As a researcher who measures the effects of contraception and abortion policy on people’s lives, I usually have to wait years for the data to roll in. But sometimes anticipating a policy’s effects before they happen can suggest ways to avoid its worst consequences. In my forthcoming peer-reviewed paper, currently available as a preprint, I found that if the U.S. ends all abortions nationwide
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Progressive Voices
An economist explains why investments in childcare and eldercare could aid the U.S. economy Inflation is by far the biggest economic concern facing the U.S. economy today. While job growth is historically rapid and survey evidence indicates that workers think now is the best time in years to find a good job, the inflation surge has kept this labor market strength from translating into higher wages and incomes for most households.
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Automation is already here: What is our responsibility to the people and communities left behind? Somewhere on Minnesota's Iron Range a railroad engineer noses an 85-car train under the load-out chute at a taconite plant. One by one, each car fills with almost 100 tons of iron ore. The contents of this train will be worth several hundred thousand dollars to the company.
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Earlier this month, a North Carolina father contemplated an unthinkable decision: should he bring his 12-year-old son home from his group home without the services necessary to keep his son and the rest of his family safe, or abandon his son by not picking him up at discharge? In considering giving up his child, this father risks judgments and assumptions, though none of them would be accurate. The reality? He loves his son unequivocally. It is because he loves his son that he is pondering this horrific choice.
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When they’re not busy accusing her of being too lenient on pedophiles and too hard on white people, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee holding hearings on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson purport to worship an originalist judicial philosophy. That means they like judges who promise, all Antonin Scalia-like, to base judicial rulings on what (they prefer to think) the Constitution’s framers intended.
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"Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” “If we do not learn history, we are condemned to repeat it.” Americans often turn to these two aphorisms in discussions of public policy and usually for good reason. Both emphasize the value of openly and honestly confronting the truth – wherever it may lead.
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Even though asking job applicants for their salary history feeds a vicious cycle, our report finds that most North Carolina counties still do it This past Tuesday, March 15, was National Equal Pay Day. As President Biden rightfully noted in a White House proclamation, "Equal pay is a matter of justice, fairness, and dignity — it is about living up to our values and who we are as a Nation." Meanwhile, here in North Carolina, counties have an important opportunity to address gender-based pay disparities through a simple hiring practice change.
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I’m trans. This year I turn 30, and my teenage self would be beyond surprised — not just at the joys that fill my life, but the fact that I’m alive at all. I’m part of the last generation that didn’t quite have the language for the feelings that flooded us as kids. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t take off my shirt as I stomped through puddles with my pals, why I was never invited to the sleepovers I actually wanted to go to, or why I seemed to be the only one that couldn’t quite envision my future self as a devoted wife and mother.
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Earlier this past month, Senator Thom Tillis tweeted something that no one could disagree with. “During #BlackHistoryMonth, we recognize the experiences and contributions of Black North Carolinians to our state.” Those are easy words. But, the fact is, Senator Tillis blocked the historic appointment of a Black North Carolinian to the powerful Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the same month.
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A week ago, I was talking to an educator whose job it is to run training programs for students and adults in higher education. She told me that around a dozen different companies and groups were sponsoring training courses for things like nursing assistants, medical workers, electricians and truck driving.
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The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and the ensuing and needless slaughter of thousands of soldiers and civilians, seems all but inevitable now. “So, what do I care?” some of us may be asking ourselves. “It’s not our fight.” I get it. Maybe you don’t follow a lot of news from overseas, or the machinations of global politics. You’re not alone. Most Americans don’t.
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“We’re a republic, not a democracy” is a thing Republicans are fond of saying. Michele Fiore, whose insatiable thirst for right-wing celebrity status has led her to run for governor of Nevada, said it during a forum with five-sixths of the rest of the GOP gubernatorial field the other day. Except Fiore, always the innovator, turned the tired phrase around to put the “we are not a democracy” part first and then firmly pronounced...
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The Presidential Records Act exists for a reason. Republicans who complain about erased history should appreciate that At this point in our sick national saga, is there any law that Trump hasn’t broken? A federal statute on the books – Title 18, Section 2071 of the U.S. Code – spells out the provisions of the Presidential Records Act of 1978.
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In January, Governor Roy Cooper surprised many by issuing an official proclamation recognizing School Choice Week. The proclamation had long been a priority of school choice advocates in North Carolina such as the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools, which viewed the gesture as “an olive branch.”
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