Building a strong middle class in the American Mountain West
By Richard V. Reeves To paraphrase William Gibson, the American Dream is alive—it is just not very evenly distributed.[1] Rates of upward mobility vary hugely between different cities and regions of...
View ArticleGown towns: A case study of Say Yes to Education
By Richard V. Reeves, Katherine Guyot, Edward Rodrigue Postsecondary education is the entry ticket to the middle class. But for low-income Americans college success is rare. While education has long...
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FAFSA completion rates matter: But mind the data
By Richard V. Reeves, Katherine GuyotFAFSA season has just ended — the final deadline to fill out the 2017-18 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was June 30. This year, as every year,...
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Do school secessions worsen racial segregation? It’s complicated
By Richard V. Reeves, Nathan Joo What if a school could breakaway from its district to form its own school system? It turns out that in many parts of the country schools can, and these ‘school...
View ArticleRandomistas and the importance of random-assignment studies
Nearly all scientists are now convinced that the most reliable way to create knowledge about human health and behavior is to conduct random-assignment studies—an experimental technique that compares...
View ArticleFewer Americans are making more than their parents did—especially if they...
By Richard V. Reeves, Katherine Guyot One of the most striking social science findings of recent years is that only half of today’s 30-year-olds earn more than their parents. Raj Chetty and his...
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A closer look at the race gaps highlighted in Obama's Howard University...
The final months of Obama’s historic terms of office as America’s first black president are taking place against the backdrop of an ugly Republican nominating race, and to the sound of ugly language...
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The glass barrier to the upper middle class is hardening
America is becoming a more class-stratified society, contrary to the nation’s self-image as a socially dynamic meritocracy. In particular, the barriers are hardening between the upper middle class and...
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Bipartisanship in action: Evidence and contraception
Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill were just awarded the 2016 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize by the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The honor is presented to “a leading policymaker,...
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In defense of immigrants: Here's why America needs them now more than ever
At the very heart of the American idea is the notion that, unlike in other places, we can start from nothing and through hard work have everything. That nothing we can imagine is beyond our reach....
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"Should we live together first?" Yes, say Democrats. No, say Republicans...
There is a marriage gap in America. This is not just a gap in choices and actions, but in norms and attitudes. Each generation is more liberal, on average, when it comes to issues like premarital...
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After second verdict in Freddie Gray case, Baltimore's economic challenges...
Baltimore police officer Edward Nero, one of six being tried separately in relation to the arrest and death of Freddie Gray, has been acquitted on all counts. The outcome for officer Nero was widely...
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Here's what America would be like without immigrants
“There is room for everybody in America,” wrote French-American author Hector St. John de Crèvecœur in 1782’s Letters from an American Farmer. Like most of the founding generation, Crèvecœur believed...
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Colorado's poor now get to visit the dentist
“A society of equals is a society in which disadvantages do not cluster,” say Jonathan Wolff and Avner de-Shalit in their book Disadvantage. Low income matters greatly in itself, of course. But it...
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Fewer field trips mean some students miss more than a day at the museum
As every good teacher knows, education is not just about academics. It is about broadening horizons and discovering passions. (The root of education is the Latin e ducere, meaning “to draw out.”) From...
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Modeling equal opportunity
The Horatio Alger ideal of upward mobility has a strong grip on the American imagination (Reeves 2014). But recent years have seen growing concern about the distance between the rhetoric of...
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Give fathers more than one day: The case for paternity leave
Feminism needs fathers. Unless and until men and women share the responsibilities of parenting equally, gender parity in the labor market will remain out of reach. As Isabel Sawhill and I argued in...
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Transfer season: Lowering the barrier between community college and four-year...
Community colleges are a vital part of America’s opportunity structure, not least because they often provide a way into higher education for adults from less advantaged backgrounds. Each year there...
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Brexit: British identity politics, immigration and David Cameron’s undoing
Like many Brits, I’m reeling. Everyone knew that the "Brexit" referendum was going to be close. But deep down I think many of us assumed that the vote would be to remain in the European Union. David...
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Memo to the boss: Follow the BBC’s lead and measure class diversity, too
The BBC is doing something I think is awesome but many of my American friends think is awful: gathering information of the social class background of their recruits. The move is part of an aggressive...
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