WASHINGTON — Last weekend marked the beginning of the 2025 NFL season. In many states, Americans will be able to bet on all the games using legalized sportsbooks.
Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) released a new report arguing that while legalized sports betting has surged, it has not produced the widespread financial fallout that critics feared. Authored by PPI Vice President and Chief Economist Michael Mandel, “Balancing Innovation and Risk: The Case of Legalized Sports Betting,” shows that credit scores and consumer bankruptcies have been in line with the national average or improved in states where legalized sports betting is permitted.
“Problem gambling is real, and policymakers must ensure resources and safeguards are in place,” said Mandel. “However, the data shows that for most people, sports gambling in general hasn’t caused systemic financial harm — instead, it’s boosting the economy and providing another form of entertainment for people.”
Key findings include:
Early adopter states of mobile sports betting saw a 40% decline in consumer bankruptcies (2019–2024), compared to a 34% national decline.
Average credit scores for states with legal sports gambling rose about 1.8% from 2019 to 2024, in line with national trends.
Sports betting directly added $12.4 billion to GDP growth, in 2019 dollars, between 2019 and 2024.
Overall spending on gambling has stayed flat as a share of consumer spending.
Mandel stressed that while responsible, legalized gambling can both educate Americans about risk and stimulate economic growth, stronger measures are needed to guard against addiction and unsafe practices. He called for pragmatic safeguards — such as closing education gaps and ensuring accessible support services for those affected by gambling disorders — to promote innovation in the industry while protecting consumers.
“Sports betting is best understood as part of a broader trend in discretionary, experience-based spending — like travel, live entertainment, or cosmetic procedures,” said Mandel. “Betting has become more of an experience that people get more enjoyment out of rather than other material goods.”
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 @PPI.
The legalization of mobile sports betting in many states has led to widespread worries about negative financial, social, and emotional impacts of easy access to sports gambling that cannot be ignored by policymakers. In particular, problem gambling is an issue that needs to be monitored and addressed, including filling in education gaps in a new category of discretionary spending and ensuring that there are support resources for those affected by gambling disorders. We examine several aspects of the socioeconomic impact of sports gambling. First, we find that even as net spending on legal sports betting rose from $920 million in 2019 to $13.7 billion in 2024, overall spending on gambling has stayed flat as a share of consumer spending. Based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), gambling accounted for 1.04% of personal consumer expenditures in 2024, compared to 1.07% in 2017. Given the inherent uncertainty of economic statistics, that’s effectively no difference.
Second, we look at the impact of sports gambling on consumer finances. We find no sign of a tidal wave of bankruptcies or consumer credit downgrades in states that were early adopters of mobile sports betting. Indeed, quite the opposite: Early adopter states showed a 40% decline in consumer bankruptcies between 2019 and 2024, compared to a 34% decline nationally, and a 36% decline for all states which legalized mobile sports betting. When we compared state-level credit scores in 2019 and 2024, we found a 1.8% increase in credit scores for early adopter states, roughly the same as the national average.
Third, we make the case that legalized sports betting serves as an economic innovation that generates positive consumer benefits and costs akin to other discretionary “experiential” spending
categories such as foreign vacations, live entertainment, and appearance-enhancing surgery. We show that it’s not uncommon for consumers to take on debt to finance outlays in these areas, yet the government does not step in to control individual behavior.
The war over affirmative action in college admissions has entered a new phase.
For decades, conservatives have campaigned against racial preferences while saying they favor race-neutral strategies for achieving racial diversity, such as giving a boost to economically disadvantaged students of all races. Now, however, the Trump administration is moving the goal posts. Their new stance is that class-based affirmative action is also illegal if it is aimed at promoting racial integration. In late July, the Department of Justice issued a stunning memorandum declaring that “criteria like socioeconomic status, first-generation status, or geographic diversity must not be used” if a university’s goal is to further racial diversity on campus.
The move represents a major blunder by the Trump administration — and a significant opportunity for colleges. By expanding its opposition to racial preferences to now include preferences for economically disadvantaged students, the administration moves from a strong political position to a very weak one. Furthermore, the attack on economic affirmative action will almost surely lose in court. The administration’s overreach gives colleges, which have been playing defense for years, a chance to finally put Trump on the hot seat. They should press the question: Why, exactly, is Trump seeking to end economic affirmative-action programs that benefit working Americans of all races?
