Resources
From peer-reviewed research to accessible policy briefs, explore the scholarship that’s shaping debates and driving change.
151 Results
What can federal data collection tell policymakers and researchers about artificial intelligence in the U.S. labor market? (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs AUG 24, 2026
It is impossible to perfectly predict how artificial intelligence will affect the U.S. labor market. Policymakers and researchers are grappling with important questions around this topic, including what new opportunities…
By: Mary Beech (opens in a new tab)
What is the relationship between inflation, interest rates, and economic growth, and what does it mean for the new Federal Reserve chair? (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 18, 2026
Since regaining the Oval Office in early 2025, President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for lower interest rates and severely criticized former Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell’s cautious approach…
By: Jacob Robbins (opens in a new tab)
Federal policymakers can ensure Trump accounts do not exacerbate inequality in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs APR 14, 2026
In July 2025, Congress passed a federal budget bill (Public Law 119-21, also commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) that, among other things, established a new type…
By: Megan Rivera (opens in a new tab)
Why federal food assistance became politically polarizing—and what to do about it (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs FEB 2, 2026
On January 31, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson requested that Congress pass federal legislation to make the Food Stamp Program permanent. Up to that point, the program had operated as…
By: Carlos Fernando Avenancio-Leon (opens in a new tab)
How artificial intelligence uncouples hard work from fair wages through ‘surveillance pay’ practices—and how to fix it (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs AUG 21, 2025
Correction: Freddie Mac and Udemy contacted the Washington Center for Equitable Growth on March 18, 2026 and April 2, 2026, respectively, to say they no longer had business relationships with…
By: Veena Dubal (opens in a new tab), Wilneida Negrón (opens in a new tab)
Tariffs impact U.S. industries differently, with manufacturing the most exposed (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUL 29, 2025
Estimates in this brief were generated July 21, before the announcement of trade deals with Japan and the European Union. All data and code used in the Equitable Growth tariff…
By: Christopher Bangert-Drowns (opens in a new tab)
Slow wage growth is the key to understanding U.S. inequality in the 21st century (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUL 8, 2025
The Washington Center for Equitable Growth today launched the U.S. Inequality Tracker, which tracks income and wealth inequality in the United States and highlights how particular components of income and…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
Why do some jobs pay better than others? Think about what workers do. (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 6, 2025
Most U.S. labor market data characterize jobs by describing the categories of industry and occupation to which the jobs belong. But to understand why some types of jobs tend to…
By: Kevin Rinz (opens in a new tab), Chiara Chanoi (opens in a new tab), Christopher Bangert-Drowns (opens in a new tab)
Advancing economic research on the Inflation Reduction Act: Q&A with Heather Boushey (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs APR 23, 2025
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is the most significant economic and clean energy jobs program the United States has ever initiated. To improve overall understanding of whether the new…
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
The qualified small business stock exclusion overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy and should be reformed in 2025 (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs APR 1, 2025
This year’s debate over the expiring personal income and estate tax provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provides an opportunity for reforming the qualified small business stock…
By: Jean Ross (opens in a new tab)
Benchmarking the U.S. economy that President Donald Trump is set to inherit (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JAN 16, 2025
When President Donald Trump takes the presidential oath of office again on January 20, he will be inheriting a very different economy, with a very different outlook, than the one…
By: Ernie Tedeschi (opens in a new tab)
Accelerating research can help fill the AI knowledge gaps for U.S. policymakers (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs DEC 17, 2024
It is hard for policymakers to ignore today’s “AI arms race” and the public debate on the economic and social significance of generative artificial intelligence. The discourse is fueled in…
By: Rohini Kosoglu (opens in a new tab), Christian Edlagan (opens in a new tab)
Hospital consolidation and rising health care prices lead to job losses for U.S. workers (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUL 25, 2024
The majority of working-age adults in the United States have health insurance via their employers. Theory and a growing body of research suggest that when the cost of workers’ benefits…
By: Zarek Brot-Goldberg (opens in a new tab), Zack Cooper (opens in a new tab), Stuart Craig (opens in a new tab), Lev Klarnet (opens in a new tab)
2017 tax cut for pass-through business owners exacerbated inequality and failed to deliver economic benefits (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 1, 2024
Among the many regressive and ineffective elements of the Trump administration’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, one provision stands out as the most convoluted, unfair, and ripe for…
By: David S. Mitchell (opens in a new tab)
Combating market power through a graduated U.S. corporate income tax (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs APR 15, 2024
Editor’s note: This version has been updated from the original publication on April 15, 2024. The update corrects a prior underestimate of the revenue potential from graduated corporate tax rates…
