful National Agricultural Extension Program, is fundamentally local in nature. It should be federally funded but driven by state and local needs, networks, and decision makers. It should build on the success of multistate data collaboratives in sharing data across agency and state lines and partnering with local universities. The result will be bottom-up, locally generated projects that can be tested, improved, and scaled to become products that can be put into practice across the country.

On February 15, 1944, with D-Day approaching, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill chaired a cabinet meeting with an agenda that went beyond the ever-present military and diplomatic concerns. In particular, [...], The UK National Health Service (NHS), now in its 75th year, has devoted supporters inside and outside the country who admire its egalitarian ethic and public-service orientation. However, the rapid deterioration of its performance in recent years, and especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, is too glaring and dangerous to overlook. A major challenge is the health service's near-exclusive reliance on political and bureaucratic processes for resources and organizational direction. Free care at the point of service and publicly owned hospitals sustain the NHS's popularity, but long waits for needed care, even when the services are "free," harm patients. Neither major political party appears ready to explore systemic reform, but if political conditions create an opening, UK leaders might consider moving the NHS closer to the public-private models found in other European economies, as has been suggested at various points in its history and also recently. The lesson for other countries from the NHS's ongoing crisis is that full governmental control of medical care brings risks, not just potential and often-overstated rewards.

Nearly every health policy challenge is magnified by the high underlying cost of health care in the United States. High expenditures in programs like Medicare or Medicaid create budgetary pressures [...]

1. Transparency and Antitrust Enforcement p. 2 II. Site Neutral Payments p. 3 III. Part B Drug Payment p. 4 IV. 340B Reform p. 5 V. Improving and Focusing Competition [...], High health care costs affect nearly all health care debates. High costs make it expensive to expand insurance coverage to new populations or cover new services. High spending in public programs strains government budgets, while high spending in the commercial market reduces wages. In this piece, we highlight areas where the 118th Congress can make tangible progress in reducing health care costs by increasing competition. We specifically focus on a set of procompetitive policies that have attracted various levels of bipartisan interest in recent years. In each case, we describe the rationale for these proposals and discuss how they are likely to make markets work better, as well as how they would affect the federal budget. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of all policies that could attract bipartisan interest, but the list we offer here includes some of the most plausible options for passage in a divided Congress. While these policies are far from sufficient to address all inefficiencies in health care markets, they would make tangible progress in the direction of better functioning markets.

Key Points * From late 2020 through mid-2022, prices for nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash fertilizers more than doubled for several reasons, some of which were a direct result of Russia's [...]

This paper provides a comprehensive account of the evolution of default risk for newly originated home purchase loans since 1990. We bring together several data sources to produce this history, including loan-level data for the entire GSE book. We use these data to track a large number of loan characteristics and a summary measure of risk, the stressed default rate. Among the many results in the paper, we show that mortgage risk had already risen in the 1990s, planting the seeds of the financial crisis well before the actual event. Our results also cast doubt on explanations of the crisis that focus on low-credit-score borrowers. The aggregate series we present in this paper are available for download at https:/www.fhfa.gov/papers/wp1902.aspx. (1) Keywords: mortgage risk x housing boom x default x foreclosure x house price x leverage JEL Classification: E32, G21, G28, H22, R31, 1. Introduction In the decade since the global financial crisis, there has been an outpouring of research to understand the developments in the U.S. home mortgage market that precipitated the [...]

This comment responds to Shaefer and Rivera (2018), a recent working paper that criticizes some of our published work on trends in income and consumption based poverty measures in the United States (Meyer and Sullivan, 2003, 2011a,b, 2012a,b, 2017). Shaefer and Rivera suggest that income poverty does a better job of reflecting the material circumstances of those at the bottom, basing this conclusion on three main claims: that 1) short term changes in income poverty are more closely associated with changes in other measures of well-being than are short-term changes in consumption poverty; 2) the long-run trends for income poverty align more closely with the long-run trends for other measures of well-being than do the trends for consumption poverty; and 3) the level of poverty indicated by consumption measures is unreasonably low as compared to other indicators of well-being. We show that the evidence presented in Shaefer and Rivera is misleading and incomplete. Their main evidence suffers from a problem commonly called spurious correlation or spurious regression. Simple corrections for this bias tend to reverse their key findings. Moreover, they support their arguments using a few select pieces of evidence--the broader evidence including large literatures run counter to their conclusions. A more comprehensive examination of the evidence supports the conclusion that consumption-based measures of poverty more accurately reflect the economic circumstances of those with few resources, both at a point in time and over time., I. Introduction This comment responds to Shaefer and Rivera (2018), a recent working paper that criticizes some of our published work on trends in income and consumption based poverty measures [...]

