issue: Housing

Kahlenberg for The Hill: Will ‘Good Trump’ or ‘Bad Trump’ prevail on housing?

Posted on by Max Sherrill

Anger about inflation was a central driver of Donald Trump’s election, which is part of why housing policy will be so important in the next administration. For most Americans, housing costs represent their single biggest household expense, and those costs have been rising rapidly.

What will Donald Trump and his new nominee to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, former NFL football player and Texas State legislator Scott Turner, do to address the issue?

The answer is wide open. In the first administration, there was a struggle between a “Good Trump,” who wanted to take steps to build more housing, and a “Bad Trump,” who endorsed Not in My Backyard or “NIMBY” forces. Both had their moments in Trump’s first go around, and there will be a battle over which prevails in the second.

Keep reading in The Hill.

Weinstein Jr. for Forbes: Why Home Prices Remain Too High.

Posted on by Max Sherrill

One of the key messages voters sent on Election Day 2024 is they are fed up with high prices — and at the top of that list is the cost of owning a home.

For Americans, housing is their single biggest expense, and today, it is less affordable than at any time in the last 40 years. the beginning of 2020, the median cost of a home was around $280,000, today that number has risen above $400,000, a jump of 43%. That’s one of the reasons that some are arguing today that costs of running credit scores somehow plays a determinative role in driving prices up. But that’s a red herring—a way to distract policymakers from what’s really at fault.

According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, there are three primary factors driving up home prices: 1) a lack of supply; 2) higher interest rates; and rising insurance premiums due to the increased risk of weather amid a changing climate.

Keep reading in Forbes.

PPI Launches New Report on Improving Housing for Working Americans

Posted on by Max Sherrill

WASHINGTON — The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today published a new report, “Improving Housing for Working Americans,” authored by Richard D. Kahlenberg, Director of Housing Policy and Director of PPI’s American Identity Project. The report tackles the rising housing costs and offers pragmatic solutions to improve affordability for working families across the United States.

This new publication is a key output of PPI’s Campaign for Working America, which was launched earlier this year in partnership with former U.S. Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio. The Campaign aims to develop and test new themes, ideas, and policy proposals that help Democrats and other center-left leaders make a compelling economic offer to working Americans, bridge divides on cultural issues like immigration and education, and rally public support for the defense of democracy and freedom globally.

As part of PPI’s Campaign for Working America, this report highlights the growing housing crisis and outlines several policy recommendations to help alleviate the burden on working-class families. Kahlenberg emphasizes that exclusionary zoning laws, combined with high interest rates, have made housing unaffordable for too many Americans. He calls for reform to break down these barriers and increase the availability of affordable housing.

“Housing affordability is a fundamental issue for millions of working Americans,” said Kahlenberg. “By reducing exclusionary zoning and incentivizing the construction of multi-family homes, we can help lower housing costs, create more inclusive neighborhoods, and provide greater opportunities for working families to thrive. This report offers a roadmap for both federal and state governments to address this urgent problem.”

The report also highlights how exclusionary zoning laws have worsened economic segregation, preventing working families from accessing better housing, schools, and job opportunities. Among the key recommendations are expanding federal incentives like the PRO Housing Pilot Program, enacting the YIMBY Act to promote more inclusive housing policies, passing an Economic Fair Housing Act that would discourage localities from zoning practices that exclude working families, and supporting state-level reforms that legalize multifamily housing.

The report’s findings underscore the need for comprehensive reform at both state and federal levels to create housing solutions that work for all Americans, not just the wealthy.

Read and download the report here.

The Progressive Policy Institute (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. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.

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

 

Improving Housing for Working Americans

Posted on by Max Sherrill

About PPI’s Campaign for Working America

The Progressive Policy Institute launched its Campaign for Working America in February 2024. Its mission is to develop and test new themes, ideas, and policy proposals that can help Democrats and other center-left leaders make a new economic offer to working Americans, find common ground on polarizing cultural issues like immigration, crime, and education, and rally public support for defending freedom and democracy in a dangerous world. Acting as Senior Adviser to the Campaign is former U.S. Representative Tim Ryan, who represented northeast Ohio in Congress from 2003 to 2023.

Since 2016, Democrats have suffered severe erosion among non-college white voters and lately have been losing support from Black, Hispanic, and Asian working-class voters as well. Since these voters account for about threequarters of registered voters, basic electoral math dictates that the party will have to do better with them to restore its competitiveness outside metro centers and build lasting governing majorities. The party’s history and legacy point in the same direction: Democrats do best when they champion the economic aspirations and moral outlook of ordinary working Americans.

