Implications of Low Fertility and Declining Populations for the Operations of US State and Local Governments
Roughly half of US counties lost population between 2010 and 2020, a trend driven overwhelmingly by declining fertility rather than changes in migration. Looking ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the number of births will first exceed the number of deaths nationwide in 2033. Even under optimistic immigration assumptions, U.S. population growth will stagnate ...
Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee: “Keeping Our Promises: Labor Inflows, Maintaining Competitiveness, and Supporting an Aging Population”
On Wednesday, March 18th, AESG Policy Director Luke Pardue testified at the Congressional Joint Economic Committee’s hearing, “Keeping Our Promises: Labor Inflows, Maintaining Competitiveness, and Supporting an Aging Population.” His written testimony is below. Watch the complete hearing here and see more information about the hearing here. Chairman Schweikert, Ranking Member Hassan, and other members ...
Where Is China’s Economy Headed?
The arc of the Chinese economy over the next 10 to 15 years will depend on three sets of forces, each of which interacts with the others: (1) Domestically, the internal political economy will determine the relationship between the state and the market. (2) Externally, the relationship between China as a nation and the US-led ...
Manufacturing Resilience: The US Drive to Reorder Global Supply Chains
Global supply chains—the network through which products and services move from initial producers to final consumers—have become increasingly complex over the past several decades. Recent disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the threat of further interruptions from rising geopolitical risks, have exposed the fragility of today’s supply chains. To build more resilient networks, ...
Overcoming Pandemic-Induced Learning Loss
The global COVID-19 pandemic created not only a once-a-century public health crisis but also a once-a-century public education crisis. Unfortunately, the United States federal government’s financial assistance to schools to overcome pandemic-induced learning loss is about to expire – despite the fact that the country has made almost no progress remediating this learning loss. In ...
The Economic Case for Smart Investing in America’s Youth
The United States spends a relatively small sum on children, both on a per capita basis and as a share of all spending. In 2019, the federal government spent an estimated $5,595 per child on programs benefiting children under 18, compared to $29,189 per elderly American on entitlement programs alone—a gap that remains wide even ...
Book: Building a More Resilient US Economy
The Aspen Economic Strategy Group’s sixth annual policy volume, Building a More Resilient US Economy, considers some of the most pressing economic challenges facing the United States. The book’s publication comes as the US faces historically high levels of debt that threaten the resiliency of the nation’s economy, including the ability to invest in key ...
TIME Magazine Op-Ed: Too Many High School Seniors Are Turning Away from College Altogether
For many high school seniors and their families, May 1st is “National College Decision Day,” when millions of students make a personal decision about their academic future. It is also a decision with financial implications that will shape much of their lives. While headlines often cite the ultra-competitive landscape for highly selective schools, recent years have ...
Eight Questions—and Some Answers—on the US Fiscal Situation
In this paper, Jason Furman addresses eight specific questions essential to understanding the US fiscal situation and what policymakers can do to address the federal debt. He finds that an adjustment of between 0.7 and 4.6 percent of GDP is necessary to stabilize the debt over the next decade, and he proposes a broad set ...