The Joint Economic Committee’s Social Capital Project has documented trends and proposed policy solutions to address many of the same cultural and economic forces that animate the Families Plan.
The Latest
The widely publicized deaths of Floyd, Taylor, and several other Black Americans over the past few years have weakened trust, sparked outrage, and led to widespread demands for increased police accountability across the nation.
The issue of child care touches a bundle of related issues that reflect how we value family life and work. All parents face different trade-offs in making decisions that intersect with this Project’s goals of making it more affordable to raise a family, connecting people to work, and investing in youth.
Feb 02 2021
What’s Next for Schools: Balancing the Costs of School Closures Against COVID-19 Health Risks
The COVID-19 pandemic altered the lives of every family in America and particularly affected American families with school-aged children. In March 2020, every school district in the country closed and transitioned to remote learning, and this posed new challenges for parents, teachers, and students. The virus persisted throughout the fall and winter, and so have the associated challenges for families and children.
A well-chosen and consistent monetary policy anchor will not solve every problem—and certainly not ones directly related to public health—but it can facilitate the execution of financial and business contracts and shore up the social contract by lowering uncertainty about the future.
Sep 09 2020
A Place to Call Home: Improving Foster Care and Adoption Policy to Give More Children a Stable Family
The need for foster and adoptive families is great. In 2018, more than 400,000 children were in foster care, and 18,000 youth left foster care without a permanent home.
Jul 23 2020
The Demise of the Happy Two-Parent Home
As sources of valuable social capital, few relationships are as important as the family ties between parents and children. However, as with other features of our associational life, family ties have been weakening for several decades.
May 26 2020
Saving for Social Capital
While there are good reasons not to rely on the tax code to promote social goals, its imbalanced treatment of spending and saving actually discourages savings and thereby poses a barrier to social capital investment. Universal savings accounts would help rectify this bias.
There is a strong family affordability case for avoiding policies that increase home prices. The current slate of itemized deductions is ineffective in achieving the goal of family affordability, and the system is therefore ripe for reform.
Feb 20 2020
Update: Deaths Of Despair Declined In 2018
From 2017 to 2018, the age-adjusted mortality rate from deaths of despair ticked down from 45.8 to 45.3 per 100,000.