By: Kimberly Clausing (opens in a new tab)
Matching competition policy in the U.S. healthcare industry to address a new generation of challenges in provider markets (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAR 20, 2024
Antitrust policy in the U.S. healthcare sector is perennially 10 years behind the industry. But at the start of the Biden administration in early 2021, there was hope for a…
By: Barak D. Richman (opens in a new tab)
Closing the billionaire borrowing loophole would strengthen the progressivity of the U.S. tax code (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs FEB 5, 2024
The vast majority of Americans are concerned that some wealthy people don’t pay their “fair share” of federal taxes. They’re right to be bothered: Loopholes in the U.S. tax code…
By: Edward Fox (opens in a new tab), Zachary Liscow (opens in a new tab)
New research doesn’t overturn consensus on rising U.S. income inequality (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JAN 10, 2024
New research from Gerald Auten at the U.S. Treasury Department and David Splinter at the U.S. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation makes the counter-to-conventional-wisdom claim that U.S. income inequality has…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
The role of private equity in the U.S. economy, and whether and how favorable tax policies for the sector need to be reformed (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs SEP 14, 2023
The increasing impact of private equity firms upon large swaths of the U.S. economy in recent decades is drawing more attention to the tax treatment of these firms as they…
By: Arpit Gupta (opens in a new tab), Sabrina Howell (opens in a new tab)
The economic costs of gun violence in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUL 18, 2023
When it comes to understanding the costs of gun violence in the United States, many people rightfully focus on the human cost. People who are slain or take their own…
By: Andre Gobbo (opens in a new tab)
Equitable Growth delivers economist sign-on letter and comment letter to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on its Proposed Revisions to Circular A-4, Regulatory Analysis (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUN 20, 2023
This post has been updated to reflect that Equitable Growth’s economist sign-on letter, not our comment letter, was submitted to regulations.gov due to an administrative submission error. The Washington Center…
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
Money for nothing: The Qualified Small Business Stock capital gains exclusion is a giveaway to wealthy investors, startup founders, and their employees (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUN 8, 2023
The Qualified Small Business Stock exclusion, enshrined in Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code, permits early-stage venture capital firms and angel investors in high-tech startups, those startups’ founders, and…
By: Manoj Viswanathan (opens in a new tab)
New IRS report examines free tax filing option to reduce the cost and complexity for U.S. taxpayers (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUN 1, 2023
Filing a tax return with the Internal Revenue Service is one of the most common interactions Americans have with the federal government. Unfortunately, this process is often time-consuming and complex.…
By: Andre Gobbo (opens in a new tab)
Proposed update to federal cost-benefit analysis guidelines correctly focuses on accounting for inequality in regulations (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 23, 2023
The White House last month unveiled a proposed update to an obscure but highly influential government document called the Circular A-4, which governs how the federal government conducts regulatory cost-benefit…
By: David S. Mitchell (opens in a new tab)
Maybe some Earth Day soon, we’ll know what nature is worth (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs APR 24, 2023
This past January, the Biden administration unveiled its “National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions,” an effort to bring the health and sustainability of natural resources in the United…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
Ahead of new U.S. jobs data releases, here’s what employment growth and job switching mean for wage disparities in the U.S. labor market (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAR 7, 2023
Later this week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release data on February 2023 job growth through its Employment Situation Summary. It will also release information on job openings,…
By: Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab)
Data infrastructure and tribal sovereignty can help break down barriers for Native Americans to build wealth (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAR 2, 2023
For centuries, Indigenous communities in the United States have faced devastating poverty. American Indians and Alaska Natives today experience the highest rate of poverty, at 25 percent, of any major…
By: Raksha Kopparam (opens in a new tab)
How the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 is promoting sustainable U.S. economic growth and mitigating climate change (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs NOV 18, 2022
In an issue brief earlier this year, Equitable Growth discussed how the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 rests on sound economic principles and analyzed the ways that its…
By: Michael Madowitz (opens in a new tab), Shaun Harrison (opens in a new tab)
Latino workers are often segregated into bad jobs, but a strong U.S. labor movement can boost job quality and U.S. economic growth (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs OCT 13, 2022
Latino workers represent a large and growing share of the U.S. workforce. But even with the highest employment rates in the United States, Latinos face a number of barriers to…
By: Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab)
How corporate governance strategies hurt worker power in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs SEP 6, 2022
Researchers studying the decades-long rise in earnings inequality and wage stagnation in the United States point to a number of reasons why the country’s income divide grew over the past…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab), Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab)