The US economy is facing a series of long-run macroeconomic challenges. The first is a demographic challenge. US population growth in 2018 was lower than at any time in 80 [...]

While this report has primarily focused on children through age 12, this chapter briefly describes some areas particularly relevant to teenagers that merit policy attention and public investment. Many dimensions [...]

Key Points * The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act was written to be a sword and shield for parents, providing them with access to their children's information while helping [...]

With the rise of remote work, the gig economy, ongoing labor and skill shortages, and an aging workforce, employers are struggling to navigate the modern workforce's rapidly changing demands. From [...]

Chairman Kelly, Ranking Member Thompson, and distinguished members of the Tax Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify on tax policy, economic growth, and prosperity. I am Alan D. [...]

DECEMBER 2023 AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE Executive Summary Though obviously a disappointment for Republicans, the 2022 midterms were not without bright spots for the party. The GOP won a majority of [...]

This comment is submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency on its supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking on regulatory flexibility for the earlier proposed rule on new source performance standards and [...]

AUTHORS The American Enterprise Institute Beth Akers EducationCounsel Nathan Arnold Zakiya Smith Ellis Jasmine Jett Bethany Little The Century Foundation Tiara Moultrie Robert Shireman Driven by increases in graduate enrollment [...]

Generational categories, such as baby boomers, Generation X, millennials, and Generation Z, are ubiquitous in American culture, featuring prominently in news stories, marketing materials, and published research. Despite their prevalence, [...], Generational cohorts are commonly used labels that serve to capture differences across time. Evolutions in culture, lived experience, and identity centered on specific events or demographic trends (such as the baby boom) collectively influence members of a generation. At their core, these demographic differences are easily quantified. For instance, about half of Generation Z is non-Hispanic white, compared to 71 percent of baby boomers. Religious, educational, and sexual identity all vary considerably between generations. That said, key generational qualities expand beyond demographic comparisons. In order to explore generational differences while keeping in alignment with best practices in social science research, this report seeks to home in on generational difference by exploring formative teenage experiences. Such experiences are largely held in common among members of the same generational cohort, yet due to the ebb and flow of technological innovation, population trends, social mores, and economic circumstance, they vary meaningfully between the generations. Gen Z stands apart socially. Rates of teenage loneliness are high, and younger Americans report having spent less time with friends in person growing up than did previous generations. More than six in 10 Gen Z adults said they felt lonely or isolated during at least some of their teenage years, nearly double the rate among baby boomers (36 percent). Such generational unevenness in formative experiences extends to other aspects of youth as well. Only about half of Gen Z adults say they had a boyfriend or girlfriend during their teenage years, a far cry from the more than three-quarters of Generation Xers and baby boomers who report "going steady" for at least some of their teenage years. Gen Z is also significantly less likely than older generations to have regularly attended religious services, worked a part-time job, or consumed alcohol, pot, or cigarettes for at least part of their teenage years. Similarly, teenage participation in competitive sports and outdoor activities, such as hunting and scouting, is on the decline, though athletic participation among young women outpaces the oldest generations. Political differences both between and within the generations abound. About four in 10 Gen Z adults are liberal, one-third moderate, and one in four conservative. When it comes to political philosophy, a meaningful gap opens between Gen Z men and women. Forty-six percent of Gen Z women identify as liberal, compared to 28 percent of Gen Z men. This is the largest gender gap of any generation. Political trust also varies widely by generation. Just 34 percent of Gen Zers and millennials say that, when they were growing up, political leaders could generally be trusted. This share pales in comparison to the two-thirds of baby boomers and eight in 10 members of the silent generation who say the same. The survey also reveals important differences regarding sexual identity among the generations. Nearly one in three (31 percent) Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ, the greatest share of any generation and far more than Gen Z men (16 percent). One fifh (20 percent) of Gen Z women identify as bisexual, which makes up about two-thirds of the share of Gen Z women who identify as LGBTQ. Meaningful differences also arise between generations and within Gen Z over the stability of sexual attraction over time and whether sexuality is innate or socially constructed.

