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American young people are exceptionally unhappy.

Posted on by Alex Terr

FACT: American young people are exceptionally unhappy.

THE NUMBERS: Americans’ “happiness” ranking, relative to 146 other countries, 2023-2025.*

All Americans               23rd
Americans under 30     60th

* World Happiness Survey 2026

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

Summary paragraph from the Kennedy School’s grim 2026 poll of Americans under 30:

“For many 18- to 29-year-olds, the cost of living — especially inflation and housing — defines what they see as a true crisis, while trust in government, elections, and national leadership remains strikingly low. … A pervasive sense of threat is defining everyday life for young Americans, and they are increasingly losing faith. Young people have consistently felt unheard; now they feel unheard and actively in crisis.”

K-School pollsters aren’t alone. UN and Oxford U. researchers tasked with assessing “happiness” find the same thing. Their “World Happiness Survey 2026” (whose figures cover the years 2023-2025) ranks Americans “23rd most happy” among the 147 countries in the survey. At face value, a boring and mediocre ranking — but it gains some texture when the researchers separate their responses by age: young Americans placed a dismal 60th in the world. The 2024 WHR, though slightly dated, provides more detail. Boomers seem very contented in their retirement (or in some cases near-retirement), while their “Gen Z” children and “Gen Alpha” grandchildren are unhappy. The intervening “millennials” and “Gen-Xers” are in between:

“Boomers,” over 65     10th
“Gen-X,” 45-59            17th
Overall                         23rd
“Millennials,” 30-40      42nd
“Gen-Z,” under 30        62nd

America’s unhappy youth aren’t wholly unique. Similar generation gaps, borrowing a boomer term, show up in most high-income countries, especially though not exclusively English-speaking ones. Canadians, for example, rank 25th for happiness; younger Canadians, though, are a dismal 71st. Much the same in the UK, where Brits in general place 29th, but young Brits only 64th; and while New Zealanders are a cheerful 11th in general, young Kiwis place 54th. Elsewhere, the French rankings are 35th and 65th, Swiss 10th and 44th, and Singaporeans 36th and 69th. So to some extent, youth discontent seems widespread.  Three possible explanations, none mutually exclusive:

Technology? The WHR researchers, noting a general decline in young people’s happiness since their survey’s early years, assign a lot of blame to intensive social media use. This view is widely shared, but can’t be the whole story since young people seem happier in some tech-heavy locales. In very-online Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, WHR’s happiness ratings are about the same for young and old.  And in Central and Eastern Europe, young people are usually happier than their elders and peers. Croatians rank 70th for happiness overall, but 11th in the 25-and-younger tier, and similar “relative happiness” among young people turns up in Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine.

Demographics and aging costs? Another explanation, focused on wealthy countries, lies in demographics. Since 2000, the count of Americans 65 and up has nearly doubled from 35 million to 66 million. The under-30 count, meanwhile, is up from 119 million to 126 million — only 7 million in total.  Graying is faster still in Europe and Asia. As countries age, well-intentioned and objectively necessary public policies become increasingly powerful engines for shifting income from young to old: Social Security, government pensions, Medicare, veterans’ benefits, etc., must all serve a growing army of older people, while relying on relatively static younger brigades for the finance. This isn’t a problem with an obvious solution — if governments don’t assume health and pension costs, families will have to pick up the cost instead — but it nonetheless places steadily rising financial pressure on the young.

U.S. choices: Specific U.S. peculiarities and decisions amplify all these problems. At local levels, high housing costs and organized NIMBY-ism make it harder for young people to build wealth. At the national level, rapid federal government debt buildup means young people can expect relatively more taxation and fewer services in the future. More immediately, the post-2016 and post-2024 tariff increases, as policies designed to raise goods prices, gnaw away more of a young person’s income than anyone else’s. (Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, young Gen Z-ers spend about 28.8% of their income on physical goods, prime earning-age Gen-X 19.8%, and retirement-age boomers 26.2%.) A blunt comment from newly formed activist group Students for Abundance draws on housing, transit, education, and power costs to conclude that policy seems designed “to make life harder for those starting out and easier for those already at the top.”

