Issue Areas

Trump’s trade war with Canada grows increasingly costly as Section 338 tariffs harm both economies (opens in a new tab)

Essays Sep 22, 2026

President Donald Trump continues to escalate his administration’s perplexing trade spat with Canada through the expanded use of novel tariff powers in Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930.…

New research shows how U.S. homeownership and the accumulation of housing wealth are linked to political participation (opens in a new tab)

Essays Aug 14, 2026

Persistent affordability pressures have driven up housing costs for millions of U.S. families in recent years. Home prices remain near record highs relative to incomes, mortgage rates and associated costs…

Housing Wealth Accumulation and Electoral Representation (opens in a new tab)

Working Papers Aug 14, 2026

We document that housing wealth accumulation systematically differs among homeowners by their political participation. Using a nationwide voter-property dataset, we find that realized housing appreciation increases monotonically the more a…

Defining extreme wealth is more complicated than it looks (opens in a new tab)

Videos Aug 13, 2026

Facing high levels of income and wealth inequality and shrinking tax revenues, U.S. policymakers are showing increased interest in proposals to tax the richest households. Yet determining which households fall into that category is complex and changes based…

The debt-to-wealth ratio: A missing lens on the U.S. government’s fiscal capacity (opens in a new tab)

Reports Jul 30, 2026

Few statistics shape the fiscal debate in the United States as powerfully as the ratio of federal debt-to-Gross Domestic Product. Debt held by the public recently surpassed 100 percent of…

Whether data from the Fed or from WID.world are used, U.S. debt-to-wealth measures show similar trends (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 22, 2026

The United States sits in the middle of the pack on debt relative to wealth (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 22, 2026

Explosion in post-1980 inequality largely explains low debt-to-top U.S. wealth ratios (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 22, 2026

Measured against the wealth of the very top, U.S. debt is historically modest (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 22, 2026

Private wealth has grown far faster than the overall U.S. economy in recent decades (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 22, 2026

U.S. debt looks alarming against GDP but far less so against wealth (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 22, 2026

The costs of the Trump administration’s tariffs diverge for countries and industries so far in 2026 (opens in a new tab)

Essays Jul 14, 2026

The first 4 months of 2026 saw continued seismic changes in U.S. trade policy. In late February, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s use of the International…

Certain U.S. manufacturing subsectors have experienced more tariff relief since the Supreme Court IEEPA ruling (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 13, 2026

The U.S. Supreme Court IEEPA ruling reduced tariffs unevenly across key U.S. economic sectors (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 13, 2026

U.S. trade with China has largely been supplanted by trade with other countries suspected of transshipment (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 13, 2026

U.S. imports are up and tariff rates are down since the U.S. Supreme Court IEEPA ruling (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations Jul 13, 2026

U.S. workers will be hurt by immigration enforcement overreach (opens in a new tab)

Essays Jun 17, 2026

President Donald Trump last week signed the $70 billion Secure America Act, a budget reconciliation package that boosts funding for immigration and border enforcement agencies while imposing no limits on their authority.…

Factsheet: Defining top U.S. income and wealth thresholds for tax policy (opens in a new tab)

Factsheets May 27, 2026

Federal and state policymakers in the United States, responding to high levels of income and wealth inequality and shrinking tax revenues, are increasingly interested in proposals to tax households with…

Defining top wealth and income thresholds for U.S. tax policy design and analysis (opens in a new tab)

Reports May 27, 2026

Wealth and income inequality are an ongoing area of interest for policymakers. In particular, the rise of the richest of the rich—not just the top 1 percent, but also the…

Realized capital gains are highly volatile, leading to large swings in the top 0.1% U.S. income thresholds (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations May 26, 2026

Is Taxing Wealth Possible? Practical? Desirable? Yes, if we’re smart about it (opens in a new tab)

Essays May 7, 2026

While the American economy has outperformed much of the industrialized world in recent years, there are good reasons to be deeply concerned about its long-term prospects. It is dogged by…

Taxed capital gains are a tiny fraction of total capital gains, which have grown larger in recent decades (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations May 6, 2026

Top tax rates have been cut dramatically (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations May 6, 2026

Unrealized gains have grown substantially for richer, older Americans (opens in a new tab)

Visualizations May 6, 2026