The War on Poverty, Then and Now
President Johnson’s War on Poverty reduced on poverty rates, but progress stalled over 40 years ago. But things would be even worse otherwise.
Read more...Category Archives: Social policy
Kansas’ Idea to Keep Businesses (and Small Towns) Alive When Owners Retire
Kansas devises a clever idea to help local communities. Will it go national?
Read more...How Do We Reclaim Control Of Our Lives When the Economy Looms So Grim?
Lean Logic, community, and a post-growth world.
Read more...The American Opioid Epidemic
More discussion of the possible causes and implications of the opioid epidemic.
Read more...Bill Black: Kansas Legislature Slips Koch Noose, Authorizes Medicaid Expansion
The Kansas legislature bucks long-standing Republican orthodoxy and votes for Medicaid expansion. A harbinger or a one-off?
Read more...Immigrants and Innovation in US History
Economists have been trying to measure the impact immigrants have on economic activity, such as innovation.
Read more...Wanted: A Skulk of Foxes, or the Case-Deaton Health Study and Trump
Latest study shows white working class suffers health declines: can hedgehog Trump assemble a skulk of foxes to craft responsive policies?
Read more...A More Equitable Economy Exists Right Next Door
Meet Quebec’s social economy.
Read more...Who Benefits From the Mayo Clinic Explicitly Putting Commercially Insured Patients Ahead of Some Government Insured Patients?
The Mayo Clinic takes a big step backwards in patient care.
Read more...The Role of Experts in Public Debate
How experts, as in economists, wrap themselves in a mantle of jargon and supposed superior insight to promote policies that screw workers.
Read more...Diversity and Public Goods: The More We Mix, the Better
Making diversity work is a challenge, but it can be done.
Read more...Race to the Bottom: Cities and States Spend >$45 Billion Per Year Competing for Jobs
The Wall Street Journal published an important story on how states and communities throw money at companies via tax incentives and other gimmies in a desperate effort to win or hold jobs. These subsidies are a big drain on government budgets: Economic-development tax incentives more than tripled over the past 25 years, offsetting about 30% […]
Read more...How Common Ownership is One Route to Social Transformation
Can changes in ownership rules tame the bad features of capitalism?
Read more...Campaign Calls on Bernie Sanders to Lead a New Party
With the Democrats getting their claws into reform efforts like Our Revolution, is a Sanders-led party the most viable route for change?
Read more...Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding
Eurocentric modernism is not compatible with human civilization and is finally reaching its breaking point.
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