Rachel Cohen

Washington, D.C., United States

Policy Correspondent at Vox

Journalist @voxdotcom covering social policy // [email protected]

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Articles

What is the job market like for new college graduates?

3 weeks ago | vox.com | Rachel Cohen

A Vox reader asks: Maybe it’s because I am a new grad, graduating with my bachelor’s in May yippee! But it seems everyone is super pessimistic about the job market these days. Has it been harder to get a job for people in recent years, or am I just finally shedding my childhood naïveté and being forced to wake up to the way the job market has always been? Congratulations on your graduation! That’s a genuine achievement worth celebrating, even amid job market concerns.
How our schools and workplaces push early parenthood out of reach

3 weeks ago | vox.com | Rachel Cohen

Everyone should have the right to decide if and when they have children. Yet over the past 50 years, the United States has built an economy that increasingly works against fertility — demanding more years in school and longer hours at work for people, especially women, in the years when it is biologically easiest for them to have children, and concentrating wealth and income among those past their reproductive prime.
How much does giving birth cost? A new bill would make childbirth free.

4 weeks ago | vox.com | Rachel Cohen

As politicians grapple with declining birth rates, the financial burden of giving birth in America — where privately insured families face out-of-pocket costs of nearly $3,000 on average — has captured widespread attention.
A critical fight over “quality” child care could shape millions of kids

1 month ago | vox.com | Rachel Cohen

America’s lack of affordable child care has brought a long-simmering question to a boil: What exactly makes child care “good”? Everyone wants quality care for kids, and the need for child care or preschool to be considered “high quality” has been embraced by researchers, providers, parents, and policymakers for years.
Fiery Dem takes parting shot at Trump hatchet man Elon Musk: ‘Complete failure’

1 month ago | nj.com | Rachel Cohen

Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, the first Democratic member of the Congressional DOGE Caucus, is declaring the group “dead” and “defunct,” according to POLITICO. The caucus, filled with Democratic and Republican members, was created in conjunction with tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, aimed at cutting fraud and waste from the government, before Inauguration Day.
Trump MAGA supporters - triggered by official GOP tweet - fire back at ‘worthless’ reps

1 month ago | nj.com | Rachel Cohen

Some MAGA supporters are not too happy right now with the House GOP. After the official X account for House Republicans posted “We need to get Americans off the sidelines” on Tuesday, a barrage of backlash shortly ensued. “The most tone deaf tweet of 2025 so far,” one user known as Catturd, a right-wing Internet troll, responded. “I can’t believe someone thought posting this was a good idea,” another user replied, adding “you’ve passed … FIVE pieces of legislation since January.
The anti-abortion movement’s plan to restrict access to abortion pills

1 month ago | vox.com | Rachel Cohen

The next salvo in the crusade to ban abortion is now clear. Anti-abortion activists have launched what they’re privately calling “Rolling Thunder” — a coordinated campaign to pressure the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to restore restrictions on mifepristone, a popular drug used in the US to end pregnancies. Under Rolling Thunder, activists also plan to bring new lawsuits against doctors who prescribe abortion medication, and continue lobbying to strip the drug from the market entirely.
Would building apartments with a single staircase make housing more affordable?

1 month ago | vox.com | Rachel Cohen

Michael Eliason was an undergraduate studying architecture at Virginia Tech University when he went to live for a year in Germany. While interning in Freiburg in 2003, he worked on projects including apartment buildings four or five stories tall.
Tiny homes and tough laws are changing homelessness in American cities

1 month ago | vox.com | Rachel Cohen

California is rapidly reshaping its approach to homeless tent encampments in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court ruling that allowed cities to enforce anti-camping bans even when people have nowhere else to go. There are approximately 275,000 people living unsheltered in the US, with over half of them in California, and the Grants Pass v.
Why President Trump likes this policy to boost birth rates

1 month ago | vox.com | Rachel Cohen

The Trump administration has been soliciting ideas on ways to encourage Americans to get married and have more children, according to a new report in the New York Times. Some of the proposals have ranged from ridiculous (reserving Fulbright scholarships for married applicants or those with children) to unnerving, like awarding a “National Medal of Motherhood” to women with six or more children, a tradition once embraced by Nazi Germany.