Rather than correcting course and working with Congress to help borrowers, the president has doubled down on legally dubious executive action. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Biden v. Nebraska, student-loan borrowers across the country are left wondering, What now? Their frustration is well-founded. A year ago, they were ...

Many Americans are familiar with the president's headline efforts to cancel student debt altogether (currently awaiting consideration by the Supreme Court following legal challenges), but fewer know that the White House's student loan forgiveness agenda, which includes several lesser known policy actions, has already cost taxpayers billions; ...

While it might seem like inaction relative to the attempted debt cancellation by executive order, it is anything but. Last week, the White House announced that the pause on federal-student-loan repayments, which began at the beginning of the pandemic, will be extended yet again. This move comes as the administration's effort to cancel half ...

If economic relief or addressing racial inequity had been the goal, the White House would have ignored student loans entirely and focused on programs that target those goals explicitly, like refundable tax credits or reparations. On Wednesday, President Biden announced his long-awaited plan to cancel student loans – effectively wiping away up ...

But for Joe Biden, it might be good politics. For the last two years, federal student-loan borrowers have been excused, without penalty, from repaying their debts. In the meantime, taxpayers, who financed those debts, were left holding the bag while many high-earningborrowers rode the gravy train. Repayment was initially put on pause by the ...

Targeted reforms would focus help on the families and individuals who are actually struggling with student loan debt. There's no doubt that the United States faces a student loan debt crisis. But the problem would be addressed much more effectively – and progressively – by a series of reforms targeted at those who bear the brunt of the crisis ...

Here are 5 reasons why you should think twice before taking on debt to send your kid to to college. We are nearing the time of year when students announce their plans for college in the fall, and parents overextend themselves financially to make it happen, or feel very guilty for not doing so. Paying for college is one of the largest ...

Fixing existing income-driven repayment programs is a much better plan. The notion of student-loan cancellations has been capturing the attention of politicians and those in the realm of higher-education policy for well over a year now. Despite the popularity of this hugely regressive idea, it's a terrible one. Thankfully, there's a better, ...

The nation has been waiting eagerly for a second round of legislation to deliver economic relief to those hit hardest by the fallout from the Covid crisis. And late yesterday, news broke that an agreement had been struck and passage was imminent. Rather than a collective sigh of relief, the news was largely met (at least among those engaged ...

The most distressed borrowers didn’t get degrees and owe less than $5,000. Student-loan cancellation may be an appealing idea, but it would enrich the privileged and leave behind—or perhaps even drain money from—the truly needy. Progressive calls for President-elect Joe Biden to forgive student debt in his first 100 days of office should ...

"My wealth tax will raise an estimated $4.35 trillion over the next decade and cut the wealth of billionaires in half over 15 years, which would substantially break up the concentration of wealth and power of this small privileged class."— Bernie Sanders 1 "I’m fighting for big changes like universal child care, investing in public schools, ...

There is an elementary school down the street from my home that always posts seasonally appropriate, uplifting messages in their road-facing windows. Since early spring, those windows have offered a daily dose of the phrase that has been often repeated in recent months: “we’re all in this together.” On one hand, this is right. Getting a handle ...

As a labor economist, I follow the data releases on the state of the economy pretty closely, especially the ones that tell us something about employment. Despite having pored over the numbers each week, I was still taken aback when I saw a graph (very similar to the one recreated here) in an opinion piece by Catherine Rampell published in ...

At the end of this month, the CARES Act bonus payment of $600 per week for unemployment insurance recipients will expire. Despite broad consensus among policymakers that something needs to be done, there is a sharp divide over what that should be. While congressional Democrats are keen on extending the current program to leave the $600 ...

When the Covid pandemic hit, it hit hard and fast. To their credit, Congress responded as quickly as almost anyone could have imagined, with generous spending designed to put the nation’s economy on ice as the pandemic heated up. The goal was to mitigate the devastation caused by the abrupt halt in supply caused by closures. But some of ...

Free college, or making public colleges tuition-free, has become a popular idea among Democrats and has now been embraced by the party’s nominee for president, Joe Biden. This once-radical idea gained mainstream prominence during the early 2020 Democratic primaries. It was first proposed by Bernie Sanders and fits with his identification as ...

When the Covid-19 crisis hit hard in mid-March, colleges and universities were among the first institutions to take dramatic action, closing campuses and sending students away to complete their studies online for an indeterminate amount of time. What seemed like a bold move at the time has proven prudent, as the pandemic continued to ...

Over the past several weeks, since Covid-19 outbreaks have largely closed down the US economy, 36 million people have lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance benefits. For as many as two-thirds of them, a funny thing happened—they got a raise. During normal circumstances, workers laid off from their jobs can get somewhere between ...

When the Covid-19 closures began in early March, many of us were hopeful that we could put the economy “on ice” with temporary relief programs like the Payroll Protection Program, stimulus checks to individuals, and a generous expansion of the unemployment insurance program. After all, the economy was booming prior to the onslaught of ...

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a devastating economic report, indicating the loss of over 20 million jobs last month, as the unemployment rate spiked to a post-war high of 14.7 percent. This is the first official glimpse of the damage caused by closures of the economy in early March. This rate of joblessness exceeds ...

This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report informing us that the number of people applying for unemployment insurance programs last week spiked to an astronomical high: 3.2 million. Prior to this news, the four-week moving average indicated that approximately 230,000 new claims had been filed on a weekly basis. The change ...

This morning, Secretary Devos announced that payments for federal student loans would be suspended. This comes after President Trump announced last week that interest on these loans would be waived. The intention is a good one: leave more cash in the hands of Americans. However, the current plan will not apply to many borrowers which could lead ...

The time for the long-sought-after bailout of the American people is here. President Trump has promised immediate cash transfers. It is the right thing to do, and should ideally be paired with an aggressive expansion of social safety net programs, including unemployment insurance, SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or ...

A central plank of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders's campaign is to forgive the entire $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt. His rival, Elizabeth Warren, wouldn't go quite that far, limiting loan forgiveness to a several hundred billion dollars. But Warren has introduced a twist: she claims that a president who wants to forgive ...

The U.S. economy grew by 2.1% in the third quarter of 2019, according to new data released this morning. This is up slightly from the second quarter of the year (2.0), but is significantly below the strong growth (3.1) that set off the year in the first quarter. This report confirms earlier estimates. The only surprises were the sources ...

The Wall Street Journal recently published a lengthy article calling attention to the growing indebtedness of people in the United States as a harbinger of a looming crisis. The article, authored by three WSJ reporters who cover consumer credit and other financial issues, characterized the growth in consumer debt as being driven by people ...

Trump got his way Wednesday when the Fed announced a quarter-point rate cut. The smart money is that Powell acted in response to political pressure from the president. But the smart money may not be so smart: Any Fed chairman worth his salt knows the price of a misstep is too high to play politics. Fact is, Powell cut rates this week because ...