EconoFact Chats

The poverty rate among children is a crucial indicator of child well-being. Yet, the overall well-being of a child depends on more than just economic security. Education, health, and family and community, all play an important role. Leslie Boissiere of the Annie E. Casey Foundation joins EconoFact Chats to discuss the 2025 Kids Count Data Book report, which tracks trends in child well-being across these broad sets of indicators, disaggregated by geography, race and ethnicity. She notes encouraging reductions in child poverty, fewer teen births, more children with health insurance, and a rise in on-time high school graduation. Yet the latest data also shows a decline in reading and math scores, and an increase in chronic absenteeism. Leslie is the Vice President for External Affairs at the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

United States colleges and universities currently enrol about 900,000 international students, representing 5% of all students – although the percentage of foreign students varies widely across institutions. Many colleges and universities would be hurt by policies that limit the number of foreign students. The detrimental effects of these policies extend beyond institutions of higher education to local economies, companies that hire engineers, scientists, and programmers, and to the dynamism of the U.S. economy since immigrants educated in this country are vastly overrepresented as entrepreneurs. Furthermore, American higher education serves as an important source of soft power that bolsters America’s standing in the world. Arguments have been made about foreign students endangering national security and taking the places of American students. How should we weigh these concerns against the benefits of foreign students who represent an import export of services for this country? Nathan Grawe joins EconoFact Chats to discuss these questions. Nathan is the Lloyd P. Johnson-Norwest Professor of Economics at Carleton College. His most recent book is 'The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Change.'

The Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs plays a key role in shaping how the United States engages with the world financial system. Jay Shambaugh, Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in the Biden administration joins EconoFact Chats to discuss his time in office, focusing on negotiations with China over industrial subsidies and non-market trade barriers, foreign investments in sensitive US technologies, and the challenges of dealing with sovereign debt defaults given the wide array of lenders today. The discussion also focuses on the International Affairs Department's role in monitoring exchange rate policies, and its interactions with Congress, the White House, and other domestic agencies. Before his term as Undersecretary, Jay served on the Council of Economic Advisors. He is currently a Professor of Economics and International Affairs, and the Co-Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at George Washington University.

EconoFact Chats regularly hosts a panel discussion with top economic journalists. Since the panel last met in March, the House passed the 'big, beautiful budget bill,' Moody’s has downgraded U.S. debt, universities face stiff funding challenges, and tariff policy continues to be volatile. Binyamin Appelbaum (The New York Times), Scott Horsley (NPR), Larry Edelman (Boston Globe), and Heather Long (The Washington Post) discuss how policy uncertainty is playing out on the ground, what the proposed spending cuts could mean for lower and middle income Americans, and whether an increasingly uncertain fiscal picture could affect the willingness of foreign investors to keep financing U.S. debt.

Since the mid-1990s, the U.S. social safety net has been geared towards policies that encourage and reward work. While steady jobs and decent wages are the surest routes out of poverty, evidence shows that safety-net work requirements rarely translate into higher employment among beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP–formerly known as “food stamps”). Diane Schanzenbach joins EconoFact Chats to explain how stricter mandates often push people off SNAP without pulling them into the labor market, a dynamic that becomes more relevant as Congress weighs bills that would make continued SNAP and Medicaid benefits contingent on having or actively seeking work. Diane is the Margaret Walker Alexander Professor of Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University. She is also a member of the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine. She recently testified in front of the House Committee on Agriculture on the issue of increasing SNAP's mandatory work requirements.