In sum, as the fall’s election season approaches, America’s young people aren’t happy. And they aren’t wrong to see a system tilting against them. The K-School poll’s political findings — young Americans sharply opposed to Trumpism, but with little faith that other politicians are likely to make their problems and concerns a priority — are a challenge the political world has yet to answer.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

  • Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
  • Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
  • Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
  • Offer a positive alternative.

PPI and friends:

PPI’s American Identity Project and the Center for New Liberalism, in their spring essay competition, ask young Americans about citizenship and “what it means to be an American.”

… and Center for New Liberalism co-founder Jeremiah Johnson, in The Argument, looks at affordability and young people.

PPI’s comprehensive Budget Blueprint (2024) from VP for Policy Ben Ritz and then-Fiscal Policy Analyst Laura Duffy, rethinks U.S. fiscal policy to (among much else) shift taxation away from wages and salaries and toward consumption; strengthen Social Security’s intergenerational compact; make housing more affordable; and restore ‘fiscal democracy’ by reducing interest payments and freeing space for public investment and discretionary spending.

… and Ritz (2026) examines creative ways to save Social Security without putting an undue tax or debt burden on young Americans.

Not pleased, a little disheartened, but not losing faith – Students for Abundance seeks better and more affordable housing, transit, energy, and health care, building and permitting reform, public investment.

Data:

Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (May 2026) polls young Americans on inflation, politics, war, national institutions, and more.

The World Happiness Report 2026, with discussion of social media impacts, and links to earlier editions. A bit of explanation, and some findings –

And more from the WHR:

The WHR people do their rankings by contracting with Gallup to ask people in 147 countries and territories a single question:

“Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

Typically a group of small, wealthy countries — especially Scandinavians — shows up at the top. War-troubled and least-developed countries fare least well.  Some detail:

Top-lines: The survey’s happiest countries are mostly north of the Arctic Circle. Finns, Icelanders, and Danes take the top three slots, with Swedes 5th and Norwegians 6th. Fourth-ranked Costa Rica is the only non-Scandinavian country in the top six, and by far the highest-placing middle- or lower-income country; 26th-place Taiwanese were the happiest Asians. Late-Orban-era Hungary was the 74th-ranked median country, and Mauritius topped Africa’s rankings. Afghanistan was the survey’s least-happy country, in 147th place just below Sierra Leone and Malawi.

More: Supplementary questions ask about “freedom to do what you want with your life,” “generosity” (meaning donation to charities), recent emotions, and perceptions of corruption in government, business, and civil society.

  • Southeast Asians led on the ‘freedom to do what you want with your life’ category, with Vietnamese ranked first in the world, Cambodians second, and Thais eighth.
  • Southeast Asians and Europeans were very strong on “generosity”: Indonesians and Burmese came first and second, with Maltese, Ukrainians, Brits, and Irish rounding out the top six.
  • Singaporeans, Danes, and Finns felt most confident about the honesty and non-corruption of society.
  • Latins fared best on a “short-term emotion” measurement, with Guatemalans and Paraguayans most likely to report laughter, enjoyment, and interest in the previous day.
  • The U.S., setting aside generational differences, fared best on generosity (16th). The worst U.S. ranking — 104th! — was on “freedom to do what you want with your life,” consistent with the Kennedy School’s finding of intense concern over inflation and costs, and fading confidence that the political system will deliver much help.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

New Playbook Gives Governors and Mayors a Blueprint for Winning the $1.8 Trillion Space Race with China

Posted on by Alex Terr

WASHINGTON (August 5, 2026) — As the global space economy races toward a projected $1.8 trillion by 2035, a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) argues that governors and mayors will play a critical role in American space leadership. In “Leading in the Space Economy: A Strategic Playbook for Governors and Mayors,” PPI Head of Space Policy Mary Guenther lays out the tactics state and local governments are using to attract and retain space companies, and warns leaders away from a subsidy race to the bottom.

Last year, the space economy was worth $626.4 billion globally, with the United States producing roughly half of that value as of 2023. Jobs in the sector pay above-average wages for workers at every education level, from high school graduates to PhDs, a combination that has touched off intense competition among states and localities.

“Governors and mayors have more leverage over the space economy than most of them realize,” said Guenther. “State and local dollars can’t replace federal space investment, but they can multiply it. The states that are best positioned right now are the ones with a holistic approach that amplify their local strengths by marrying various kinds of incentives, political attention, partnership with federal stakeholders, and initiatives building a workforce those companies can hire.”