Key Points * Economically beneficial entrepreneurship is declining in America. This decline is not caused by a change in individual-level desire to be an entrepreneur or by fewer people trying [...]

Key Points * The United States international emergency food aid program has done a tremendous amount of good for people in dire need of help since it was first launched [...]

This paper reviews the literature on the recent benefit and funding landscape of state and local government employee pension plans. Many plans, with generous benefit structures and inadequate funding, are in troubled financial shape. The state of Connecticut pension plans are a good illustration of this situation. I simulate the funded ratios and actuarially determined contributions for these plans in 2030 under historical investment returns, and show the substantial risk they represent to taxpayers. I then consider policy implications which include federal mandatory funding policy and closing the plans to new workers to cap that risk., Background on State and Local Government Employee Pension Plans Defined benefit pension plans determine retirement payments according to a fixed formula based on salary, years of service, and age. It [...]

This paper examines the avenues interest groups use to influence procurement decisions that are subject to legislative constraints that conflict with the provision of the government service or goods, such as'Buy American Laws.' We first explore a theoretical model in which the government agency can value service of the interest group and fulfilment of its procurement. We then examine the implications of this theoretical model empirically using data on the US Agency for International Development's Title II Emergency Food Aid program for the shipment of packaged goods to low income countries facing humanitarian crises. We find that USAID, which is subject to a type of'Buy American Law' called cargo preference when allocating food aid, at times over-complies with the mandate. We then use an empirical approach to gain insights into how USAID makes allocation decisions in accordance with its compliance with the mandate throughout the fiscal year. Keywords: Rent-seeking, Bureaucracy, Procurement, Disaster Aid JEL: D72, D73, H57, H84, We are thankful to Swaroop Bhagavatula for his excellent research assistance. We would also like to thank Scott Ganz, Sophia Lansell, Luxman Maheswaran, Jason Meyer, Andrew Oliver, Stan Veuger, and [...]

This paper analyzes conflicts that arise when trying to apply traditional antitrust principles in the context of digital markets. Antitrust has both political and economic foundations. The political approach emphasizes populist themes that ultimately harm economic development, while economic approaches focus on characterizations of and remedies for market power. Digitization of markets thwarts current antitrust tools by adding complexity and rapid change. A number of authors suggest populist approaches for antitrust in digital markets, but these lack rigor and fail to address central challenges. This paper suggests that antitrust should return to its earliest roots and directly address features in the economy that create market power., Digitization of information is affecting all aspects of life. A growing number of college graduates have never stepped foot on their alma maters' campuses. Business-to-business e-commerce in the US totaled [...]

February 2023 As localities across the US continue to grapple with end of the 10+ year home price boom amid increasing affordability challenges, there is a need to better understand [...]

AEI Housing Market Indicators: An Introduction * Provide accurate and timely metrics for the housing market. These include: ** Mortgage Risk/Leverage *** Particular attention is paid to agency first-time buyer [...]

Introduction The newly-released Uniform Appraisal Data (UAD) Aggregate Statistics Data File and Dashboards, which are derived from more than 47 million appraisals conducted between January 1, 2013, and June 30, [...]

AEI Housing Market Indicators: An Introduction * Provide accurate and timely metrics for the housing market. These include: * Mortgage Risk/Leverage * Particular attention is paid to agency first-time buyer [...]

Conservatives have struggled to put forward a substantive agenda when it comes to early-childhood education. On some level, this might speak to discomfort with the entire enterprise. Insofar as conservatives [...]

Executive Summary The past 60 years have seen dramatic changes in the American family. Traditionally conservatives have worried more about these changes, blaming them on cultural shifts, while progressives have [...]

December 2022 Nine decades after the passage of the New Deal, many farm-subsidy and regulatory programs continue to search for a sound public policy rationale. (1) It seems income transfer [...]

