We need to be honest about what we are seeing here. The Iranian government is still the same theocratic dictatorship and the Iranian people are in desperate straits after the US promised them liberation. The Iranians still control the Strait of Hormuz, still maintain their right to collect tolls...
Research that started in 2023 when I was in the Biden CEA.
Not did the 2021 CTC help millions of families, but when it ended families felt worse about their own financial situation AND ALSO about the economy as a whole
Delighted to share our revised paper (w/ @juliaturner.bsky.social & @jacobbastian.bsky.social ) showing that Universal Pre-K has broad effects on local labor markets — effects well beyond only mothers. Larger effects for full-day programs. nber.org/papers/w33767
#EconSky #EarlyChildhood #ECE
Yes I think so, acknowledging that context matters and that these results hold for some groups and not others. How would you word it?
13/ The broader implication: the political consequences of pro-work policies depend critically on the workplace and social environments that new workers enter. Pro work policies may have electoral spillovers that vary substantially across regions, industries, and demographic groups
12/ Scaling the estimates: EITC expansions since 1980 reduced female voting by ~1.9%, reduced total Democratic votes by ~8%, and increased Republican votes by ~7.5% — roughly –2.6M and +1.7M votes respectively, relative to the 2020 election.
11/ Because employment affects both turnout and partisan identification — in opposite directions for aggregate party vote totals — the net effect on partisan votes is ambiguous ex ante. I find the identity shift dominates: pro-work policy exposure increases total Republican votes cast among women
10/ Third, White women are less likely to have grown up with a working mother (66% vs. 80% for Black women). Drawing on Kuziemko et al. (2018), women without that prior exposure tend to underestimate the challenges of combining work & parenting, showing larger ideological shifts when they work
9/ Second, newly working White and Black women sort into different occupations. White women disproportionately enter construction, office and administrative support, and finance — occupations where coworkers are on average 10.5 pp more Republican than the occupations Black women enter.
8/ First, political effects are substantially larger outside metropolitan areas, where social and workplace environments lean more conservative — and White women are less likely to live in metro areas (58% vs. 78% for non-White women).
7/ The racial heterogeneity is striking. Non-White women experience larger employment gains, but political shifts toward Republican and conservative identification are concentrated almost entirely among White women. Three channels help explain this:
6/ Mechanisms: employment reduces civic participation (–10% weekly civic hours per $1K MaxEITC), lowers political knowledge, and shifts views on government policy and race in a more conservative direction. Reduced voter registration explains little of the turnout decline.
5/ This isn’t specific to the 1990s. The 2009 federal expansion for families with 3+ kids shows the same pattern. Staggered state EITC adoptions — using a stacked DiD approach — show parallel pre-trends and post-expansion declines. Results hold across 6 independent data sources spanning 5 decades
4/ Identification comes from variation in MaxEITC across state × year × family size cells. Before the early 1990s federal expansions, voting trends between mothers and childless women were flat and parallel. The divergence tracks the policy changes closely.
3/ The estimates: each $1,000 increase in max EITC decreases voting by 0.5 pp, Democratic ID by 1.75 pp, and increases Republican ID by 1.09 pp. Welfare reform waivers show larger effects: –3.9 pp Democrat, +4.5 pp Republican, –1.1 pp turnout.
2/ Workers vote more than non-workers — but that correlation reflects selection, not causation. I provide the first causal evidence that the relationship runs in the opposite direction. Exogenous increases in employment reduce turnout and shift political identity rightward.
1/ Excited to share my first solo NBER working paper: “Does Employment Shift Mothers’ Voting Behavior and Political Identity?” Using 5 decades of EITC expansions and welfare reform, I find employment reduces voter turnout & shifts lower-income mothers toward Republican & conservative identification
NYC considering reviving SROs — a great idea that restores the missing lowest rung on the housing ladder; a new bill would allow ~100 sq ft rooms w/ shared facilities, replacing a stock that’s fallen to 30–40k today from 100k+ in the early 1900s
www.6sqft.com/new-bill-wou...
Wrote a post on EITC & CTC for @briefingbook.bsky.social on (1) their current design and historical development, (2) research evidence on their effects on families, and (3) ways they could be improved
www.briefingbook.info/p/tax-credit...
Would love to see @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social keep this going—AFTER the election—with volunteer groups working together on good things
Community in real life is needed more and more, post-Covid, post-religion
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/n...
Such a pleasure to be on this panel. Great event at the Urban Institute
www.urban.org/events/cash-...
The logic for supporting DEI:
Providing extra help not because one is a woman/minority; but rather to help overcome the extra obstructions one faces as a woman/minority
It shouldn’t be called sexist/racist to help people overcome sexism/racism
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/o...
Putting together something on AI and economics research.
Who are leaders and creative thinkers in this area?
Ideally labor and applied micro economists.
Self promotion accepted!
Huge thanks to @equitablegrowth.bsky.social for their grant support! Excited for the opportunity to advance this research.
Putting together something on AI and economics research.
Who are leaders and creative thinkers in this area?
Ideally labor and applied micro economists.
Self promotion accepted!
Submit that new research project of yours and I will see you in Denver.
Will be a great conference!
It’s August which means another @iipf.bsky.social conference. We’re in Nairobi Kenya. Would be a shame to come all the way here and not explore East Africa a bit ;)
I am presenting a few papers, including a brand new project on tax credits in Puerto Rico
Reach out and say hello if you are here!
It is important for researchers and policymakers to think about the interaction of policies, not just one program at a time.
I wrote a short analysis of the US’s two most important tax credits
Here’s EITC+CTC combined by income, kids, marital status
www.rstreet.org/commentary/h...