Drawing on interviews with space industry representatives and startup founders, the report identifies four tactics that appear repeatedly in successful state and local strategies:

  1. Financial support, either in the form of tax breaks, grant funding, or non-liquid forms of support like incubator space
  2. Access to and attention from state and local political leaders
  3. Proximity to federal facilities that purchase space goods and services
  4. A strong workforce pipeline, such as a strong educational climate or sector-specific workforce programs

Guenther also documents an intensifying workforce crunch across educational levels. The report notes that 95% of space organizations face skills-related problems, with three-quarters struggling to recruit staff with the necessary skills. Because most space companies handle export-controlled technology or contract with the Department of Defense, employees generally must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, a restriction that puts a substantial share of the STEM talent pool out of reach and makes homegrown pipelines essential. Washington state, Florida, Oklahoma, and Colorado offer models that run from K-12 programming through apprenticeships, community college credentials, and university-industry partnerships.

The report draws a pointed contrast with China, where provincial and municipal governments compete aggressively to build out local space capacity, an approach that has produced growth alongside waste, duplication, and excessive debt. American leaders, Guenther argues, should take the lesson without the liabilities.

Read and download the report here.

Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us at @ppi.

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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org

Leading in the Space Economy: A Strategic Playbook for Governors and Mayors

Posted on by Alex Terr

The space economy is rapidly growing — last year, it was worth $626.4 billion globally, and projections estimate it will be worth
$1.8 trillion by 2035. The United States produces approximately half of that value as of 2023. This includes everything from rocket launches to satellite broadband subscriptions to images of Earth used to monitor deforestation or inform military action.

Beyond GDP growth, jobs in this sector tend to have above-average salaries for workers, whether they have a high school diploma or an advanced degree. This has led to strong competition between states and localities to retain and grow the space industry’s presence in their backyard.

This engagement from states and localities is good for the nation’s space competitiveness. The benefits of intracountry competition extend beyond the borders of the United States — it’s actually our biggest geopolitical competitor’s secret weapon in their space program. Chinese provinces and municipalities compete to develop the strongest technologies, leading to massive investment beyond the central government. For example, the Shanghai municipal government recently announced a 300 million yuan (roughly $4.4 million) package of investments for its local space industry — from subsidies to industrial park infrastructure to favorable loan terms. Beijing is a strong competitor for Shanghai, with both producing satellite broadband constellations that compete with American services like Starlink.

The United States should not emulate China — there is a reason the U.S. is the global space leader — but as geopolitical competition heats up, the nation should glean insights about what’s working abroad and apply them to the American context while avoiding the pitfalls of foreign approaches, such as excessive debt and waste. In this case, it points to the increased role governors and mayors across the country can take to develop their space industry in a fiscally sustainable manner. State and local investment cannot replace federal space spending, but it is highly complementary.

There are strongholds across the country for this industry, which has a presence of some kind in just about every state. States and cities have used different playbooks to retain and attract this industry, but there are key tactics that pop up repeatedly. This includes:

  • Financial support, either in the form of tax breaks, grant funding, or non-liquid forms of support like incubator space
  • Access to and attention from state and local political leaders
  • Proximity to federal facilities that purchase space goods and services
  • Workforce, such as a strong educational climate or sector-specific workforce programs

This report examines the strategies of states and localities across the nation to inform states and cities thinking about how they can retain and grow their space industry.

Read the full report

Manno for Datia K12: Texas Shows What Coherent College and Career Advising Looks Like

Posted on by Max Sherrill

For many of America’s schools, advising means a single overworked counselor, a stack of course catalogs, and a handful of rushed conversations in junior and senior year. Students are left to piece together how their classes, their interests, and their post-graduation options actually connect.

Texas has spent the past five years testing a different model. The early results are worth the attention of state and local K-12 leaders.

Working with the nonprofit TNTP, the Texas Education Agency built the Effective Advising Framework, or EAF. The idea is simple to state and hard to execute. Instead of treating postsecondary planning as an event that happens near graduation, make sure it happens across a student’s entire K-12 experience.

The first part of this approach involved TNTP and the state agency mapping grade-level expectations from kindergarten through 12th grade across four areas: career development, academic development, financial literacy and aid, and personal and social development. Districts then adapted those expectations to their students and communities, giving every campus a common vision of what advising should look like at every age, leaving room for local judgment about how to deliver it.