To help them relocate this political north star and to inform our work on policy innovation, PPI has commissioned a series of YouGov polls on the beliefs and political attitudes of non-college voters, with a particular focus on the battleground states that have decided the outcome of recent national elections.

This report is the first in a series of Campaign Blueprints detailing new ideas that can help Democrats reach across today’s yawning “diploma divide” and reconnect with the working-class voters who have historically been the party’s mainstay.

Introduction

Housing in America is too expensive, and residential areas are increasingly segregated by economic status. For most
Americans, housing is their single biggest expense, and today, it is less affordable than at any time in the last 40 years. Housing prices have tripled since 2000, outpacing wages, which have doubled. The median household needs to devote a whopping 40% of its income to afford the median-priced home.

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has put a priority on making housing more affordable. She has correctly pinpointed the central problem — a shortage of housing supply — and outlined a number of policies to help the private and nonprofit sectors produce 3 million new homes. Planting herself firmly in the pro-housing camp, Harris is allied with Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) forces. By contrast, former president Donald Trump has taken a classic Not in My Backyard
(NIMBY) approach, falsely claiming that federal incentives to produce more housing would somehow “abolish the suburbs.” He banks on addressing the imbalance of housing supply and demand with a fantastical plan to uproot millions of undocumented immigrants and deport them. Economists point out the plan would have the perverse effect of removing many workers who make the construction of new housing possible.

It’s especially important for working Americans that smart housing policies be enacted. Theirs are the families whose budgets are most stretched by surging rents and housing prices and whose children see their opportunities curtailed when rising economic segregation excludes them from the safest neighborhoods with the highest-performing public schools.

Read the full report.

Kahlenberg for National Affairs: A Way Forward on Housing

Posted on by Max Sherrill

By Richard D. Kahlenberg

American housing policy is a mess. Although housing already constitutes the largest budget item for most families, government artificially inflates the prices of homes by suppressing their supply. In many regions, housing has become unaffordable for low-income and working-class Americans, and for young middle-class adults starting out in life. Rich and poor increasingly live apart, driving unequal educational opportunities and political and racial polarization. Because housing can be prohibitively expensive in the most economically productive regions of the country, many Americans are no longer moving to opportunity; instead, they move for affordability.

Potential solutions are controversial. Democrats and Republicans tend to differ on matters like rent control, funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Housing Choice Voucher program, and efforts to desegregate residential areas through the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule under the Fair Housing Act.

Intriguing possibilities of bipartisan reform, however, have emerged in one area of housing policy: local zoning barriers that inhibit housing growth and exclude people by income (and, in turn, often by race as well). Several states and localities have adopted zoning reforms in recent years, frequently with support from both parties. The federal government has also devoted some attention and funding to the issue.

Keep reading in the National Affairs Summer 2024 Issue.

Paying for Progress: A Blueprint to Cut Costs, Boost Growth, and Expand American Opportunity

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The next administration must confront the consequences that the American people are finally facing from more than two decades of fiscal mismanagement in Washington. Annual deficits in excess of $2 trillion during a time when the unemployment rate hovers near a historically low 4% have put upward pressure on prices and strained family budgets. Annual interest payments on the national debt, now the highest they’ve ever been in history, are crowding out public investments into our collective future, which have fallen near historic lows. Working families face a future with lower incomes and diminished opportunities if we continue on our current path.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) believes that the best way to promote opportunity for all Americans and tackle the nation’s many problems is to reorient our public budgets away from subsidizing short-term consumption and towards investments that lay the foundation for long-term economic abundance. Rather than eviscerating government in the name of fiscal probity, as many on the right seek to do, our “Paying for Progress” Blueprint offers a visionary framework for a fairer and more prosperous society.

Our blueprint would raise enough revenue to fund our government through a tax code that is simpler, more progressive, and more pro-growth than current policy. We offer innovative ideas to modernize our nation’s health-care and retirement programs so they better reflect the needs of our aging population. We would invest in the engines of American innovation and expand access to affordable housing, education, and child care to cut the cost of living for working families. And we propose changes to rationalize federal programs and institutions so that our government spends smarter rather than merely spending more.