The roughly 19.6 million undergraduates returning to campus this school year face bad news about bleak job prospects after graduation. Many will leave college indebted and ambitious, only to discover that the entry-level rung of the career ladder is no longer what it once was. They will end up in a job that doesn’t require their degree or be unemployed.
A recent article in The Atlantic titled “The Job Market Is Frozen” by staff writer Roge Karma tells the story of his younger brother who graduated with honors from a top U.S. private university. Over a six month period, his brother completed 576 job applications, received 29 responses, and had four interviews, none of which led to a job. Roge is an economist, so he was motivated to examine the situation in more depth.
He concludes that “Unemployment is low, but workers aren’t quitting and businesses aren’t hiring. What’s going on? Call it the Big Freeze. A job market with few hiring opportunities is especially punishing for young people entering the workforce or trying to advance up the career ladder, including those with a college degree.””
WASHINGTON — As partisan battles rage over library books, school choice, and the future of the U.S. Department of Education, a new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) warns that both major political parties have abandoned serious efforts to improve public education. “A New Compact for Educational Excellence,” authored by PPI Director of Education Policy Rachel Canter, warns that while Republicans pursue an ideological push toward privatization, Democrats have retreated from reform and ceded ground to defenders of a broken status quo.
Recent federal data underscore the scale and urgency of the challenge: fewer than one in three eighth graders read at grade level, 40% of fourth graders fall below basic literacy, and NAEP scores remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, seven in ten Americans express dissatisfaction with the nation’s schools, according to Gallup.
“We are sending millions of children back to school this fall, but we’re doing so without a clear plan for how to help them succeed,” said Canter. “Too many national and state leaders have abandoned the charge of improving America’s public schools, putting the future of millions of children at risk. Now is the time to rally behind a new compact with families that restores excellence, choice, and accountability to public education.”
Canter outlines a sweeping nine-point reform agenda to rebuild public education and restore national confidence in schools:
A goal of universal literacy by fourth grade; numeracy by eighth grade; and reading and math skills by graduation that enable students to succeed beyond high school.
A larger voice for parents in school policies and decisions.
A high-quality early childhood education program for every family that seeks one.
A bridge from K-12 to adulthood.
An expansion of public school choice and school autonomy.
An unwavering commitment to accountability for all schools that receive public dollars.
A new model for the teaching profession.
A strong but targeted national role.
A civic education that teaches our children what it means to be an American.
“If we want every child in America to succeed, we must give families real choices within the public system, support schools in enacting effective policies and programs, and demand better outcomes from every school that receives public dollars,” said Canter.
The Reinventing America’s Schools Project seeks to refocus national leadership around proven strategies to improve public schools and educational achievement. We believe that American public schools must prepare children academically to be successful adults and citizens; families should have a voice in their child’s education, including a choice within the public system to find a school that best fits their child’s needs; and, though education is the province of the states, the federal government must protect the promise that every child will have access to a quality public education.
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 @PPI.
After nearly three decades of slow but steady increases in reading achievement, the scores of our fourth and eighth graders stagnated after 2015 and have fallen precipitously since 2019 for all but the highest performers.
Though the pandemic caused immediate and severe learning loss, reading scores have continued to erode even as the country passed the fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 shutdown. Nationally, as of 2024, fourth and eighth graders are back to where they started at the advent of the reading assessment.
In simple terms, the share of fourth graders falling below the “basic” level of literacy has risen to 40%.3 Fewer than one-third of U.S. eighth graders can read at grade level. The picture is similarly bleak in math — stagnation just prior to the pandemic, followed by significant declines since, with the deepest drops among the lowest-performing students. The results in all grades and subjects show a widening gap between the highest and lowest performers, all while test scores remain below pre-pandemic levels, despite the Biden administration’s infusion of $190 billion in federal pandemic relief.
These results from the National Assessment for Education Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card, spawned alarming headlines upon their release in January 2025: “American Children’s Reading Skills Reach New Lows,” blasted the New York Times; “Kids’ Reading and Math Skills Are Worsening, New Test Scores Reveal. What’s Going On?” USA Today fretted. The dire data posed no mystery to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which summed up the situation bluntly: “America’s Schools Keep Flunking.”
American parents share the conclusion of the Journal’s ed board about the state of public schooling. August 2024 public opinion polling from Gallup shows satisfaction with education remains among the lowest it has been this century, with three in ten parents somewhat or completely dissatisfied with their child’s education and more than half of the wider public feeling the same.