Read more in Datia K12

Manno for Philanthropy Daily: The Credential Marketplace Is Growing

Posted on by Alex Terr

Donors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into education and workforce training programs. Some of that money has funded credentials that helped workers move to better jobs and higher wages. Some has funded credentials that look good on paper but deliver little in the labor market.

There’s often no straightforward, reliable way to tell the difference between useful and useless credentials. But that’s changing. Two new tools can help donors tell the difference and decide what to support.

The Credential Value Index, from the Burning Glass Institute, gives funders first-time access to independent, outcome-based data on more than 23,000 non-degree credentials like certifications, licenses, and apprenticeships. The index is built from a database of more than 65 million career histories and tracks what actually happened to workers’ wages and career trajectories after they earned a given credential, rather than relying on what institutions report about themselves. It reports outcomes side by side on topics such as wage gains, new jobs, career advancement, and skill growth, so funders can see what kind of value a credential delivers.

Alongside it, the HEA Group and Open Campus have developed the Certificate Earnings Explorer, covering undergraduate, credit-bearing certificate programs at colleges short of a full degree. It uses federal financial-aid records matched to Internal Revenue Service earnings data, providing program-level earnings data on more than 5,500 such programs across all fifty states.

Read more in Philanthropy Daily

Jacoby on WCPT: An Update on Ukraine

Posted on by Alex Terr

Edwin Eisendrath is joined by Tamar Jacoby , director of the New Ukraine Project at the Progressive Policy Institute and contributor to Washington Monthly; her latest article is “Could the Tide Be Turning Ukraine?” (The interview was recorded July 30 and aired August 1.)

Marshall for The Hill: Don’t Panic over Data Centers — Support a Better Path Forward

Posted on by Alex Terr

Less than a year ago, local and state leaders were bragging about the jobs and tax revenue that data centers had brought to their communities. Now, amid a public backlash, many are running from them like scalded dogs.

In January, a Politico poll found that Americans were more receptive than opposed to having data centers built nearby. Six months later, a new survey shows the reverse: 41 percent oppose a data center near them, up from 28 percent in January, while support dropped from 37 to 24 percent.

Data center jitters run especially deep among Democrats. But skepticism also has risen among President Trump’s 2024 voters, who are now split on the issue despite his hyperbolic endorsement of data centers as “big, strong, bold … Money Machines.”

If these growing public qualms lead to a more deliberate, community-building approach to data centers, rather than today’s frenzied digital goldrush, so much the better. But if instead they trigger a panicky rush to freeze all new construction, they will weaken U.S. economic innovation and growth and pass the baton of AI leadership to China.

The sudden cratering of public support for data centers stems from a confluence of popular anxieties. Most important are worries about spiking energy and water bills in host communities and the incipient fear that AI robots might be able to do our jobs better than we can.

Read more in The Hill

PPI Presses FTC on Sysco’s $29 Billion Restaurant Depot Deal, Warns of Higher Food Prices

Posted on by Alex Terr

WASHINGTON (July 31, 2026) — Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson urging the agency to be particularly rigorous in its ongoing antitrust review of Sysco’s proposed $29 billion acquisition of Restaurant Depot. PPI argues that the merger would combine the nation’s largest broadline food distributor with the leading cash-and-carry wholesaler.

PPI’s analysis explains that the Sysco-RD merger would create an enormous food distribution ecosystem with the potential to reduce competition, raise food costs for restaurants, and ultimately increase prices for American consumers for food away from home. Protecting competition throughout the food supply chain is essential for affordable food prices for consumers, who are already besieged by high food price inflation.

The letter unpacks how a Sysco-RD merger would have a foot in two critical markets: broadline and cash-and-carry. The merger could entrench or extend Sysco’s significant market power, weakening competitive constraints that currently benefit independent restaurants and consumers. PPI notes that the 2023 U.S. Department of Justice/Federal Trade Commission Merger Guidelines carefully outline this competitive concern.

The result could be less price discipline across broadline and cash-and-carry, while locking customers into the larger Sysco-RD system. In addition to higher prices, the merger could also reduce innovation and service quality and discourage new entrants in food distribution. PPI urges the FTC to carefully scrutinize the merger and take appropriate action to protect competition and consumers.