Many of these transformative policies are politically popular — the kind of bold, aspirational ideas a presidential candidate could build a campaign around — while others are more controversial because they would require some sacrifice from politically influential constituencies. But the reality is that both kinds of policies must be on the table, because public programs can only work if the vast majority of Americans that benefit from them are willing to contribute to them. Unlike many on the left, we recognize that progressive policies must be fiscally sound and grounded in economic pragmatism to make government work for working Americans now and in the future.

If fully enacted during the first year of the next president’s administration, the recommendations in this report would put the federal budget on a path to balance within 20 years. But we do not see actually balancing the budget as a necessary end. Rather, PPI seeks to put the budget on a healthy trajectory so that future policymakers have the fiscal freedom to address emergencies and other unforeseen needs. Moreover, because PPI’s blueprint meets such an ambitious fiscal target, we ensure that adopting even half of our recommended savings would be enough to stabilize the debt as a percent of GDP. Thus, our proposals to cut costs, boost growth, and expand American opportunity will remain a strong menu of options for policymakers to draw upon for years to come, even if they are unlikely to be enacted in their entirety any time soon.

The roughly six dozen federal policy recommendations in this report are organized into 12 overarching priorities:

I. Replace Taxes on Work with Taxes on Consumption and Unearned Income
II. Make the Individual Income Tax Code Simpler and More Progressive
III. Reform the Business Tax Code to Promote Growth and International Competitiveness
IV. Secure America’s Global Leadership
V. Strengthen Social Security’s Intergenerational Compact
VI. Modernize Medicare
VII. Cut Health-Care Costs and Improve Outcomes
VIII. Support Working Families and Economic Opportunity
IX. Make Housing Affordable for All
X. Rationalize Safety-Net Programs
XI. Improve Public Administration
XII. Manage Public Debt Responsibly

Read the full Blueprint. 

Read the Summary of Recommendations.

Read the PPI press release.

See how PPI’s Blueprint compares to six alternatives. 

Media Mentions:

Richard Kahlenberg Joins PPI to Lead Housing Policy and the American Identity Project

Posted on by Max Sherrill
With today’s highly polarized politics and the growing attacks on democracy, the American Identity Project will outline a new approach to teaching democratic values in K-12 schooling and college

 

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) announced that Richard Kahlenberg will join the organization as the Director of Housing Policy and Director of the American Identity Project, a new initiative that examines what can be done to counter growing anti-democratic impulses on the far left and far right.

Kahlenberg is a leading expert on education and housing policy — and is specifically known for his work on how housing policies inhibit educational opportunities. He’s the author or editor of 18 books with his most recent award-winning release last year titled “Excluded: How Snob Zoning, NIMBYism, and Class Bias Build the Walls We Don’t See.”

“I am thrilled to join PPI and have greatly admired its work advancing innovative and pragmatic ideas that have broad appeal with working-class and middle-class Americans,” said Richard Kahlenberg. “I’m eager to build on PPI’s long history of emphasizing what we have in common as Americans to develop ideas around how to teach the next generation what makes America different.“

“Rick Kahlenberg is a prolific writer and thinker who has enriched national debates around school choice and integration, civic education, affirmative action, and other knotty issues. His admiration for ‘tough liberals’ like RFK and Al Shanker makes him a perfect fit with PPI. He will lead our work on inclusive zoning and affordable housing as well as educating children in the shared ideals that define America’s national identity,” said Will Marshall, PPI President.

The American Identity Project will explore what it means to be an American in today’s highly polarized country and what public schools should be doing to teach a shared American identity that inculcates a deep and healthy sense of reflective patriotism. Kahlenberg, a seasoned researcher and writer on education and civil rights issues and a biographer of the late teacher union leader Albert Shanker, will lead the project and work with policymakers at all levels of government to help shape civics standards. The project will work to create a new approach that fosters appreciation for the American system of liberal democracy by teaching students the importance of free and fair elections and freedom of thought.

Additionally at PPI, Kahlenberg will lead the organization’s work on housing policy. In the United States, housing has become unaffordable for so many low-income families and working Americans — which leads to unequal educational opportunities and political and racial polarization. Kahlenberg will work with federal, state, and local officials and members of key stakeholder groups to examine lessons from successful zoning reform efforts at the state and local levels and find comprehensive solutions to this growing crisis.

The Progressive Policy Institute (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. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Find an expert at PPI and follow us on Twitter.

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Media Contact: Amelia Fox – afox@ppionline.org

Harnessing Tailwinds on State and Local Land-Use Reform: A Bipartisan Playbook

RSVP to attend in person or virtually here.