A January 2025 Gallup survey about the general mood of the nation from two weeks before the recent NAEP release shows even lower satisfaction with public schools, with seven in ten respondents reporting dissatisfaction.
Despite this crisis, the consensus that policymakers and advocates reached in the early 2000s about the importance and urgency of improving educational outcomes has long since disintegrated, torn apart by the social controversies that now dominate education rather than ideas about how to improve teaching and learning. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is attempting to eviscerate, if not shut down, the U.S. Department of Education and to redirect federal education spending from public to private schools.
Democrats opened the door to these attacks by abandoning the Clinton-Obama legacy of school reform and lining up behind teachers’ unions defending the K-12 status quo. As a result, they’ve forfeited their party’s historical advantage on educational issues. But if Democrats can no longer claim the mantle of the party of education, neither can Republicans, who have abdicated responsibility for the majority of the nation’s schoolchildren by focusing on private school choice to the exclusion of nearly everything else.13 Ninety percent of American children attend public schools, and yet neither party is speaking to them or their families.
The consequences for the country and our children of continued inaction are severe. “Looking at this data, it’s clear that we’re in enormous risk of losing an entire generation of learners unless we show some focus and leadership,” Jane Swift, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts, told a reporter after the NAEP scores became public. In short, we’ve arrived at another “Nation
at Risk” moment, but this time, U.S. political and business leaders aren’t stepping forward to galvanize national action to fix our chronically underperforming public schools. Senator Michael Bennet was pointed in a recent interview about the vacuum of national attention and leadership, stating, “…We’ve abandoned our aspirations for our kids when it comes to their education, period. We can’t tolerate a system that creates the kind of outcomes we’re seeing. …We have a national interest in the fact that our reading scores are below where they were three decades ago. We have a national interest in the fact that our kids feel like the system we have — whether it’s K-12, higher education, or workforce development — is not preparing them to succeed in this economy.”
We couldn’t agree more. The country urgently needs a new vision that refocuses public schools on their core academic mission, ends the retreat from rigor and merit, increases opportunity for learners of all backgrounds, expands parental choice of public schools, closes achievement gaps, and moves to a post-bureaucratic system of autonomous and accountable public schools designed for today’s children.
Credit scores have become an integral part of our financial lives. A great score can be used to leverage great deals — on loans, credit cards, insurance premiums, apartments, and cell phone plans. Bad scores hammer you into missing out or paying more.
Making sure credit decisions are based on the best available information is absolutely key to ensuring accuracy and fairness. Keeping politics out of credit scoring is a must.
Which is why the pronouncement this summer by William Pulte, the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA), that he was going to allow lenders can now use Vantage 4.0 (a credit scoring model developed by the three major credit reporting bureaus — Experian, Transunion, and Equifax) to “lower the cost of credit checks,” is both unusual and concerning.
First, the agency FHFA is in the middle of transitioning the housing government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) from the FICO Classic credit score for each mortgage they purchase to using both FICO 10T and VantageScore 4.0 credit scores. This change is mandated by law.
The Pulte proclamation seems to have skipped the normal regulatory process set forth under the Administrative Procedures Act (for example, the change was made without even an expedited notice-and-comment rulemaking), and also halted the shift from FICO Classic to FICO 10T — even though 10T is designed to provide lenders with a more accurate and dynamic assessment of credit risk by incorporating trended data such as recent payment activity.
Second, the FHFA and the GSEs had already validated both VantageScore 4.0 and FICO 10T. Yet Pulte is only letting the GSEs use VantageScore 4.0 to be used (along with FICO Classic). Why, because supposedly, the historical data is still being collected for FICO 10T.
But why would the federal government give one credit score the upper hand over another?
We don’t know the answer, but one concern PPI noted when the issue of allowing for an alternative to FICO was first raised was the ownership of Vantage. At the time, proponents of Vantage argued that requiring the use of VantageScore 4.0 was needed to provide more competition and innovation in credit scoring. More competition can bring down costs and spur investment and innovation. But the problem is that VantageScore is owned by the three credit bureaus (Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax). Whether intentionally or not, the credit bureaus have a natural bias in favor of VantageScore 4.0 over FICO. This is why PPI has recommended that the three credit bureaus sell their stake in VantageScore.
Third, the cost of credit scores is a tiny fraction of the overall closing costs. And as economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin noted, there is no readily available information on what VantageScore charges and how its price compares to FICO.