Read the full letter here.

Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us at @ppi.

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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org

Canada is the top export market for 27 U.S. states

Posted on by Alex Terr

FACT: Canada is the top export market for 27 U.S. states.

THE NUMBERS: Canadian share of U.S. state exports*, 2025 –

Maine 41%
Michigan 39%
Wisconsin 31%

* * U.S. Commerce Department, TradeStats Express database

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

Special note: Beginning in August, Trade Facts will be delivered through PPI’s newly launched Substack, “ Radically Pragmatic.” Trade Fact emails will continue as usual, free and with no solicitations.

The Canadian government’s good-neighbor response to last year’s California wildfire crisis:

“Canadians are grateful for the support and solidarity extended to Canada by the United States during our own challenging wildfire season last year. Team Canada stands ready to reciprocate that support during this time of need. Canada has been working with the Provinces and Territories to ready its support. We have left no stone unturned and are exploring all avenues to offer our support to the people of California. Canadian agencies, including the Canadian Armed Forces, the Canadian Coast Guard, Global Affairs Canada, and Natural Resources Canada, are actively engaged in discussions with the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the U.S. National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC), and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the City of Los Angeles to determine how best to assist in the response and recovery efforts.”

Canada’s support during the California fires was the normal pattern of northern-border life for the past century, not an anomaly. Here’s then-President Reagan signing the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement in 1988:

“Let the 5,000-mile border between Canada and the United States stand as a symbol for the future. No soldier stands guard to protect it. Barbed wire does not deface it. And no invisible barrier of economic suspicion and fear will extend it. Let it forever be not a point of division but a meeting place between great and true friends.”

In pretty sharp contrast to both Canada’s 2025 fire relief mission and Reagan’s vision of North American community, White House lawyers last week “operationalized” Mr. Trump’s bizarre response to Ontario’s summer fire misfortune — a threat to impose tariffs after smoke drifted south across the border — by exhuming a 1930 trade law (“Section 338”) and using it to threaten 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian-made goods. (Cars, liquor, wood products, motorcycles, hockey and gymnastics equipment, etc.) Reframed by White House lawyers and trade officials as a response to supposed Canadian “discrimination” against American products, and then quietly pitched to reporters as a “negotiating leverage” gambit, this will supposedly go into effect around Labor Day. Given these claims of “discrimination”, here’s a look at Canada as a U.S. customer:

Policy: Canadian trade policy is in a sense “discriminatory,” but mostly in favor of American goods. Per the WTO’s “World Tariff Profiles,” Canada’s normal “trade-weighted” tariff average is 3.6% for goods in general, and 15.1% on farm products. Four generations of trade negotiations and signing ceremonies the 1960s — the Reagan-Mulroney “U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement” of 1988, the Johnson-Pearson “Agreement on Auto Trade” in 1968 a generation earlier, the Bush/Clinton/Mulroney/Salinas “North American Free Trade Agreement” of 1993 and the 2019 revision of NAFTA into the “U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement” — do leave a few trade barriers in place. (American trade bureaucrats have snapped lots of pencils and worn holes in many mouse pads over Canadian dairy quotas and movie regulations; to be fair: their Canadian counterparts can call up similar experiences with lumber-subsidy tariffs and “Buy American” purchasing rules.) These arguments, however, have always been financially small pieces of a much larger trade relationship, in which the trade agreements exempt American goods from nearly all Canadian tariffs. Partly mirroring this fact of policy, and partly the pull of geography, Canada matches Mexico as the largest buyer of American goods, and most of the things Canadians buy from abroad are American.

Data: So far this year, StatCanada reports Canadians importing C$357 billion worth of goods, of which C$205 billion, or about 60%, came from American farms, factories, and mines. Or, using American data, Canadians bought $334 billion of last year’s $2.2 trillion in U.S. goods exports — a billion dollars a day, and a seventh of the total.

