New post at Policy Shop, which is now at Demos.org. Excerpt: Since the recession, total debt levels among the young have fallen. According to Pew, the median debt of below-35 households fell between 2007 and 2011 from $21.9k to $15.5k, a 29% decline. This debt decline holds for those with and without student debt histories.… Continue reading Policy Shop: The Youth Income Crisis
Policy Shop: Is a Universal Basic Income Really Utopian?
New post at Policy Shop. Excerpt: Moreover, a UBI is not unprecedented. It has been successfully implemented in a number of developing countries, including recently in rural India and Namibia. Additionally, the U.S. actually has a deep-cover UBI program that we call Social Security. It’s only for old people, so it obviously falls short of… Continue reading Policy Shop: Is a Universal Basic Income Really Utopian?
The weak feminist case against a basic income
Mike Konczal dedicated his Saturday wonkblog post to the universal basic income (UBI). I’ve written about the UBI here from time to time. I am supportive of it, although I am more partial to a slight permutation on the idea that I’ve generally seen referred to as a social wage. A social wage is comprised… Continue reading The weak feminist case against a basic income
The debt dance
I’ve already written my piece about the latest Fed report that showed all young people are taking out less car loans and mortgages in the wake of the recession. The report showed that youth with student debt reduced their mortgage and car debt by slightly more percentage points than youth without it. Extrapolating anything meaningful… Continue reading The debt dance
Policy Shop: The Most Viable Way to Give a Boost to Low-Income Workers
New post at Policy Shop. Excerpt: But, as Hacker correctly points out, my view is almost certainly an outlying one. For cultural or other reasons, Americans tend to be more supportive of equality-producing measures that get baked into paychecks than they are of equality-producing measures that go through more overt government channels. As a result,… Continue reading Policy Shop: The Most Viable Way to Give a Boost to Low-Income Workers