Furthermore, the Pulte announcement could actually lead to higher costs for homebuyers. Investors may price in any perceived risk if they think that mortgage originators made the loan with the least favorable credit score.
There are serious ideas to address this problem that members of both parties will have to make, such as reducing barriers to manufactured housing. The Pulte announcement on VantageScore is not one of them.
Judge Mehta of the District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday issued a long-awaited decision on remedies in the Google Search monopolization case. The 230-page opinion is both a nod to Google’s proposed remedies, but with modifications, and a reining in of overreach by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in proposing to restructure and quasi-regulate the online search market.
Regardless of where different stakeholders come out on Judge Mehta’s opinion, one thing is clear. The remedies adopted by the court tell us a lot about antitrust’s emerging role in the digital sector. The decision reinforces the importance of antitrust enforcement in promoting competition in digital markets. But it also conveys a strong message about its limitations and why the courts are ill-suited to engage in ongoing enforcement of regulatory-style remedies in a complex and dynamic sector.
To be clear, the decision places significant restrictions on Google moving forward. It prohibits entering into or maintaining exclusive contracts for the distribution of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and the Gemini app. It also requires Google to share narrow sets of search index and user-interaction data and provide search syndication services for search and search text ads to “qualified competitors.”
These conditions target the conduct that fostered Google’s dominance in online search, as the court established at the liability stage in 2024. At the same time, the conditions also help rivals achieve the scale necessary to compete, but for a much shorter time period than requested by the DOJ. In doing so, the goal of the opinion is clear: address the competitive harm, open the search market to competition, and apply pressure on rivals to innovate quickly.
The remedies proposed by the DOJ and rejected by the court are also revealing. For example, Google is not required to divest the Chrome browser or Android. The decision also allows payments to distributors for pre-loading or placement of Google search products; rejects a requirement for Google to share granular query-level data with advertisers; does not require mandatory choice screens; and declines to impose anti-retaliation, anti-circumvention, and self-preferencing conditions.
In whittling down the DOJ’s 20-plus proposed remedies covering bans on contracts, divestitures, and regulatory oversight of Google’s search platform, Judge Mehta’s decision exposes several important themes.
First, it is hard not to notice the court’s conclusion — repeated many times over — that many of the government’s proposals are not “tailored to fit” or “unrelated to” Google’s anticompetitive conduct in online search. This sends a clear message that plaintiffs should stick to proposed remedies that address specific antitrust violation(s) and avoid those that are designed to achieve broader public policy goals in a market.
Second, you cannot miss the court’s focus on the impact of the DOJ’s proposed remedies on consumers — something that the government largely overlooked — and that PPI emphasized in its April 2025 report Antitrust Remedies and U.S. v. Google: Putting the Consumer Back into the “Fix.” The opinion highlights the importance of the consumer welfare standard in stating that the court “…must be sensitive to remedies that risk substantially stifling technological innovation or impairing consumer welfare,” and “…if one or more of these adverse market impacts were to come to pass, it would harm consumer welfare.”
Indeed, consumer welfare features prominently in Judge Mehta’s reasoning behind rejecting the DOJ’s proposal to require divestiture of the Chrome browser. To wit, “…the court is highly skeptical that a Chrome divestiture would not come at the expense of substantial product degradation and a loss of consumer welfare.” In refocusing the antitrust lens on consumer welfare, the decision also identifies user privacy and data security as a prominent consumer welfare issue.
For example, the court bases “…the release of less than the full datasets…” on the need to promote user privacy. Similarly, the decision requires modifications to the makeup of the Technical Committee to “…address the important data privacy and data security issues arising from the Search Index and User-side Data remedies.” In digital markets, where the currency of exchange is user information, not dollars, product quality and user privacy are central to antitrust’s effects-based analysis under the prevailing consumer-welfare standard. The opinion amplifies the relevance of this fact.
Last but not least, the decision opens by framing a critical reality for antitrust enforcement in the digital sector. Namely, the pace of innovation — and especially GenAI technology — is having a transformative impact on online search. A remedy must, therefore, consider the implications. For example, Judge Mehta’s decision explains the need to modify DOJ’s data-sharing proposals “…to mitigate their impact on Google’s and competitors’ innovation incentives.” The court also shortened the duration of the DOJ remedy because the “…10-year term runs the risk of growing stale in these fast-moving times, where GenAI technologies are breaking barriers seemingly at light speed.”