California is leading the nation in home prices and as a consequence trails on homeownership rate, particularly among low-income and minority households. This outcome is entirely a self-inflicted wound. For decades, California has constrained both infill and greenfield housing development through land use and zoning restrictions, discretionary reviews, and local veto powers. (2) Given current high home prices, homes in more and more neighborhoods all over the state are well-suited for Light-Touch Density (LTD). LTD opens up areas for more townhomes, condos, duplexes, triplexes, and ADUs, all of which offer more naturally affordable homes and a needed jumpstart to the filtering process. The AEI Housing Center estimated that LTD applied to greenfield development would add 131,000 additional units over 10 years and applied to infill development would add 613,000 additional units also over ten years. (3) This addition of 744,000 net new units over 10 years would add 10% to California's existing single-family housing stock. Fortunately, California has already taken steps in the right direction. With the passage of SB-9, landowners can now build up to four housing units (with a lot split) on lots previously zoned for 1 unit. With the passage of SB-10, cities in transit and amenity rich urbanized areas can now up-zone parcels for two to 10 units without an environmental review. However, more is needed. Clean-up legislation aimed by shoring up some of the shortfalls of both bills' language is needed to make them more effective for homeowners and cities. Planning departments and cities need help and guidance from the state as many local officials are not aware of what these rule changes practically mean for their city, particularly in regards to meeting their Regional Housing Needs Allocations (RHNA) numbers. Adding supply will, however, take time. To support sustainable homeownership for lower-income households in the meantime, it is important to acknowledge that subsidized housing policies that sought to increase homeownership through demand-side solutions (such as down payment assistance and others) turned out to escalate the risks for both borrowers and taxpayers. A far superior alternative is the Lower-Income First Generation Homebuyer (LIFT Home) loan, which promotes sustainable access to housing finance and supports opportunities for wealth generation among lower income households. LIFT should replace all existing affordable housing programs that the California Housing Finance Agency runs., California's lack of homeownership California's homeownership rate of 55% is 10 ppts. below the national rate of 65%. (4) There are, however, wide regional differences: Many higher-priced metros such Los [...]

Executive Summary Salafi-jihadi groups linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State are spreading and strengthening in Africa. This phenomenon has immediately and severely affected thousands of Africans subjected to [...]

In A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream, the American Enterprise Institute's Yuval Levin [...]

Executive Summary The COVID-19 pandemic saw unemployment claims reach a high of over 33 million in June 2020--over two and a half times the prior record set during the Great [...]

This paper examines firms' choices to use mobile platforms--namely iOS and Android. Using Crunchbase[R] data on startups seeking external funding, we find that 16 of 47 business categories are likely to use mobile platforms. 10 of these 16 exhibit no platform preferences, implying substitutability. Businesses that are unlikely to use mobile platforms view the platforms as differentiated. iOS was more popular than Android: 60 percent of businesses choosing to be on mobile platforms chose to be only on iOS. In contrast, only 8 percent chose to be on Android only. Our finding of platform substitutability holds when accounting for businesses belonging to multiple categories. Keywords: platforms; network effects, competition; differentiation; startups JEL codes: L26, L86, M13, O30, I. Introduction Digital platforms are important features of modern economies. While traditional brick-and-mortar companies make profits by converting raw materials to finished goods, platforms bring two or more groups of [...]

This paper examines the impact of cargo preference requirements, which create market power for US flagged ships, on the effectiveness of USAID's Food for Peace emergency food aid program. We find that cargo preference requirements increase real ocean transportation costs per metric ton by 68 percent for packaged goods shipments and 101 percent for bulk goods shipments. These differences in cost impacts appear to be associated with differences in the impacts of the mandate on market concentration in the packaged and bulk shipment markets. These higher costs reduce USAID's capacity to serve millions of families in dire need each year. Keywords: Agriculture Policy, Organizational Behavior, Shipping, In Kind Aid JEL: Q18, D23, L92, F35, 1 Introduction In 1954, Congress passed the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act (1954) (P.L. 480), which committed the United States to making regular appropriations for humanitarian food aid. (1) [...]

Current Law There are adjustment factors for early and late claiming of retirement benefits in Social Security which depend on the age when benefits are claimed. That is, benefit levels, [...], There are adjustment factors for early and late claiming of retirement benefits in Social Security which depend on the age when benefits are claimed. These adjustment factors are seriously out of date, as both interest and mortality rates have declined since the rules were designed and put into place. Moreover, the rules are inconsistent among categories of beneficiaries - workers, spouses and widow(er)s - in terms of age ranges and fair adjustment factors. This paper calculates that, under current interest and mortality rates, the early retirement factors for workers should be about 16 percent higher than current factors; this change, reducing the early retirement penalty, would generally favor the poorer and minorities, who generally claim earlier and have higher than average mortality. Delayed retirement credits should be about six percent lower, disfavoring high income and educated workers, who generally claim late. The appropriate dynamic system for changing the adjustment factors annually is simulated here, using estimates of real interest rates from the historical record of 1919 to 2021. The results support a five- or ten-year moving average for continuous changes to the adjustment factors, to remove unusual volatility. Moreover, policy logic supports consistency in the factors across the beneficiary categories, as well as across age ranges - ages 62 to 72 is now an appropriate uniform age range, given current higher life expectancies and longer working lives.

