A Renter Safety Net: A Call for Federal Emergency Rental Assistance
Ingrid Gould Ellen (NYU Furman Center), Amy Ganz (Economic Strategy Group), and Katherine O’Regan (NYU Furman Center) document the costly externalities that such housing instability poses and propose the creation of a Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program to provide one-time, short-term financial help to low-income renters who face unexpected financial shocks.
Middle-Class Redistribution: Tax and Transfer Policy for Most Americans
Adam Looney (University of Utah), Jeff Larrimore (Federal Reserve Board), and David Splinter (Joint Committee on Taxation) provide an in-depth analysis of after tax and transfer incomes of middle-class Americans over time.
Business Continuity Insurance in the Next Disaster
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an economic shock unparalleled in severity and breadth across the US economy since at least the Great Depression. The spring of 2020 saw unprecedented business closures and revenue declines. The government response was swift and unprecedented in scale. The federal government deployed two novel programs to support small businesses: Paycheck Protection ...
The Causes and Consequences of Declining US Fertility
US births have fallen steadily since 2007 and the total fertility rate is now well below replacement level fertility—the rate at which the population replaces itself from one generation to the next. Our analysis suggests that this trend is unlikely to reverse in the coming years. The decline in births is widespread across demographic groups ...
Introduction: Economic Policy in a More Uncertain World
Economic policymakers are confronting the highest inflation in a generation, energy supply shortages, and shifting geopolitical alliances. These challenges rightfully occupy news headlines and policy debates, but longer-run headwinds in the American economy also warrant focused attention. This volume aims to highlight three such challenges and provide constructive policy options for addressing them: the need ...
Seven Recent Developments in US Science Funding
Over the past century, scientific research and development (R&D) has fueled US economic and military might and propelled the country’s status as a global superpower. These investments have helped to launch not only the technologies that define modern life, including the internet, mobile and personal computing, and artificial intelligence, but also the healthcare advances that ...
Will Population Aging Push Us over a Fiscal Cliff?
The share of the US population age 65 and older is rising dramatically. In the year 2000, 12 percent of the population was over age 65; by 2050 that share will be 22 percent. Much of that aging has already occurred: in 2022, just over 17 percent of Americans are retirement age. Population aging is ...
Lessons from COVID-19 Aid to State and Local Governments for the Design of Federal Automatic Stabilizers
In this paper Clemens and Veuger analyze pandemic-era federal fiscal assistance to state and local governments and draw lessons for the design of stabilization policy. They start by explaining why the federal government plays a key role in stabilizing state and local government budgets across the business cycle, before describing the shape this role currently ...
A Proposal for an Enhanced Partially Refundable Child Tax Credit
This proposal was produced in collaboration with The Hamilton Project. The proposal will be presented by Wendy Edelberg at a Hamilton Project event on March 1st and can be viewed here. INTRODUCTION The economic case for expanded income assistance to low-income families with children in this country is exceptionally strong. We have ample evidence showing ...