While there are many takeaways from the Google search remedies decision, two are likely to have significant staying power. One is that the pace of innovation — juxtaposed with the relatively slow pace of antitrust litigation — poses ongoing challenges in the digital sector. A second is that the consumer welfare standard remains alive and well. As PPI noted in Antitrust Remedies and U.S. v. Google: Putting the Consumer Back into the “Fix,”“The District Court has the unique opportunity to ensure a strong remedy that restores competition while striking a better balance to protect consumers under the consumer welfare standard.” The opinion achieves this important goal.
In Episode 2 of In Competition We Trust, PPI’s Diana Moss hosts Greg Asciolla, Chair of the Antitrust and Competition Litigation Practice at DiCello Levitt. Their conversation unpacks why private antitrust enforcement, especially for price-fixing, is important for competition and consumers.
FACT: 26 of this year’s 80 MLB All-Stars are “international”
THE NUMBERS: Home run leaders, morning of September 3, 2025 –
Raleigh
51
Schwarber
49
Ohtani
46
Judge
43
Suarez
42
Caminero
40
Soto
37
WHAT THEY MEAN:
How “international” is American working life? Some pennant-race season perspective –
Always remembered for Fisk’s 12th-inning, Game 6 home run, the ’75 Series marks its 50th anniversary this fall. That year’s Red Sox roster, with two international players (ace Luis Tiant and middle-reliever Diego Segui, both Cuban-born), exactly mirrored the majors’ 92% U.S./Puerto Rican composition. The Big Red Machine – 20% international, 80% U.S.-born — was more like a 21st-century team, starting Dominican centerfielder Cesar Geronimo, Cuban first baseman Tony Perez, and Venezuelan shortstop Dave Concepcion, with reliever Pedro Borbon in the bullpen and Bahamian Ed Armbrister as a reserve outfielder.
A half-century later, MLB rosters have diversified and internationalized. They’re now 74% U.S.- and Puerto Rican-born, and 26% international. The leagues’ main recruiting spots outside the U.S. are still mainly on the Caribbean littoral — a hundred players from the DR and 63 from Venezuela; 20 from Cuba, 60 from everywhere else — but go deeper into Mexico and Canada, and also draw from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. A rundown:
All Opening Day players*
953
U.S.*
704
Dominican Republic
100
Venezuela
63
Cuba
26
Mexico
11
Canada
13
Japan
12
Curacao
4
Korea
3
9 other countries
13
* An odd number, as it includes players on the DL.
** Includes 16 Puerto Rican players, puzzlingly termed ‘international’ by MLB.
To pull back a bit: Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May Labor Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Workforce release finds 161.3 million people working here in 2024, including 130.9 million “native-born” workers and 30.9 million “foreign-born” workers. (BLS defines ‘foreign-born’ as the total number of “legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants”.) This would mean 19.2% of workers were born abroad. In context, this is slightly below the average for wealthy western countries: the International Labour Organization’s most recent estimate says that as of 2022 in “North America’s” (meaning in ILO geography the U.S. and Canada only), immigrants make up 22.6% of the workforce, a bit less than the 23.3% share in western Europe.
Looked at more closely, BLS’ “foreign-born” stats have immigrant labor shares highest in physically demanding hourly-wage work — construction, groundskeeping, nannies and maids, hired farmhands — and also high in top-end glamor jobs from pro sports to science labs and movie studios. The lowest shares show up in middle- and upper-middle income positions: company managers, health care providers, lawyers and paralegals, teachers, and so on. A sample list, with figures from 2025 or the most recent available year:
Crop-picking farmworkers
58%
Computer science doctorates
58%
2025 Oscar nominees
50%
All farm, fishery, and forestry workers
44%
2024 U.S. Nobelists
43%
Doctoral-level science & tech workers
40%
Construction Workers
36%
MLB
27%
All major-league athletes
25%
Food service
25%
Personal care & services
22%
All science & tech workers (2021)
19%
All U.S. workers
19%
Health care practitioners
16%
Management jobs
15%
Education & training
12%
Lawyers & paralegals
10%
Security services
9%
Bureau of Labor Statistics for all workers, National Science Foundation for engineering and science workers; Motion Picture Academy for Oscar nominations (counting individuals rather than groups and collaborations); official stats from MLB, NBA, WNBA, and MLS, plus outside writers on hockey and football for pro athletes.
