There are countless examples of economists disregarding survey data in which a representative sample concludes that the American economy is concerning, generally countering with some favorable economic figure. Although the data can be noisy, metrics poorly cal... More »
In the parts of America that will decide the election, the presidency is won or lost with policy and not in courts, brokered conventions, or headlines. With a high-stakes and volatile election, mired in early controversy, the focus on economic policy remains t... More »
Once again, Congress appears deadlocked. Following the tight 2022 midterm elections, Democrats managed to maintain a slim majority in the U.S. Senate, but narrowly lost the House. More recently, the prolonged race for Speaker of the House revealed the instabil... More »
Mark Sheppard is a current Economics PhD student at CUNY Graduate Center. He is an alumnus of both the Harris School of Public Policy (MPP ’21) and Georgetown University (MA ’19). He is also a former Executive Board member of the Chicago Policy Review.As the F... More »
True political moments represent a chance to try and right a historical wrong. The infrastructure bill signed into law last November creates a unique political moment to make marginal progress on longstanding issues of racial justice. Too often policy windows ... More »
President-elect Joe Biden is forming a transition team to assume office in January, but the outcome of some Senate elections are still outstanding. While the exact congressional makeup is unclear, more is known about the Biden-Harris transition team, which now... More »
The jobs report was released today, October 2nd, with the preliminary estimate of the unemployment rate at 7.9%. Following last month’s better-than-expected jobs report, Senate Republicans unveiled a slimmed-down coronavirus relief bill. The more comprehensive... More »
These are highly uncertain times. In a matter of weeks, the longest economic expansion in U.S. history has become the sharpest recession on record with the first true pandemic recession. Mass death, record declines in GDP, and job losses are foregrounded again... More »
As the economy free falls into a sharp recession [1], many low-income workers have been deemed “essential” during the pandemic [2], which effectively obligates work—notably without any additional federally mandated hazard pay [3]. This basic contrast, along wi... More »