This year, the country withstood climate disasters, soaring costs of groceries and housing, and a consequential general election. Many of these events have deepened long-standing inequities while creating new challenges.
This year on Urban Wire, Urban Institute staffers explored the impact of these challenges and what it’ll take to surmount them.
Researchers equipped changemakers with rapid analysis to understand the effects of Hurricanes Helene and Milton on survivors and communities, the effects major changes to real estate fees would have on the market, and the implications of eliminating Social Security offsets.
Urban Wire authors lifted up solutions for policymakers to help prevent families from taking on debt to pay for groceries, showed what it will take to conquer the digital divide, and explored how America can embrace AI to benefit the labor market and economy as a whole.
As policymakers, local leaders, and residents continue to lean on research and evidence to improve the well-being of families and communities, and to help them thrive, here are 10 Urban Wire posts that elevated the debate in 2024.
Five Facts That Debunk Myths about the Opioid Crisis
“People with opioid use disorder and their families may find hope in the fact that addiction can be treated successfully. In 2021, 72.2 percent of the millions of adults who reported having had a substance use issue viewed themselves as being in recovery or having recovered (PDF).”
Civic Engagement Is Higher Among Americans Who Are Financially Secure
“People with greater faith in democracy and trust in the electoral process could be more likely to protect civic institutions by voting, volunteering, or donating to political groups than people who do not hold these beliefs.”
—Thea Garon, Christina Plerhoples Stacy
Hurricane Milton Is Not an Isolated Event. Disaster Policy Should Reflect That.
“The most effective policy change would be to massively shift spending away from reactive disaster response and recovery and toward proactive hazard mitigation and climate adaptation actions. Agencies engaged in recovery can also streamline and simplify as many parts of our disaster recovery system as possible to reduce the bureaucratic and administrative burdens placed on households and communities.”
—Sara McTarnaghan, Will Curran-Groome, Andrew Rumbach, Kameron Lloyd
No Single Policy Will Increase Housing Affordability. We Need a Comprehensive Strategy.
“Building more market-rate units is important, but evidence shows that greater access to public affordable housing subsidies, like housing choice vouchers, is also key to ensuring those with low incomes can secure safe and stable housing.”
Getting Rid of Social Security Offsets for Teachers Flunks the Equity Test
“Social Security now has data on workers’ earnings from both covered and uncovered jobs, which weren’t available when the [Windfall Elimination Provision] and [Government Pension Offset] were first implemented about 40 years ago. As a result, policymakers could devise new reduction formulas that more accurately reflect the income retirees receive from government pensions. New reduction formulas could also ensure no one is made worse off than under current rules.”
—Richard W. Johnson, Karen E. Smith
Permanently Expanding the Child Tax Credit Would Increase Kids’ Lifetime Earnings and Education
“Today, new Urban Institute research on a larger expansion of the CTC finds significant long-term benefits as well: a permanently expanded credit would also boost high school and college graduation among childhood CTC recipients and their adulthood earnings by as much as 10 to 17 percent across racial and ethnic groups.”
The New Title IX Regulations Will Help More Than 180,000 Pregnant Students Every Semester and Millions of Parenting Students Long Term
“The new Title IX rules will equip pregnant and parenting students with resources, accommodations, and support to navigate academia with confidence, helping millions avoid painful and humiliating academic experiences and more seamlessly continue their enrollment.”
—Theresa Anderson, Kimberly Salazar, Jessica Lee
Measuring the True Value of Renting versus Owning a Home
“As policymakers seek to help more people surmount barriers to homeownership, our analysis offers a method to more accurately compare the value—not just the cost—of owning versus renting a home.”
—Richard K. Green, Linna Zhu, Jung Hyun Choi
Curbing Rural Prison Demand and Responsibly Closing Prisons
“Rural communities can flourish beyond the shadow of mass incarceration when we can describe a sharp vision for communities without prisons and adopt a strategic approach that navigates both the opportunities and challenges this change presents.”
—Susan Nembhard, Travis Reginal
Which Cities Would Benefit Most from Converting Offices into Housing?
“Cities experiencing both acute distress in their office real estate market and a significant need to increase their housing supply have the most to gain from intensifying their efforts to enable and ease office-to-residential conversions.”
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