Category: Finance

Three times a week, Amber Titus wakes up at 5 a.m. to get ready for the 45-minute drive to the methadone clinic. Titus, 38, and her husband live with their two young children in Bisbee Junction, Arizona, a rural community near the U.S.-Mexico border. The couple started taking methadone, a medication that treats opioid addiction, […]

After 10 states began to add new restrictions to what people could buy with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in early 2026, the number of convenience stores authorized to accept those benefits was 1.4% lower than would be expected based on trends in states without the policy change. That’s what we found in our study, […]

Healthcare costs are a major concern for Americans, and health insurance premiums are a primary fuel for that anxiety. Shrinking federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans led to large premium increases for millions of Americans in 2025, causing many people to drop coverage. With premiums expected to rise further and Medicaid work requirements set […]

While affordability pressures are hitting Americans in many facets of their lives, from groceries to gas prices to housing costs, one important expense often gets less attention – childcare. After a huge infusion of federal funds into childcare dried up at the end of the Biden administration, experts warned that this sharp cutoff, sometimes dubbed […]

I was teaching health economics when a student raised his hand. We were discussing the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, which requires most health plans to cover certain recommended preventive services at no additional cost to patients. I explained that preventive care could cost nothing. The student had expected that, too. Instead, he said, he […]

Data centers require enormous investments: land, buildings, computer equipment and power infrastructure. Yet, once they’re up and running, they tend to employ no more than a few dozen people in occupations such as IT technicians, engineers and security guards. With billions of dollars flowing into new data centers across the United States, communities are asking […]

Politics is about the distribution of power and money. So it comes as little surprise that many politicians campaign on the material benefits that citizens can expect if those candidates win. President Donald Trump has been no different in this respect. He has promised voters, among other things, a “DOGE dividend” using money saved by […]

Imagine you have a bag you really like. It felt like “the one” when you bought it. Over time, it starts to look worn. There are some scuffs on it. Nothing is actually wrong with the bag, and it still works exactly as it should. Yet, once you notice those imperfections, you start thinking about […]

The buzzword of the 2026 U.S. midterm elections may be affordability, but growing anger over inequality is behind the sentiment. A Pew Research survey released in October 2026 found that roughly 6 in 10 Americans – including 4 in 10 Republicans – believe there’s too much inequality in the U.S. And a growing share from […]

A massive federal spending effort to combat climate change passed in 2022 without a single Republican vote in the U.S. House or the Senate. But the billions of dollars it authorized benefited Republican and Democratic politicians alike – so long as they were already in the House of Representatives – according to an analysis I […]