One of the items that Congress added to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, President Obama’s stimulus package, was a first-time homebuyer tax credit. The tax credit gave people buying their first home, or who had not been homeowners for at least three years, a tax credit equal...

This paper calculates savings from renting compared with owning a house purchased at the peak housing bubble years of 2006 or 2007 in 16 major metropolitan areas. (The appendix includes calculations for 100 cities, including these 16.) The analysis calculates the savings both before- and...

This issue brief discusses a plan that would effectively deal with the mounting problem of home foreclosures in this country. The main point of the plan is that those who are facing foreclosure should have the option to remain in their home for a substantial period of time as renters. There are...

It has been two years since the housing bubble began to deflate. In this time, home prices in major metropolitan areas have fallen more than 32.3 percent and the woes in the housing sector have spread to the broader economy. Where is the housing market today? Have we hit bottom? This paper,...

Though Congress and Presidents Bush and Obama put forth several different mortgage modification programs, the rate of foreclosures has continued to rise over the past several years. According to CoreLogic, about one-in-four (23%) mortgages were underwater in the second quarter of 2010, and...

This paper examines the impact of population growth on global climate change. The author employs the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) to estimate the effects of population growth on the change global average temperature by 2100. Observing that a larger population supports a larger economy,...

There is a growing chorus of policy analysts and pundits telling the country that we could have millions more jobs in manufacturing, if only we had qualified workers. This claim has the interesting feature that it places responsibility for the lack of jobs on workers, not on the people who get...

We use Bureau of Justice Statistics data to estimate that, in 2008, the United States had between 12 and 14 million ex-offenders of working age. Because a prison record or felony conviction greatly lowers ex-offenders’ prospects in the labor market, we estimate that this large population...

The employment effect of the minimum wage is one of the most studied topics in all of economics. This report examines the most recent wave of this research – roughly since 2000 – to determine the best current estimates of the impact of increases in the minimum wage on the employment...

It is widely believed that volunteering will improve workers’ job prospects. The logic is that volunteering offers opportunities to expand work-related experience, develop new skills, and build a network of professional contacts. For young people with little history of paid employment it can...