How the politics of education changed in 2015 (and what it means for 2016)

In 2015, K-12 and higher education officially switched places in the hierarchy of national issues. On the K-12 side, federal policymakers have quietly reined in the expansive federal role that took root under No Child Left Behind, and school reform has been largely absent from presidential debates. Meanwhile, college affordability has been a near-constant topic on the campaign trail, with candidates...

Special feature: What we will be watching in 2016

This past week, we issued a challenge. We asked some of our scholars to reflect on and list the main events, trends, negotiations, policy goals, etc., that will, could, or should shape 2016. So what should we mark in red on our calendars? What is at the front of policy and political leaders’ minds this...

The party of Trump

This article will be published in the January 11 issue of The Weekly Standard. Within weeks of announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in June, Donald Trump seized the lead in virtually every national poll of GOP voters and has held that lead ever since. The Real Clear Politics...

Charts of the day: Another look at how America’s middle class is disappearing into higher income households

Here’s another look in the two charts above showing how America’s lower-income and middle-income households have declined as a share of all US households between 1967 and 2014, while the share of high-income households keeps increasing. 1. The top chart shows the three income groups: a) low-income...

Obama’s legacy: A work in progress

Is it too early to think about President Obama’s legacy? The pollsters don’t think so. The upcoming January issue of AEI’s Political Report compiles some of their early assessments. We find opinion of Obama in general and with respect to specific issues more negative than positive, although it is heavily influenced by partisan affiliation. When the McClatchy-Marist poll asked people earlier this year...

2016 Data Point: Was 2015 a good year for you?

As 2016 officially begins, how do Americans feel about the year coming to an end? Was 2015 a good year for them? Forty-two percent say 2015 was an “about average year” for them personally. Twenty-eight percent say it was “one of the best years” or an “above-average year” for them, while 29 percent say...

A new era in South Korean–Japanese relations begins

The news out of Tokyo and Seoul on the eve of the New Year was nothing short of blockbuster. After decades of dispute, recrimination, and ill will, Asia’s two most powerful democracies agreed to resolve one of the bitterest lingering issues from World War II. In forthrightly offering “his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered...

Fault lines in the global economy

Global economic policymakers should approach 2016 with more than the usual degree of caution. Not only do there appear to be an unusually large number of identifiable fault lines in the global economy, but those fault lines also appear to be both interconnected and of systemic consequence. This is all too likely to result in yet further slowing in the global economic recovery next year that would...

How North Korea became the World’s worst economy

Economic history is a story of progress and success, but also of retrogression and failure. Among the latter cases, the most gruesome is surely the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK). Its signature catastrophe, the Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s, was, so far as can be told, the only famine in all of human history to beset an urbanized and literate society during peacetime. Pyongyang’s...

The ‘retirement crisis’ that isn’t

Ask pretty much anyone and they’ll tell you: Americans are undersaving for retirement. It’s not just thought to be a few households falling through the cracks. Rather, there’s a perception that, after a “golden age” of traditional pensions that lasted from World War II until about 1970, most Americans...

Tuesday evening links

1. Chart of the Day (above) shows annual jobless rates for men and women between 1990 and 2015. In only 4 of the last 26 years (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000) has the male jobless rate been lower than the female jobless rate; in all other years the female jobless rate was either equal to the male jobless...

The Economic Welfare and Trade Relations Implications of the 2014 Farm Bill

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-7856-0521-5 Price: $74.95 Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Buy the book. Before now, there was no comprehensive, accessible account of the economic welfare effects of the 2014 Farm Bill, passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on February 7, 2014. This edited collection consists of 10 essays by distinguished scholars, each focused...

A book recommendation: The alternative history of Stephen Fry’s Making History

Last month suddenly put alternative (World War II) history at the center of the nation’s public discourse — and in a way that makes me want to share a book recommendation, dear reader. Near the end of the month Amazon released its original series The Man in the High Castle. It turned out to be a drab...

Pethokoukis Podcast: What should we do about the homeless? A Q&A with Kevin Corinth

Should you give a homeless person money or food, or just keep walking? It’s a quandary many Americans face, especially those who live in big cities. Homelessness raises other questions as well. How can we reduce the problem? How do the data misrepresent the issues? In what cities are there real “states...

Debt and no degree

For all the back and forth about student debt in America, the debate is too often evidence-free. Thankfully, earlier this month student aid expert Mark Kantrowitz added some much-needed analysis to the discussion. Kantrowitz’s study shows that an increasing fraction of America’s college graduates are leaving school with what he labels “excessive student loan debt.” That is, many are leaving with debts...