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.
Washington Post Op-Ed: How to save millions of Americans from losing their homes
The covid-19 pandemic has pushed tens of millions of Americans to the brink of eviction, revealing a gaping hole in our social safety net. The CARES Act, a federal eviction moratorium, and state and local renter protections have thus far held back a catastrophic wave of eviction and homelessness.
Securing Our Economic Future
The Economic Strategy Group's third annual policy volume focuses on the economics of the middle class, geographic disparities in economic opportunity, and U.S. policy options to address climate change.
Walking the Tightrope: Variable Income and Limited Liquidity Among the US Middle Class
In this chapter, author Dan Silverman of Arizona State University describes a body of evidence showing that large fluctuations in household income are commonplace both across and within years. However, these households’ reactions to shocks reveal substantial resilience despite their lack of a financial buffer. Silverman argues these facts imply that successful policies will focus on limiting the uninsured risks that families face.
Is the Decline of the Middle Class Greatly Exaggerated?
Professor Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth College asserts that claims about a vanishing middle class are not well-founded. The real challenges, he argues, are the rapidly changing nature of work and the skills demanded in the labor market; the unequal distribution of income growth in the United States in which median income and consumption are growing less quickly than the economy as a whole; and the deterioration of happiness and mental health indicators.
Securing Our Economic Future: Introduction
The United States is currently gripped by deep uncertainty and economic anxiety. At the time of this writing, the United States is six months into the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 190,000 Americans have died from COVID (CDC 2020); more than 13 million Americans remain unemployed (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020); and tens of thousands of businesses remain closed (Grossman 2020). Meanwhile, protests against racial injustice continue across the country, and in a number of tragic instances, they have been overtaken by violence. Wildfires rage through the northern Pacific states. In Oregon, 40,000 people have been evacuated and more than 1,500 square miles have burned. California has already experienced three of the top four largest wildfires in its history in this year alone. Perhaps more than any time in recent memory, the economic future of our country feels uncertain.
Climate Convexity: The Inequality of a Warming World
Trevor Houser of the Rhodium Group summarizes current forecasts of climate damages in the years ahead and their implications for the global economy, inequality, and health.
How much have childcare challenges slowed the US jobs market recovery?
The US economy lost a net of 8 million jobs between February 2020 and April 2021. Agreement is growing that people not actively seeking employment (inadequate labor supply) has been playing a major role in the slow recovery, as evidenced by factors including record job openings, the largest wage increases in decades, and other signs ...
13 Aspen Economic Strategy Group Reports related to the American Jobs and Families Plans
The Biden Administration’s American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan propose over $4.1 trillion in new government spending over the next 10 years, aiming to fundamentally reshape and expand the social safety net, increase the economy’s productive potential through investments in physical and human capital, and make major public investments in green infrastructure and technology. ...