How much paid parental leave do Americans really want?
Paid leave for parents is likely to be an important issue on the campaign trail this year. Hillary Clinton, positioning herself as the candidate on the side of families, argues for all parents to be...
View ArticleAs Brexit fallout topples U.K. politicians, some lessons for the U.S.
British politics is starting to resemble a bowling alley. One after another, political figures are tumbling–including the leading lights of the Brexit campaign. They sowed the wind and now are reaping...
View ArticleSeven takeaways from Theresa May's ascension to U.K. prime minister
Editor's note: This piece originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire on July 11, 2016. Theresa May has since succeeded David Cameron as UK prime minister. Theresa May is poised...
View ArticleWhy rich parents are terrified their kids will fall into the "middle class"
Politicians and scholars often lament the persistence of poverty across generations. But affluence persists, too. In the U.S. especially, the top of the income distribution is just as “sticky”, in...
View ArticleHow a U.K. Labour party meltdown could play out in wake of Brexit vote
Britain’s Conservative Party just tore itself apart over the EU referendum; David Cameron was forced to resign as prime minister. Yet the party in meltdown is Labour. Polling out this past weekend...
View ArticleSocial mobility: A promise that could still be kept
As a rhetorical ideal, greater opportunity is hard to beat. Just about all candidates for high elected office declare their commitments to promoting opportunity – who, after all, could be against it?...
View ArticleMill’s Mind
By Richard V. ReevesBenjamin Franklin exhorted his fellows to “either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” John Stuart Mill (like Franklin himself) is among that rare breed who...
View ArticleWhat real liberalism looks like
By Richard V. ReevesA great tragedy of American political etymology is the fate of the word “liberal.” Although the liberal philosopher John Locke can be seen, intellectually, as a founding grandfather...
View ArticleEnough about men: 3 reasons to boost women’s work
By Eleanor Krause, Richard V. ReevesThe retreat from work among men is a topic of great concern for scholars and policymakers. And for good reason: over the past 50 years, the prime-age male employment...
View ArticleAmerica’s “lost Einsteins”: The importance of exposing children to innovation
By Raj Chetty, Richard V. Reeves, Adrianna PitaIn this episode, Stanford Professor Raj Chetty explains his new research that examines who becomes an inventor in America and who gets left behind, and...
View ArticleHope in heterogeneity: Big data, opportunity and policy
By Richard V. Reeves “Big data” is particularly useful for demonstrating variation across large groups. Using administrative tax data, for example, Stanford economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues have...
View ArticleLet workers decide who counts as ‘family’ for paid sick and family leave
By Richard V. Reeves This is the third blog post for the 2018 series on paid family leave jointly sponsored by AEI and Brookings. Aparna Mathur at AEI and Isabel Sawhill at the Brookings Institution...
View ArticleNew college endowment tax won’t help low-income students, here’s how it could
By Aaron Klein, Richard V. Reeves There is not very much to like about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. It delivers big benefits to the affluent, creates new loopholes and complexities, and will send...
View ArticleWhy are young, educated men working less?
By Richard V. Reeves, Eleanor Krause The proportion of U.S. adults in paid work has declined in recent decades. While the fall in male employment gets the most attention, female work rates are...
View ArticleThe middle class is becoming race-plural, just like the rest of America
By Richard V. Reeves, Camille Busette For more than half a century, the term “the American middle-class,” has served as a political reference to white American upward mobility. This was less an...
View ArticleThe changing identity of America’s middle class
By Camille Busette, Richard V. Reeves, Adrianna PitaIn this episode, Camille Busette, senior fellow and director of the Race, Prosperity and Inclusion Initiative at Brookings, and Richard Reeves,...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleBipartisanship 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,...
View ArticleIn 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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