Social Policy

SCOTUS Arguments in Debt Relief Cases Show the Fracturing of the Bipartisan "Education Myth"

by Jon Shelton

Two Justice's preoccupation with the fairness of relieving student debt proclaimed a concern that the government not pick economic winners and losers. But the student debt crisis reflects a decades-long bipartisan sales pitch, backed by policy, that college is the individual's path to prosperity. That pitch is now wearing thin. 

The Clinton-Era Law that Still Devastates Black Families

by Dorothy E. Roberts

The Adoption and Safe Families Act mandated state intervention to protect children from neglect, but did nothing to ensure an economic and social safety net to mitigate hardship. The result, spurred by anti-Black tropes, was an acceleration of family breakup by state agencies. 

In Praise of One-Size-Fits-All Social Policy

by Lawrence B. Glickman

"To call a vaccine mandate a constraint on an “intensely personal decision” is to obfuscate the fundamental reality that pandemics are intensely social."

Work Requirements Would Undo A Signature Biden Accomplishment

by Molly Michelmore

An expanded Child Tax Credit would potentially reduce child poverty by 40%. Placing work requirements on the credit would harm children for the sake of the historic pattern of policing the line between the deserving and undeserving poor. 

Richard Nixon Bears Responsibility for the Pandemic’s Child-Care Crisis

by Anna K. Danziger Halperin

Today’s child-care crisis may have been fueled by the outbreak, but it is not new. It has been simmering below the surface for decades and can be traced back to President Richard M. Nixon’s 1971 veto of federally funded universal child care.

Sick Leave Provisions in the COVID Relief Bill Were Historic. That's the Problem.

by Vicki Shabo

It is well past time for lawmakers to provide permanent paid sick days protections, so that no one is forced to work sick, risk their paycheck or risk their job.