Why the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is good economics (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUN 30, 2022
President Joe Biden, in November 2021, signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law, providing $1.2 trillion in new government investments to create millions of jobs, increase U.S. economic…
By: Michelle Holder (opens in a new tab), Shaun Harrison (opens in a new tab)
New U.S. Census Bureau data show significant economic disparities among the LGBTQ+ community (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUN 29, 2022
The evidence across academic and research disciplines overwhelmingly indicates that disaggregated data help build a more detailed narrative about the varying economic experiences of the U.S. population. While great strides…
By: Raksha Kopparam (opens in a new tab)
Mitigating the impact of wildfires on homes is critical to improving U.S. economic outcomes (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 10, 2022
The harmful consequences of climate change are broad, from extreme weather events making locations uninhabitable to increased temperatures delivering larger and more frequent downstream damages, such as drought and increased…
By: Michael Garvey (opens in a new tab)
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson will bring new perspectives on mass incarceration to U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs APR 7, 2022
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made history today after the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 53 to 47. The Senate vote sealed…
By: Shanteal Lake (opens in a new tab)
Walmart is a monopsonist that depresses earnings and employment beyond its own walls, but U.S. policymakers can do something about it (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAR 29, 2022
Labor income inequality is a major cause for concern in the U.S. economy. For 35 years beginning around 1980 the wages of workers steadily grew more and more unequal. This…
By: Justin Wiltshire (opens in a new tab)
Retirement tax incentives supercharge the fortunes of wealthy Americans (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAR 17, 2022
The conventional wisdom is that the nation’s system of retirement tax incentives, built around 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts, is geared at helping the middle class build a small nest…
By: David S. Mitchell (opens in a new tab)
Revisiting timely research that explores U.S. intersectional wage gaps amid Women’s History Month (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAR 8, 2022
The U.S. labor market faced one of the most severe challenges in recent history with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. In the 2 years since then,…
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
Stratification economics: What it is and how it advances our understanding of inequality (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs FEB 28, 2022
Different manifestations of inequality are among the most persistent features of the U.S. economy, yet mainstream economics traditionally explains disparities between groups solely as they relate to differences in either…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab), Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab)
More frequent disaggregated data on U.S. income inequality would improve economic research and inform policymaking (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs FEB 24, 2022
Once a year, since March 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis releases its data series on the distribution of growth in personal income with updated annual…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
Getting cash transfer payments to recipients faster boosts household spending and stimulates the economy (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs FEB 9, 2022
Cash transfer programs are a widespread economic policy tool often used to stimulate spending or encourage savings among consumers. The United States most notably uses direct cash payments as part…
By: Neil Thakral (opens in a new tab), Linh Tô (opens in a new tab)
Consumption volatility across the U.S. income distribution is highest among low-income workers and their families (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs FEB 3, 2022
Rising income inequality and more unstable earnings in the United States today results in more precarious lives for low-income U.S. workers and their families. This earnings and income instability leads…
By: Jonathan Fisher (opens in a new tab), Bradley Hardy (opens in a new tab)
How new job search technologies are affecting the U.S. labor market (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs FEB 2, 2022
As more and more job-seekers in the United States went online to look for work in the late 1990s and early 2000s, several scholars wrote about the potential of the…
By: Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab), Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab), Kathryn Zickuhr (opens in a new tab)
The U.S. economy is in its fourth decade of rising inequality amid the need for more accurate data on its consequences (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JAN 27, 2022
Economic inequality in the United States continued to rise over the first two decades of the 21st century, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis—a trend…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
Paid sick time and paid family and medical leave support workers in different ways and are both good for the broader U.S. economy (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JAN 25, 2022
Workers often need paid time away from their jobs, whether they are experiencing a short-term flu, undergoing a surgery and recovery that will last a few weeks, caring for an…
By: Alix Gould-Werth (opens in a new tab)
The importance of anti-discrimination enforcement for a fair and equitable U.S. labor market and broadly shared economic growth (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs DEC 21, 2021
Almost six decades ago, the U.S. government enacted a series of landmark laws and regulations that advanced equal pay protections, protected against workplace segregation, and made it illegal for employers…