 

As housing affordability concerns are affecting more and more Americans, market-oriented and liberal researchers have found common ground on the need for land-use reform.

Join AEI and the Progressive Policy Institute as they develop a bipartisan housing playbook that can be deployed across cities and states, red and blue. Practitioners, legislators, and researchers from across the political spectrum will discuss recent successful reforms at the state and local level and how others can capitalize on these ideas to fix America’s housing shortage.

Submit questions to Hannah.Florence@aei.org.

 

Agenda

11:00 a.m.
Opening Remarks:
Robert Doar, President, American Enterprise Institute
Will Marshall, President, Progressive Policy Institute

11:10 a.m.
Panel I: How We Got into the Housing Policy Mess and Why We Need to Fix It

Panelists:
Richard Kahlenberg, Director of Housing, Progressive Policy Institute
Edward J. Pinto, Codirector, AEI Housing Center

Moderator:
Lance Lambert, Founder, ResiClub

11:45 a.m.
Q&A

12:00 p.m.
Lunch

Keynote:
Greg Gianforte, Governor, Montana

1:00 p.m.
Panel II: State and Local Solutions: What’s Working

Panelists:
Emily Hamilton, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center
Dan Reed, Regional Policy Director, Greater Greater Washington
Sonja Trauss, Executive Director, YIMBY Law
Daniel Zolnikov, State Senator, Montana

Moderator:
Batya Ungar-Sargon, Deputy Opinion Editor, Newsweek

1:45 p.m.
Q&A

2:00 p.m.
Adjournment

Kahlenberg for The Atlantic: Liberal Suburbs Have Their Own Border Wall

Posted on by dcadmin

By Richard D. Kahlenberg

The New York City suburb of Scarsdale, located in Westchester County, New York, is one of the country’s wealthiest communities, and its residents are reliably liberal. In 2020, three-quarters of Scarsdale voters cast ballots for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. One can safely presume that few Scarsdale residents are ardent backers of Trump’s wall on the Mexican border. But many of them support a less visible kind of wall, erected by zoning regulations that ban multifamily housing and keep non-wealthy people, many of them people of color, out of their community.

Across the country, a lot of good white liberals, people who purchase copies of White Fragility and decry the U.S. Supreme Court for ending affirmative action, sleep every night in exclusive suburbs that socially engineer economic (and thereby racial) segregation by government edict. The huge inequalities between upscale municipalities and their poorer neighbors didn’t just happen; they are in large measure the product of laws that are hard to square with the inclusive In This House, We Believe signs on lawns in many highly educated, deep-blue suburbs.

Read more in The Atlantic

 

Kahlenberg for The Wall Street Journal: Only Zoning Reform Can Solve America’s Housing Crisis

Posted on by dcadmin

By Richard D. Kahlenberg

During the worst days of Covid, when supply chains broke down for automobile production, the cost of used cars skyrocketed in response to the limited supply. Over time, car manufacturing began to rebound, and prices moderated.

But when it comes to housing, there is a perpetual supply malfunction that inflates costs: local government zoning policies that expressly forbid developers from building homes where people want them. Ordinances routinely ban the construction of multifamily housing and require homes to be built on very large lots, artificially boosting the price of shelter—the single biggest expense for most Americans. These policies serve the narrow interests of wealthier incumbent homeowners, and they make life more difficult for young middle-class families starting out and low-income families who must make choices between paying rent and buying food or medicine.

People often think that the free market is what gives communities their dramatically different housing costs and demographic makeups, but that’s only part of the story. In a market economy, communities with strong public schools and safe streets will, of course, command higher property values. Homes in those areas could be made much more affordable, however, if localities made it possible to build more units on the available land.

Read more in The Wall Street Journal

 

Statement from PPI’s Paul Weinstein, Jr. on Recent Decision by FHFA on Credit Scoring

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Paul Weinstein, Jr., a Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, released the following statement:

 

“This week’s statement by the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) that it has “validated and approved” of the FICO 10T and VantageScore 4.0 credit scoring models is welcome news. The prior model, FICO Classic, had been in use by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for nearly twenty years, and an update was long overdue. Fortunately, the improvements to FICO 10T are significant, and both models will hopefully prove to be more inclusive as both can factor in payment histories for borrowers — such as rent and utilities payments.
 
