John Arnold on Bloomberg TV

What’s Happening: The labor market has begun to show signs of deterioration from the record low unemployment rates of last year, and 1 million more people are now unemployed compared to the beginning of 2024.

Why It Matters: These latest jobs numbers are a warning to prepare for a potential economic downturn should the deterioration continue. Policymakers should look to the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, when few of our economic structures were revealed to be as fundamentally broken as unemployment insurance.

What’s Next: While the election in November promises to attract most of Washington’s attention through the end of the year, smart reforms with bipartisan support like the Wyden-Crapo and Smith bills could hitch a ride to the president’s desk.  

Read an op-ed by AV Vice President of Public Finance Andrew Moylan on unemployment insurance>

(Thomas Dee, faculty director of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities at Stanford University)

With support from Arnold Ventures, Stanford scholars Thomas Dee and Jaymes Pyne are working with police departments and mental health providers to conduct a rigorous evaluation of the Community Wellness and Crisis Response Team program in San Mateo County, California. The goal is to develop rigorous evidence on how, and in what contexts, such alternative crisis response programs work.

Read our Q&A with Thomas Dee on the potential of alternative responder programs and how they can benefit both individuals and community safety>

Criminal Justice

• In an op-ed for the Kansas City Star, Lori Curry, executive director of Missouri Prison Reform, discusses the escalating crisis in the state’s prisons and suggests a multifaceted approach of improving working conditions and reducing unnecessary incarceration to address the issue.
   
• The Tennessean reports on how the Department of Justice is launching an investigation into conditions at the privately run Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, a troubled prison in the state that has experienced exceptionally high levels of staff turnover.
   
• Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has issued an executive order establishing the “Stand Tall – Stay Strong – Succeed Together Reentry Initiative,” which aims to reduce recidivism by enhancing reintegration services and opportunities related to employment, housing, health insurance, mental health treatment, substance abuse, and community supervision.

Public Finance

• The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) released analysis of Vice President Kamala Harris’ fiscal policy agenda.
   
• Kyle Pomerleau of the American Enterprise Institute outlines options to move the tax code towards parity between different forms of businesses.
   
• The IRS launched a new coalition to combat tax scams and better identify fraudulent returns, reports Benjamin Guggenheim in Politico.
   
• The Editorial Board for National Review argues that while concerns about a “bidding war” on the Child Tax Credit are valid, modest, pro-work expansions would help the credit keep pace with inflation.
   
• For Politico, Nick Niedzwiadek and Bernie Becker discuss how experts are thinking about recent proposals to exempt tips from taxation.

Higher Education

• New America takes a look at the financing of the Pell Grant program, noting that despite that it functions as an entitlement for eligible students, Congress does not automatically allocate all the funding needed for the Pell program. Instead, each year during the appropriations process, Congress evaluates what funding is available for a variety of programs and decides how much money to send to the Pell program.
   
• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on student loan borrower behavior post-payment pause, describing the extent to which borrowers were current on their student loan payments as well as an overview of borrowers enrolled in the SAVE repayment plan.

On Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024 at 12 p.m. ET, AH Datalytics will be hosting a webinar demonstrating its new Real-Time Crime Index (RTCI). The index aggregates monthly crime data from hundreds of local police departments to visualize crime trends as close to when they occur as possible. Register here.
  On Wednesday, Sept. 4, at 2 p.m. ET, join Laura Arnold, co-founder and co-chair of Arnold Ventures and Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer on LinkedIn to talk about efforts to reduce partisanship as the 2024 elections promise to impact a wide range of policies. The event is part of The Commons in Conversation, a series of exclusive, one-on-one conversations with national and local leaders working to strengthen a fractured America. Learn more and register here.
  Join us in Austin Sept. 5–7 for The Texas Tribune Festival, Texas’ politics and policy event with nationwide appeal and a roster of speakers including U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, President and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center Margaret Spellings, songwriter Lyle Lovett, a talk with Arnold Ventures' Co-Founder and Co-Chair John Arnold, and panels featuring Jennifer Doleac, AV’s executive vice president of criminal justice, just to name a few. Peruse the schedule and buy tickets here.
  Swiftly following, come see us at the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) conference in Nashville, where on Monday, Sept. 9, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., we will host a preconference session entitled, “State Policy Innovations for an Aging America,” which will explore Medicaid managed care, nursing home care, and community-based care among other topics. Register here.

What's the sound of presidential success? The Rocky theme ("Gonna Fly Now") was the walk-up song for two different candidates during their conventions. (Did anyone else besides me also play it in middle school band?) See and listen to the rest of the hype music from candidates dating all the way back to 1976, in The Washington Post. (free link)

The Evidence and Evaluation team invites grant applications to conduct randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of social programs. Slides and a video from a recent webinar on this request for proposals (RFPs) are now available. Applicants may submit 3-page letters of interest (LOIs) through our portal now through October 15, 2024.

The Criminal Justice team has released a RFP titled “Causal Research on Community Safety and the Criminal Justice System.” The RFP seeks research proposals across all issues related to the criminal justice system and will remain open.

View our RFPs here>