By: Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab)
Exploring the impact of automation and new technologies on the future of U.S. workers and their families (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs DEC 17, 2021
As technological advances seemingly reshape every aspect of how U.S. workers and their families live and work, a persistent question in research and policy discussions is how these advances will…
By: Kathryn Zickuhr (opens in a new tab)
The economic evidence behind 10 policies in the Build Back Better Act (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs NOV 24, 2021
The U.S. House of Representatives late last week passed a key plank of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, the Build Back Better Act. Coming on the heels of the president…
By: Maryam Janani-Flores (opens in a new tab), David S. Mitchell (opens in a new tab)
Measuring economic outcomes for all U.S. workers and their families will hold policymakers accountable to creating broad-based growth (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs OCT 7, 2021
U.S. Gross Domestic Product is one of the most-cited economic statistics and is regularly regarded as shorthand for measuring the economic outcomes of the entire nation. Although it once represented…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
A cost-benefit analysis of The American Families Plan’s proposed investment in a nationwide public preschool program (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs SEP 22, 2021
President Joe Biden asked the U.S. Congress to consider investing $200 billion over 10 years in “a national partnership with states to offer free, high-quality, accessible, and inclusive preschool to…
By: Robert Lynch (opens in a new tab)
Factsheet: What the research says about the economics of income support programs (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs SEP 16, 2021
Sufficient income is one of the most important components of a stable and healthy household budget. Income support programs help ensure that U.S. households have the income they need to…
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
Weak income support infrastructure harms U.S. workers and their families and constrains economic growth (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs AUG 5, 2021
The coronavirus public health emergency and resulting economic recession brought into stark relief the engrained problems with the system of income support for U.S. workers and their families. People in…
By: Liz Hipple (opens in a new tab), Alix Gould-Werth (opens in a new tab)
Policymakers should ensure that the U.S. labor market recovery lasts by boosting workers’ bargaining power and strengthening social infrastructure (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUL 12, 2021
Many U.S. labor market indicators suggest that the United States is on its way toward a strong recovery. Over the past few months, hopeful signs are starting to emerge that…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab), Alix Gould-Werth (opens in a new tab), Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab)
The relationship between taxation and U.S. economic growth (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUN 30, 2021
The relationship between taxation and economic growth is hotly debated in economics. Free market economic ideology is based on the premise that constraining “the market” through policies such as increased…
By: Corey Husak (opens in a new tab)
The economic benefits of equal opportunity in the United States by ending racial, ethnic, and gender disparities (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs JUN 29, 2021
Racial, ethnic, and gender disparities across the U.S. economy are a personal tragedy for the millions of individuals who suffer from the emotional, psychological, and social consequences. These disparities also…
By: Robert Lynch (opens in a new tab)
The intersectional wage divides faced by Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander women in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 28, 2021
Like other women of color, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander women run up against structural barriers that hurt their U.S. labor market outcomes, including disadvantages that are the…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab), Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab)
The sources and size of tax evasion in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 14, 2021
Tens of millions of Americans will duly pay the taxes they owe and file for their refunds by Tax Day in 2021, which was delayed until May 17. Meanwhile, some…
By: Corey Husak (opens in a new tab)
The rising financialization of the U.S. economy harms workers and their families, threatening a strong recovery (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 11, 2021
If you are an analyst following Wall Street, things are looking pretty bright these days. The S&P 500—an index of 500 major publicly traded companies in the United States and…
By: Amanda Fischer (opens in a new tab)
The consequences of job displacement for U.S. workers (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs MAY 5, 2021
More than a year into the coronavirus recession, unemployment in the United States remains high, and there are 8.4 million fewer jobs than prior to the pandemic. As the U.S.…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab), Carmen Sanchez Cumming (opens in a new tab)
Measuring what matters: Zeroing in on Latina women to address persistent low Hispanic homeownership rates in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs APR 19, 2021
A new report released today by UnidosUS highlights one of the reasons for the wealth divide between Hispanic* households and other households in the United States: low homeownership rates among…
By: Aixa Alemán-Díaz (opens in a new tab), Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
The latest economic research demonstrates why concerns about federal budget deficits and U.S. debt levels are overblown (opens in a new tab)
Issue Briefs APR 1, 2021
A growing number of economists are reconsidering long-held views about the appropriate level of public borrowing and the consequences of federal budget deficits and debt on U.S. economic growth and…
By: Shaun Harrison (opens in a new tab)
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