States: Canadians were the top buyers of goods from 27 U.S. states. This is particularly evident close to the northern border — on top of the Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin stats above, 39% of Idaho’s $4.6 billion in exports go to Canadian buyers, along with 47% of Montana’s $2.2 billion, and a startling 81% of North Dakota’s $9.4 billion. But large figures show up pretty much everywhere, with Canadians also the top buyers of goods from Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Agriculture: Canada was just behind Mexico as last year’s second-largest buyer of American farm goods and seafood — $28.7 billion of U.S. agriculture’s $171.5 billion worldwide export total. That’s, among other things, 160,000 tons of U.S.-grown watermelon and 87,000 tons of strawberries, 3,700 tons of pecans, 45,000 tons of mushrooms, 16,000 tons of lobster, 40,000 tons of sausage, and 194,000 tons of rice.

Manufacturing: Canada is the top market for American factory goods, buying $286 billion of American manufacturers’ $1.77 trillion in worldwide sales. This includes one in every four exported U.S. cars and trucks, 1.26 billion liters of paint — enough to fill 500 Olympic pools, 2.4 million tons of makeup and eyeliner, 146,000 home washing machines, 866,000 wrenches, 12,820 MRI machines, and so on through long lists of tech products, consumer goods, planes, chemicals, medicines, and more.

Set against this, the White House’s not-very-accurately-named “Fact Sheet” points out that American wine, beer, and car sales dropped a lot last year. (“From March 2025 to February 2026, Canadian imports of alcoholic beverages decreased by about 81%, or $582 million, compared to the same period in 2024/2025”; “from April 2025 through May 2026, Canadian imports of U.S. motor vehicles decreased by approximately 25%, or $5.6 billion, compared to the same period in 2024/2025”.) They aren’t wrong about this, but there’s an obvious reason: the lost wine sales and the auto strife, and the falling tourism counts as well, are the direct result of Trump administration policy – wrongly accusing Canada of indifference to fentanyl trafficking and threatening a 25% tariff on Canadian goods in February 2025; then imposing “national security” tariffs of 25% and later 50% on Canadian steel, aluminum, and copper, and 25% on automobiles a few months later – and more generally Mr. Trump’s choice to project not good-neighborliness toward Canada but a mix of disrespect, arrogance, self-pity and other qualities that one guesses would have revolted President Reagan.

Nor was Reagan’s take on northern-border life some sort of odd exception. All modern U.S. administrations — those of Roosevelt and Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon, Clinton, Bush, Obama — were perfectly well aware of the value Americans draw (including in trade, but far from trade only) from a close and trusting relationship with Canada. None had any trouble managing this relationship well. All left it to their successors in good shape. The next president, unfortunately inheriting something quite different, will have lots of repair work to do.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

  • Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
  • Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
  • Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
  • Offer a positive alternative.

How it was & ought to be:

President Reagan signs the U.S.-Canada FTA, 1988.

Canadian Embassy state-by-state trade and investment summaries.

Canadian government offers assistance to California fire communities.

PPI’s Ed Gresser looks at the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and this summer’s “review” as of 2026. TL/DR: USMCA isn’t broken, doesn’t need major change.

How it is now:

White House yet again threatens Canada with tariffs.

A calm response from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

And the Canadian Broadcast Corporation coverage.

And some legal background:

After the collapse of last year’s “IEEPA” tariffs, Mr. Trump has turned to “Section 338” for last week’s threats. An afterthought in the larger 1930 “Smoot-Hawley Tariff” bill, it authorizes presidents to impose tariffs of up to 50% on goods from countries whose policy “discrimination” against American products causes us some commercial damage. And the background: Trade policy historian Douglas Irwin (via NBER) reconstructs the 1920s backstory to Section 338.

If last week’s threats actually go into effect, will they stand up in court? No easy answer, since no previous administration has tried to use this law and legal scholars seem uncertain about (a) whether it actually remains in effect — possibly repealed by Kennedy’s 1962 Trade Act? Maybe made moot by the Ford-era passage of “Section 301” in 1974? — and (b) if it does, whether an administration can use it ad hoc as Mr. Trump is trying to do.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

Manno for Washington Monthly: The Quiet Redesign of the Bachelor’s Degree

Posted on by Max Sherrill

American higher education has a completion problem it doesn’t like to advertise. For decades, the bachelor’s degree came in one shape: four years of typically uninterrupted coursework delivered on one campus. But this model is being dismantled nationwide, with little coordination and even less fanfare, leaving colleges and universities struggling.

The reason is a number that most Americans have never heard. At the start of the 2023-24 academic year, there were 43.1 million individuals who carry some college credit and no credential. This population has grown in every state and the District of Columbia since 2021, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. For decades, the policy answer to this predicament was some version of Try harder, come back.

