Thoughts on policy, welfare, and so on
If you’ve spent any time on econ Twitter or econ Bluesky since 2022, you’ve almost certainly come across the idea of the “vibecession.” For the uninitiated, the vibecession essentially says that starting in 2022, the “vibes” about the economy became significantly negative and out of line with the fundamentals of [ ] The post Is AI Anxiety Causing the Vibecession? An Investigation first appeared on…
I am both fully employed and a new dad, so my time for blogging has decreased dramatically since last summer, when I was neither fully employed nor a new dad. It therefore takes a special bit of inspiration for me to spend my limited free time posting rather than watching [ ] The post You Can’t Build a Just Society with Tax Cuts first appeared on kevinonthemargin.com .
Last week on the preeminent social media site, Bluesky, a spirited debate broke out between Matt Darling and seemingly most of the site’s other users. The point of contention was how many gig workers there are in America. Darling pointed to data from the BLS that he said indicated the [ ] The post The Great Gig Worker Debate first appeared on kevinonthemargin.com .
Over the summer, I wrote about cuts to food stamps, formally known as SNAP, in the Republicans’ reconciliation bill. At the time, experts estimated that the bill would force at least 2 million of SNAP’s roughly 42 million recipients to lose their benefits. Unfortunately, it appears that the Trump administration [ ] The post As SNAP Cuts Loom, Republicans Say “Let Them Eat Cake” first appeared on…
As my dedicated readers will no doubt have noticed, I’ve been absent from posting for a few weeks. This is for good reason: at the end of August, my wife and I welcomed a baby boy into the world. It’s hard to overstate how much our lives have changed since [ ] The post The Joy and Stress of Being a Parent in America first appeared on kevinonthemargin.com .
The Zohran Mamdani free bus proposal has been living fare-free in my brain for quite a while now. There’s a vibrant debate among transportation experts and urbanists as to how making transit free compares with other transit improvements in terms of increasing ridership, decreasing car dependency, and other outcomes. While [ ] The post The Impact of Free Buses in Alexandria, VA first appeared on…
Big news in the cash assistance research space this week: there’s a new working paper out that looks at the effects of unconditional cash aid on the cognitive development of children in poverty. Surprisingly, and perhaps disconcertingly to advocates of cash aid such as myself, the study finds that children [ ] The post Cash Assistance is Still Good first appeared on kevinonthemargin.com .
On the Fourth of July, President Trump signed the Republican reconciliation bill into law. A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the devastating impacts that this bill would have on SNAP. Other publications have extensively covered the overall effects of the bill, namely, harming low-income people and helping rich people. [ ] The post Medicaid Cuts are Coming to a Neighborhood Near You first appeared…
No graphs or maps today. I wanted to cash in on the Zohran Mamdani bonanza before something else becomes the topic of the day. But I’ll get back to Zohran in a minute. I recently read Elizabeth Popp Berman’s book “Thinking Like an Economist,” and it has given me a [ ] The post Zohran Mamdani, Free Buses, and Thinking Like an Economist first appeared on kevinonthemargin.com .
Despite all the madness of the past week, I want to turn my attention back to the Republicans’ so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which continues to move through Congress. The legislation will do many things, most of which involve taking money from poor people and giving money to rich people. The [ ] The post SNAP is All-American first appeared on kevinonthemargin.com .