With this in the background, baseball has evolved in parallel with the U.S. generally. Like their top-of-the-economy peers in Hollywood and science, MLB teams now draw from a larger talent pool — this year’s top-ten home-run list features six Americans, two Dominicans, a Venezuelan, and Babe Ruth-like pitcher/slugger Shohei Ohtani — and probably have a higher overall quality of play. U.S.-born players, on the other hand, faced more competition to get their roster slots. It’s probably a mistake to draw too many big-picture lessons or policy ideas from this, but see below for some data on America’s larger workforce trends, and comparisons from the other five big leagues. Coda first, though, for those who weren’t watching in July:
The 2025 All-Star game ended with a six-player “home run swing-off” tiebreaker pitting the National League’s two Americans and a Venezuelan — Kyle Schwarber, Kyle Stowers, and Suarez — against a Cuban-American-Mexican AL trio. (Arozeranda, Rooker, and Aranda.) Ohio native and Indiana University grad Schwarber won it for the NL with a flawless 3-for-3 — three swings, three home runs — at-bat. Not quite Fisk’s 1975 drama, but still pretty good.
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.
Baseball:
The Opening Day rosters featured 245 international players, making up 26.5% of the 953 players out on the grass in the sun, riding the bench, or gloomily parked on the DL.
The International Labor Organization estimates 155.6 million “international migrant” workers as of 2022. That would be 4.7%, or one in every 20, of the world’s 3.3 billion workers. The lowest foreign-born rates are 0.7% in North Africa and 3.7% in East Asia; the highest, in the Persian Gulf monarchies, are above 50%. As above, the U.S.’ 19.2% appears to be a bit below the Canadian and European figures.
A trawl through this report’s back issues (available online to 2003) finds two big trends. One, the “foreign-born” worker share has been rising over time and especially fast in recent years – from the 14.5% share of in 2004, to 16.6% a decade later in 2014, 17.2% in 2021, and last year’s 19.2% – both through both high levels of immigration and the aging of the native-born workforce. (About 4 million Americans retire each year.) And two, foreign-born workers have grown relatively more educated over time — 56% now have “some college” or “BA or higher,” as against 37% in 2004 — meaning the “smile” curve may be flattening out. The Trump administration’s deportation campaign has very likely slowed the first trend — fewer foreign-born maids, groundskeepers, construction crews, and farm hands — and accelerated the second.
And around the leagues:
NBA: If MLB’s scouts spend their road time on Caribbean beaches or in Japan, their basketball counterparts draw more from a more global pool with a European focus. The National Basketball Association’s 2024-2025 season was 28.0% international with 21 Canadian players, 14 French, 13 Australians, 6 Serbs, and a record 5 from Cameroon.
MLS: Majority-international Major League Soccer has so much available foreign talent that it has an “International Rule” capping international players at 241 of the league’s 852 slots. Kind of a squishy rule, though, as it declares Canadians “domestic” to get a North American 50.1% majority player share.
NFL: The least “international” among the big leagues, the National Football League also seems to be the least analyst-friendly, as we haven’t found an up-to-date list of international players. Their 2023 list reported 88 international players with “at least one snap” in 2022. Much like MLB dubiously counts Puerto Ricans as “international,” the NFL’s “international list” includes 7 U.S. citizens from American Samoa. (They also recruit in the independent Republic of Samoa.) The other top sources are 22 Canadians, 19 Nigerians, and 7 Australians.
NHL: The “nation” in National Hockey League is not the U.S. but Canada, even if most of the rinks are now south of the 49th Parallel and won’t freeze even in March without artificial help. The NHL’s 712 players last year included 291 Canadians, 204 Americans, 216 Europeans (topped by Swedes, with Russia and Finland next), and one Aussie.
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.
As people are turning to health tracking devices and apps for understanding, tracking, and treating their health more than ever, current U.S. law has not evolved to protect this sensitive data. Despite this, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants all Americans wearing health tracking devicesby 2033, claiming it will improve health monitoring and detect disease earlier.
Wearables are any device worn by individuals to track health and activities. To function, these devices (e.g., smartwatches, fitness trackers) are connected to apps to allow a user to review their data. In addition, users can manually input data into apps. While wearable devices and their connected apps are already common in the U.S. and other countries, the scale of Kennedy’s plan raises serious data privacy and security concerns around how health data from these devices is collected, stored, and shared on their connected apps.