But that’s changing. State policymakers are quietly rewriting what a bachelor’s degree is, letting community colleges grant them outright, compressing four years into three, and dissolving the line between high school and college altogether. The moves are separate, disconnected, and rarely discussed as a single trend. But together they amount to a wholesale redesign of the undergraduate degree, who provides it, and a real test of whether American higher education can build more than one model for getting a diploma.

Read more in Washington Monthly

Who is Hiring Medicaid Recipients?

Posted on by Alex Terr

Being poor in America is hard. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has virtually disappeared in many states. Safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP have strict income limits, with participants coming under increased pressure to work. Indeed, a KFF study found that as of 2023, roughly two-thirds of nondisabled non-elderly (NDNE) Medicaid recipients had paid employment.  

That puts many low-income people in the tricky position of threading a very thin needle. A single mother, for example, may be trying to balance time spent attending community college and raising kids, while working just enough hours to earn some money without violating the Medicaid income limits. A full-time job which provides health care coverage would be best, of course — but finding one that pays enough to cover childcare may not be possible without more schooling. 

In this context, the most attractive employers for Medicaid recipients may be those which offer a lot of flexibility in working hours to help stay under the income limits,  with the possibility of jumping to full time work when appropriate. A new study from the GAO analyzed data from a small number of selected states and identified the top employers of NDNE Medicaid and SNAP recipients in those states. These included large private employers such as Walmart, Amazon, and Fedex; universities and healthcare systems such as Indiana University, Brown University, Mass General Brigham, MaineHealth, and Emory Healthcare; and public entities such as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,  the U.S. Post Service, and the Georgia Department of Human Resources. 

In many ways, being named on the GAO’s list of top employers who hire Medicaid recipients is a badge of honor. Especially with work requirements tightening up in 2027, we need to encourage more employers to hire Medicaid recipients, not discourage them.   

It’s not unreasonable to expect that large employers should offer full-time employees access to healthcare. But note that the GAO’s employer analysis contains absolutely no direct information about whether the Medicaid recipients at  these large organizations were in full-time jobs. As part of the same paper, the GAO did a separate statistical analysis of the national workforce which suggests that most wage-earning nonelderly Medicaid recipients work for smaller companies, and less than half work full-time, full-year jobs. 

Indeed, people — Medicaid recipients or not — often seek out flexible work because they are caregivers, military spouses, students, retirees supplementing Social Security, parents of school-age kids, or have some other life circumstances which require that flexibility. These types of opportunities allow people to be productively employed when they might otherwise be excluded from work altogether. 

Kahlenberg and Lin for the Radically Pragmatic Substack: What’s Wrong with American Studies?

Posted on by Alex Terr

The field of American Studies appears to be in a defensive crouch.

This January, we published a study analyzing the flagship journal of the American Studies Association, American Quarterly. In the report, we objected to Donald Trump’s attempt to whitewash negative aspects of our country’s story but found that the articles in American Quarterly did the reverse by erasing anything good about the United States. Examining nearly 100 articles over a three-year period, we found that 80% were critical of America, 20% neutral, and not a single article was positive.

We published the full report, “The Distortion of American Studies: How the Field’s Leading Journal Has Embraced a Worldview as Slanted as Donald Trump’s,” with the Progressive Policy Institute and a summary in the Wall Street Journal, under the headline “American Studies Can’t Stand Its Subject.” We said there were plenty of valid reasons to critique America, but also asked, how could the articles in American Quarterly show no curiosity about any of America’s worthwhile attributes? How could there be no articles exploring, for instance, why the United States is cited as the most desirable destination for immigrants, or why we have so many Nobel Prize winners?

The response to our findings from leading academics has been as revealing as the original study. We thought professors might argue that particular articles should have been categorized as positive. Alternatively, academics might have seen the study as an opportunity for self-reflection, to ask whether they needed to do a better job of telling the full American story. Instead, with one admirable exception, their responses have been mostly misleading and dismissive, mischaracterizing the way we conducted our review and going so far as to deny the very existence of objective historical truths.