“As noted in the past, because Vantage is owned by the three major credit reporting agencies, there is potential for a conflict of interest. This is cause for concern and should be carefully monitored.”
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America’s Resilient Center and the Road to 2020 – Results from a New National Survey

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released a national opinion survey that highlights the surprising resilience of America’s pragmatic political center two years into Donald Trump’s deeply polarizing presidency. The poll reinforces a key takeaway from the 2018 midterm elections: Suburban voters – especially women – are repelled by the president’s racial and cultural demagoguery and are moving away from a Trump-dominated GOP.

“Our poll suggests that Donald Trump’s election in 2016 is more likely to be an aberration than any permanent shift in America’s political course,” said Anne Kim, PPI Director of Social and Domestic Policy and PPI President Will Marshall. “The defection of suburban voters creates a political landscape that favors Democrats in 2020 – if they stick to the ‘big tent’ approach that proved so effective in the midterm.”

The poll conducted by Pete Brodnitz at Expedition Strategies contains findings about what’s top of mind for voters, their ideological outlook and leanings, and their views on health care, trade, growth and inequality, the role of government, monopoly and competition, and other contentious issues.

“The agenda that could help Democrats sustain a governing majority, our poll suggests, is one that is progressive yet pragmatic—one that’s optimistic, aspirational and respects Americans’ beliefs in individual initiative and self-determination; one that broadens Americans’ opportunities for success in the private sector and strengthens the nation’s global economic role; one that demands more from business but doesn’t cross the line into stifling growth; and one that adopts a practical approach to big challenges such as immigration reform and climate change,” write Kim and Marshall.

“For Democrats to maintain and expand this near-majority advantage, they must craft a broadly appealing agenda that brings or keeps independents and less committed partisans—the majority of whom call themselves ‘moderate’—under the tent.”

PPI-Expedition-Strategies-2018-Poll-PPT

PPI_Americans-and-The-Economy2018

Senate Democrats’ Deficit-Neutral Infrastructure Plan Clarifies the Cost of Tax Cuts

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Senate Democrats yesterday unveiled an ambitious $1 trillion infrastructure proposal that would invest in everything from roads and railways to hospitals and high-speed broadband. And in sharp contrast to recent proposals by the Trump administration, this new Democratic proposal includes a plan to fully pay for itself.

The proposal calls for repealing three elements of the recently-enacted Republican tax bill that almost exclusively benefit the wealthiest taxpayers, as well as closing the “carried interest loophole” that allows certain earnings on Wall Street to be taxed at a lower rate than other compensation. It would also raise the top corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 25 percent – the average rate among OECD countries and the level originally proposed by House Ways and Means Chairman David Camp (R-MI) back in 2014.

Spending in the new proposal is broken down into 19 different categories, each with its own budget and parameters for implementation. The package as a whole includes additional guidelines, such as encouraging the adoption of innovative technologies and long-term financing mechanisms, to accompany proposed spending. If fully implemented, the proposal’s authors believe it would create 15 million good-paying jobs.

Compare that to the proposal offered last month by the Trump administration, which claims to increase infrastructure investment by $1.5 trillion even though the administration’s budget provided no additional funding for it. The Trump proposal would also privatize a wide variety of physical assets, such as waterways and interstate highways, that the Democratic proposal would retain for public use.

Another advantage of the Democratic proposal is that it makes clear to voters the true cost of the Republican tax cut enacted last year – something PPI has been urging Democrats to do since before passage of the bill. For less than half the cost of this terrible tax cut, voters could have gotten a robust 21st century infrastructure that would benefit our economy for generations to come. That message could be a powerful one heading into the midterm elections, especially if paired with a credible and comprehensive Democratic framework for “repealing and replacing” the GOP tax bill.

Senate Democrats should be commended for including suggested funding mechanisms in their proposal. Whereas Republicans added over $2 trillion of tax cuts to the national debt, the Democrats’ infrastructure proposal would be fully funded and deficit-neutral. If implemented in a timely and cost-effective way, their proposal might even reduce budget deficits because of the high economic returns on well-targeted infrastructure investment. The stark contrast between these two approaches to fiscal policy is just further evidence that only one of the two political parties in Washington is making any attempt to pay for its proposed policies.

But when they find themselves in a position to implement these policies, Democrats should keep in mind that simply paying for their new proposals isn’t sufficient.

The federal government is now spending $1 trillion more than it raises in revenue every year – a gap that is projected to more than double over the next decade. It will be impossible to sustain social programs as they’re currently structured, let alone fund new ones, without major reforms to both existing spending and the tax code. The government cannot afford to commit every dollar of additional revenue to new promises until it finds a way to pay for the ones we’ve already made.