Many U.S.users are under the mistaken impression that health information collected through health tracking apps is protected by U.S. privacy laws. However, the main federal health privacy law, theHealth Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), covers only health care providers, insurers, and their business partners. Commercial health apps fall outside HIPAA’s protection, which means they can legally collect and share user data ranging from daily steps to blood pressure to mental health diagnoses.
Without a national privacy law in place, it is unclear who controls and can use sensitive consumer data entered into these apps either manually or through a wearable device. For example, BetterHelp, a mental health and therapy app, wasfined $7.8 million by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after it was found to have shared users’ sensitive mental health data with third-party advertising platforms,including Facebook and Snapchat. The FTC alleged BetterHelp violated §5 of the FTC Act for deceptive practices because the company assured customers their data would not be shared with third parties and conversations would be kept private.
In the European Union, the same platforms are held to stricter standards under theGeneral Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR, which many regard as unduly rigid, nonethelessholds organizations responsible for handling data, including requiring them to meet alawful basis for processing data and being held accountable when not meeting these standards. For example, Fitbit, a widely used health tracking app connected to Google wearable devices, but is usable without a device, must receive explicit consent from users before processing health data.
U.S. law and regulatory policy have not been meaningfully updated to account for the rise of artificial intelligence and digital health technology. In 2021, Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) introduced theSMARTWATCH Data Act. The aim was to ensure health data collected by wearables through their connected apps would be protected under similar standards that apply to traditional health data. But the bill did not advance past committee.
Congress needs to create a federal framework to enforce data privacy before RFK Jr. moves forward with a national wearable initiative. Although the FTC has taken action against individual companies, fines on large companies are typically viewed as a slap on the wrist. Consumers need a new federal law to stop companies from collecting and selling data once wearable apps are downloaded. Wearables and their connected apps offer real benefits, such as early detection and long-term tracking of chronic conditions; however, privacy, consent, and data transparency must come first.
Without updated data laws, Americans will continue to be vulnerable to the misuse of their health data. Data such as fertility, heart rate, and sleep patterns will become a valuable, sellable commercial product to companies. This kind of mass data collection risks creating a system that prioritizes profit over user safety. The Trump administration should not pile more risk on consumers by failing to protect the privacy and security of health tracking devices and apps.
Efforts around the turn of the twenty-first century to add into college admissions considerations of socioeconomic diversity on top of racial diversity – an idea supported by many of my liberal friends – failed mostly because it did not grapple with the fundamental forces that drive university behavior. Universities deserve credit for recognizing that racial diversity is part of what makes them excellent, and they have woven a commitment to it into their DNA. But why did all the statistical analyses of admissions – including from strong supporters of racial affirmative action – find that universities pay so much less attention to class diversity for its own sake? Four explanations stand out.
Nothing about the dozen men and women gathered on a summer Saturday in the nondescript classroom in downtown Kyiv signaled who they were. Pale, skinny women in punkish black mingled comfortably with beefy men in rugged work clothes. Ages ranged from early 20s to late middle age. They greeted each other warmly and shared a few jokes as they squeezed into plastic chair desks and waited for their instructor.
What they had in common: all were Ukrainian veterans chosen to participate in a program they hope will prepare them for future leadership, whether in government, nonprofit organizations, or community settings—any initiative, as the program’s cofounders put it in an interview, to “rebuild and strengthen Ukraine.”
Virtually no one in Ukraine expects peace anytime soon—they don’t believe Vladimir Putin will make peace until he has achieved his goal of subjugating his southern neighbor. But in a nation fighting to break free of Russian influence, refashioning itself as a European democracy, the future of the country is on everyone’s mind—that’s what they’re fighting and dying for—and it’s never too soon to think about rebuilding.
At a time when college enrollment is shrinking and public faith in higher education is faltering, the question of how we measure college value has never been more urgent. Against this backdrop, the just-released 2025 College Rankings from Washington Monthly offer a way to measure higher education’s value.
In an introduction to the issue, editor in chief Paul Glastris and editor Rob Wolfe write: “Instead of rewarding colleges for their wealth, prestige, and exclusivity, we measure how much they help ordinary middle- and working-class students get ahead, encourage democratic participation and service to the country, and produce the scholars and scholarship that drive economic growth and human flourishing. These, we think, are what most Americans want from their investments in the higher ed system.”