Read more on the Radically Pragmatic Substack

Manno for Datia K12:The Nuance in the Social Media Debate That K-12 Leaders Can’t Afford to Miss

Posted on by Max Sherrill

A new survey from the American Survey Center at the American Enterprise Institute complicates the tidy story most people tell about teenagers and social media. That complication is exactly what K-12 school leaders need to hear.

The survey, authored by Daniel Cox, finds real harm associated with social media use among teenagers. But it’s not the harm, and not the population, that dominates the public conversation.

The effects show up almost entirely among heavy users, teens spending four or more hours a day on these platforms. Moderate and light users look statistically similar to each other. And the effects concentrate among girls. Heavy-using teen girls report satisfaction with their lives at less than half the rate of girls who use social media lightly, a 30-point gap.

Sleep, reading for pleasure, excitement about the future, and self-rated health all show the same pattern. Notably, the survey finds no relationship between social media use and friendship formation or satisfaction. This runs counter to the common claim that these platforms simply make teenagers lonelier.

Read More in Datia K12. 

 

Guenther and Mandel for Florida Today: Florida’s space play offers a roadmap for beating China

Posted on by Alex Terr

China has a secret weapon in the modern day space race that the United States isn’t taking enough advantage of: state and local investment.

Chinese provinces and municipalities such as Shanghai are spending billions and leading the effort to build space infrastructure and satellite systems. For example, Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) was initially founded with capital from Shanghai’s municipal state asset management commission and Shanghai Alliance Investment, a state-owned venture capital firm.

It’s working, at least so far. SSST aims to have a global LEO internet network fully operational by 2030, which sets it up to compete with American companies like Starlink and Amazon Leo. Though there are mounting questions about state and local debt, some of which is the result of duplicative spending.

The U.S. system cannot and should not seek to copy China’s system, but it would be foolish not to learn from what’s working for our biggest competitor.

Read more in Florida Today

Ainsley and Mattinson in Politico Magazine: A New Report Offers a Stark Warning to Centrists in France

Posted on by Alex Terr

Far-right politicians in Europe and the Americas have amassed support vowing to check the disruptions of globalization, promising strict borders and inward-looking economic and security policies.

In France, voters have another reason to consider the hard right: Many see no alternative.

That’s the conclusion of a new study of French voters conducted by Deborah Mattinson and Claire Ainsley, two prominent British political strategists. Mattinson and Ainsley, both affiliated with the center-left Progressive Policy Institute, have conducted focus groups with persuadable voters across Europe, the United States and Australia. For long-established political parties, the picture is bleak.

The collapse of the center and the rise of extremes is a global trend, confirmed in scores of elections and PPI’s international focus groups. Even in that bilious context, France stands out as a land of political desolation — a country where voters are so despairing and the center and left so depleted that Marine Le Pen, criminal conviction and all, may well be the next president.

“One of the things that came really clearly from these focus groups is that National Rally are on track to win because they are sort of the only show in town,” Mattinson told me, referring to Le Pen’s party.

The Mattinson-Ainsley research, which they shared with POLITICO Magazine, is arresting reading for anyone contending with the far right’s appeal to working-class communities, or hoping to resurrect a coalition nearer the center.

Read more in Politico

Canter and Manno for Thomas Fordham Institute: Good programs aren’t enough: States need a work-based learning strategy

Posted on by Alex Terr

In Philadelphia, a young person leaving Launchpad Philly’s post-high school graduate training track is on pace to earn nearly $30,000 within nine months and $50,000 within one year. That far outpaces the roughly $12,500 a young Philadelphian with only a high school diploma typically earns.

That’s not a best-case anecdote. It’s a design choice. And it’s one of six such designs documented in our new report, A Practical Guide to Work-Based Learning, which also examines a network of career and technical charter schools in South Bend, Indiana; an industry-themed school network in San Antonio; a rural coordination model spanning a thinly populated Indiana county; a Purdue-affiliated early college network; and a multi-district rural collaborative in Colorado.

Each program provides, by any fair measure, excellent preparation for college and career. And each one raises the same uncomfortable predicament. Education has no shortage of good ideas. What it lacks is a strategy for making them commonplace.

States should stop treating work-based learning primarily as something individual schools or districts choose to pursue and start treating it as something the state itself is responsible for enabling at scale. Based on what separated our six success stories from the much larger number of well-intentioned efforts that stall out, here are four actions state policymakers can pursue.

Read more in Thomas Fordham Institute