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1 month ago | 
econofact.org | Keshav Srikant |Michael Klein |Nora Gordon |Jennifer Hunt
A Bankrate survey about Americans’ willingness to use their savings for an emergency expense did not show that a majority of Americans have less than $1,000 saved. Instead, it found that about 40% of Americans would use their savings for an unexpected $1,000 emergency expense. The rest said they’d use a credit card (25%), reduce other spending (13%), borrow from family or friends (13%), take out a loan (5%), or something else (4%).
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1 month ago | 
econofact.org | Keshav Srikant |Michael Klein |Nora Gordon |Jennifer Hunt
While one survey by LendingClub found that more than 60% of Americans reported living paycheck to paycheck, others recorded lower numbers. LendingClub asked 3,252 U.S. consumers if they needed their next paycheck to cover their monthly spending; 62% answered yes. In contrast, the Federal Reserve found that 54% of Americans have emergency savings to cover three months of expenses.
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Jan 15, 2025 | 
tuftsdaily.com | Keshav Srikant
Both Bernie Sanders and MAGA are wrong about skilled immigration. In recent weeks, the H-1B visa program has faced an onslaught of criticism. Intended to encourage skilled immigration to the United States, H-1B visas allow companies to hire temporary foreign workers in specialized occupations. Today, most H1-B visa holders hail from India or China, and the biggest beneficiaries of the H-1B visa program are big tech companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
tuftsdaily.com | Keshav Srikant
In less than one hundred days, President Joe Biden will leave office, passing the baton to President-elect Donald Trump, who will reassume control of the presidency with Republicans in charge of both chambers of Congress. This governmental trifecta means the incoming Trump administration will have a significant amount of power with which to enact their economic agenda — an agenda that could both raise prices and increase deficits.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
econofact.org | Keshav Srikant |Michael Klein |Nora Gordon |Jennifer Hunt
While rent control makes targeted housing more affordable for recipients by capping rent hikes, it has in some cases made housing more expensive overall. A meta-analysis of 112 empirical studies on the effects of rent control found that the policy can financially discourage developers from building new housing while encouraging landlords to convert their rentals into homes.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
tuftsdaily.com | Keshav Srikant
Politicians and activists are trying to sell disingenuous and nonfactual explanations of why Harris lost to push their ideology. Don’t fall for it. On Nov. 5, 2024, Democrats were handed their worst defeat in a presidential election since 2004. Donald Trump decisively defeated Kamala Harris, winning the popular vote by around two points and sweeping every swing state.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
econofact.org | Keshav Srikant |Michael Klein |Nora Gordon |Jennifer Hunt
History shows mass deportations cause job losses for American citizens. The anti-immigrant efforts of the Kennedy, Johnson, Roosevelt and Coolidge administrations either “generated no new jobs or earnings” or “harmed U.S. workers’ employment and earnings,” according to PIIE. More recently, an analysis of President Obama’s deportation efforts found that deporting 500,000 immigrants causes around 44,000 job losses for U.S.-born workers.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
econofact.org | Keshav Srikant |Michael Klein |Nora Gordon |Jennifer Hunt
Grocery prices have risen faster than inflation in recent years, but increased input costs, not price gouging, is the primary driver. Pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine have made resources such as oil, pesticides, fertilizer, machinery, seed, and feed more expensive. The pandemic also created a tighter labor market, prompting higher wages that have added to the cost of food production.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
econofact.org | Keshav Srikant |Michael Klein |Nora Gordon |Jennifer Hunt
The Tax Policy Center found that households whose earnings are in the top one percent would receive an average tax cut of $61,090 by 2025 while the bottom 60% of American households would receive an average tax cut of less than $500. This represents a 2.9 percent increase in after-tax income for the top one percent, compared to a 0.4 percent increase in after-tax income for the bottom quintile of Americans.
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Sep 17, 2024 | 
tuftsdaily.com | Keshav Srikant
At the end of eighth grade, my school decided to take us on a one-week overnight trip to Yosemite National Park. We learned about Yosemite’s ecosystems and history while hiking through forests and among thundering waterfalls. Almost a decade later, I remember this trip vividly, just as I remember every national park I’ve been to. National parks are some of the most popular tourist destinations in America. In 2023, over 325 million people visited national parks.
