This report examines one major source of bias in the yearly Current Population Survey -- nonresponse rates. It shows evidence of systematic undercounting due to the disproportionately high nonresponse rate from individuals who are less likely to be employed than the general population.

This report uses the past three recessions of the early 1980s, early 1990s and early 2000s to project the effects of a recession in 2008. The report finds that such a recession would result in a significant rise in unemployment and the poverty rate along with a significant decrease in the...

The Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) was passed in 2003 to reform the Medicare system, but the result was an inefficient set of rules and regulations. This report projects the savings from a drug benefit program that was designed with efficiency in mind.

This report shows that official estimates of the number of Americans living in poverty and without health insurance may substantially underestimate the true number of poor and uninsured.

This report analyzes recent proposals suggesting that the government buy up or guarantee bad mortgage debt in an attempt to slow the increasing number of foreclosures the nation has seen in the wake of the housing market's meltdown. The study, which focuses on the plan put forth by the Office of...

Most of the discussion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has focused on the extent to which it has extended health insurance coverage to the formerly uninsured. This is certainly an important aspect of the law. However by allowing people to buy insurance through the exchanges and extending...

This paper presents data on the wealth of households by age cohort based on new data from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). It shows that the upward redistribution of wealth continued between 2010 and 2013. As a result, most households had less wealth in 2013 than they did in 2010 and...

In January of 2013 nearly every worker in the country saw their payroll tax increase by 2.0 percentage points. The payroll tax holiday that had been put in place at the start of 2011 ended in December of 2012, leading to a jump in the Social Security tax from 10.4 percent to 12.4 percent of...

This issue brief presents the scheduled Social Security benefit for each current member of the Senate. The issue brief is intended to inform Senators -- and the general public -- about Social Security and, assuming no changes to current policy, demonstrate that it will pay full benefits through...

Patent monopolies have long been used as a mechanism for financing innovation and research. The logic is that the government awards a monopoly on a product or process for a limited period of time in order to reward innovation. However, in addition to providing incentives for innovation and...