For these reasons, Democrats would be wise to use yesterday’s proposal as merely the starting point for crafting a complete fiscal policy: one that sustainably finances both public investments and a strong social safety net without placing an undue burden on young Americans. A fiscally responsible public agenda along these lines is what the Democratic Party needs, and it’s what our country deserves.

Happy Holidays from PPI

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute
It’s been a surreal political year, but PPI has much to celebrate this holiday season. Throughout 2017, we expanded our productive capacity and the scope of our political and media outreach significantly. For example, PPI organized 150 meetings with prominent elected officials; visited 10 state capitals and 10 foreign capitals, published an influential book and more than 40 original research papers, and hosted nearly 30 private salon dinners on a variety of topical issues.
Best of all, we saw PPI’s research, analysis, and innovative ideas breaking through the political static and changing the way people think about some critical issues, including how to revive U.S. economic dynamism, spread innovation and jobs to people and places left behind by economic growth, and modernize the ways we prepare young people for work and citizenship.
Let me give you some highlights:
  • This fall, David Osborne’s new book, Reinventing America’s Schools, was published on the 25th anniversary of the nation’s first charter school in Minnesota. David, who heads PPI’s Reinventing America’s Schools project, documents the emergence of a new “21st Century” model for organizing and modernizing our public school system around the principles of school autonomy, accountability, choice, and diversity. David is just winding up a remarkable 20-city book tour that drew wide attention from education, political, and civic leaders, as well as the media. Because David is a great storyteller, as well as analyst, it’s a highly readable book that offers a cogent picture of a K-12 school system geared to the demands of the knowledge economy. It makes a great holiday gift!
  • Dr. Michael Mandel’s pioneering research on e-commerce and job creation also upended conventional wisdom and caught the attention of top economic commentators. Dr. Mandel, PPI’s chief economic strategist, found that online commerce has actually created more jobs in retail than it destroys, and that these new jobs (many in fulfillment centers in outlying areas) pay considerably better than traditional ones. His research buttresses the main premise of PPI’s progressive pro-growth agenda: that spreading digital innovation to the physical economy will create new jobs and businesses, raise labor productivity, and reduce inequality.
  • PPI challenged the dubious panacea of “free college” and proposed a progressive alternative – a robust system of post-secondary learning and credentials for the roughly 70 percent of young Americans who don’t get college degrees. PPI Senior Fellow Harry Holzer developed a creative menu of ways to create more “hybrid learning” opportunities combining work-based and classroom instruction. And PPI Senior Fellow Anne Kim highlighted the inequity of current government policies that subsidize college-bound youth (e.g., Pell Grants), but provide no help for people earning credentials certifying skills that employers value.
  • Building on last year’s opening of a PPI office in Brussels, we expanded our overseas work considerably in 2017. In January, I endeavored to explain the outcome of the U.S. election to shell-shocked audiences in London, Brussels, and Berlin. In April, we led our annual Congressional senior staff delegation to Paris, Brussels, and Berlin to engage European policymakers on the French presidential election and other U.S-E.U. issues, including international taxation, competition policy, and trade. PPI also took its message of data-driven innovation and growth to Australia, Brazil, Japan and a number of other countries.
Other 2017 highlights included a strategy retreat in February with two dozen top elected leaders to explore ideas for a new, radically pragmatic agenda for progressives; a Washington conference with our longtime friend Janet Napolitano (now President of the University of California system) on how to update and preserve NAFTA; public forums in Washington on pricing carbon, infrastructure, tax reform, and other pressing issues; creative policy reports on varied subjects; and a robust output of articles, op-eds, blogs, and social media activity.
I’m also happy to report many terrific additions to PPI in 2017. Rob Keast joined to manage our external relations and new policy development; Paul Bledsoe assumed a new role as Strategic Adviser as well as guiding our work on energy and climate policy; and Emily Langhorne joined as Education Policy Analyst. We will also be adding a fiscal project next year.
All this leaves us poised for a high-impact year in 2018. In this midterm-election year, our top priority will be crafting and building support for a new progressive platform — a radically pragmatic alternative to the political tribalism throttling America’s progress. That starts with new and better ideas for solving peoples’ problems that look forward, not backward, and that speak to their hopes and aspirations, not their anger and mistrust.
It’s a tall order, and we cannot succeed without your help and support. Thanks for all you have done over past years, and we look forward to working with you in 2018.
Happy holidays and New Year!