The US Census Bureau publishes the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) each year to provide important information on low-income Americans' well-being. In early 2021, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) panel formed to evaluate and recommend improvements to the SPM. To inform the NASEM panel and the debate on poverty measurement more broadly, we review the SPM's shortcomings and recommend ways to address them. We focus on whether the SPM achieves the key goals of an effective poverty measure: (1) identifying those experiencing the greatest economic deprivation, (2) determining changes in economic deprivation over time, and (3) assessing the effect of public policies on economic deprivation. We consider separately issues related to the SPM's measurement of resources and SPM thresholds. The SPM improves on the Official Poverty Measure's (OPM) resource measure by including several important government benefits such as refundable tax credits, nutrition assistance, and other in-kind benefits while subtracting taxes and work expenses. However, the SPM resource measure suffers from several problems that prevent it from achieving the fundamental goals of an effective poverty measure. First, the SPM uses flawed survey data that understate earnings and government benefit receipt, biasing income downward. Second, the SPM fails to include the value of health insurance, except to the extent that health insurance reduces medical out-of-pocket spending. Third, the SPM caps the value of government rental housing assistance below its full value. Fourth, the SPM excludes the service flow value of homeownership and vehicles. These problems likely contribute to the research finding that the SPM identifies a less-deprived poverty population than other poverty measures identify, including the OPM. SPM thresholds suffer from several problems as well. First, the baseline SPM thresholds are overly complex, masking their fundamental arbitrariness. Second, the baseline SPM thresholds are updated each year in a convoluted way--deviating from an absolute or purely relative standard--making interpreting poverty rate changes over time nearly impossible. Third, geographic adjustment of SPM thresholds leads the SPM to identify a less economically deprived population than if thresholds were not geographically adjusted. Fourth, SPM thresholds for families with different housing tenure (i.e., renters, homeowners with a mortgage, and homeowners without a mortgage) are set relative to expenditures by families with the same housing tenure, not recognizing the fundamental differences between groups. These shortcomings in the SPM resource measure and thresholds prevent the SPM from adequately satisfying the fundamental goals of an effective poverty measure. The SPM identifies a less economically deprived population than other poverty measures, does not enable comparisons of poverty rates over time, and fails to offer researchers an effective tool to assess the effects of antipoverty policies. To address the SPM's shortcomings, we recommend the following changes. * Use administrative data on earnings, government program benefits, and other income sources to more accurately measure resources. * Develop two SPM resource measures: one that includes the full market value of health insurance--perhaps capped as a fraction of total resources--and one that includes a zero value of health insurance. The latter measure should not deduct medical out-of-pocket expenditures. * Remove the cap on the amount of housing assistance in the SPM resource measure. * Conduct additional research and potentially add questions to the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASEC) to estimate the net value of service flows from owner-occupied housing and vehicles for inclusion in the SPM resource measure. * Inform decisions about specific aspects of the SPM with evidence regarding whether those decisions lead to identification of a more deprived group of a given size. * Adopt a simple baseline threshold concept, such as pegging the SPM threshold to the percentile given by the official poverty rate in the initial year, and clarify that this initial level is scientifically arbitrary when the Census Bureau communicates SPM poverty rates to the public. * Adopt an absolute standard--and potentially a purely relative standard--for adjusting poverty thresholds over time. An absolute standard should update thresholds based on the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers each year, and a relative measure should update thresholds by the same percentage at which median income changes each year. * Remove geographic adjustments from the SPM thresholds. * Eliminate the use of separate SPM thresholds for families with different housing tenure types. * Finally, we recommend that government or outside researchers evaluate these recommendations and report how each change would affect the economic deprivation of the population identified as poor and poverty trends over time., Since its first publication by the US Census Bureau in 2011, the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) has offered researchers and policymakers an alternative way of measuring poverty in the United [...]