Jeremy Barofsky

Saving lives: lifting many boats or patching holes Two papers in the newest issue of the Journal of Health Economics highlight an open question in research on US mortality—how should we consider tradeoffs between investing in early life and investing ...

Substack: Saving lives: lifting many boats or patching holes

There Have Been No Approvals for New Transit Projects in the First Year of the Current Trump Administration

For the 1st time in the 1st year of a presidential administration since at least 1993, under Trump 2, the Federal Transit Administration signed 0 new contracts for major transit projects, like subways or light rail.

The US is facing a crisis of rail transit investment: www.urban.org/urban-wire/r...

Happening this week! Please join us in person in Ann Arbor at the Ford School at 4.30 on Wednesday. Event will also be recorded.

The Trump administration’s short-sighted attacks on the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Introduction The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is a small, independent agency whose mission is to support businesses and workers in resolving workplace disputes and building positi...

@lynnrhinehart.bsky.social The Trump administration’s short-sighted attacks on the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service www.epi.org/publication/...

I'm very excited to announce the first session of Data for Good Roundtables this year. If you are curious, excited, or worried about how AI is being implemented in state and local governments in the U.S., this is an online panel you do not want to miss: sites.google.com/view/d4g-rou...

Immensely grateful to share an amicus brief on birthright citizenship, submitted to SCOTUS last week.

We present esta of the impacted child population (4.8 mil children in next 20 yrs alone!) + financial contributions through 2074 under status quo ($7.7 trillion!).
Link: lnkd.in/gGXngCDY
1/7

“In the last year, it’s gotten a lot worse” A Qualitative Investigation of Barriers to Disability Benefits in 2025 - DREDF The Mobility Device User Survey (MDUS) reported here was stimulated by reports from mobility device users of the many problems, limitations, and long waits associated with the process of acquiring a m...

Hot off the presses: new research with colleagues Katie Savin and @matthewborus.bsky.social about how DOGE and Trump 2.0's changes at SSA affected disability claimants. The upshot: it's always been hard to access disability benefits, but now it's gotten worse.

dredf.org/ssa-barriers...

Remember when Trump yanked funds from Mississippi after learning that the state's welfare chief had directed millions in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds to sports celebrities, including not only Brett Favre, but the Million Dollar man and his two pro-wrestler sons?

Wait. He didn't.

Worth remembering that current Republican Senator Rick Scott oversaw the largest Medicaid fraud in history, at the time, as the CEO of the largest for-profit hospital system in America.

In case I wasn’t clear, this is a major escalation in terms of impoundments from Trump and Vought

Bitcoin (BTC) news: Fed's Kashkari says crypto is 'utterly useless' The Minneapolis Fed president said stablecoins don’t beat Venmo and argued crypto fails basic real-world tests.

If he can think of a better way for a foreign spymaster to give a Trump company a $2B interest-free loan it can invest, I’m all ears.

You do not need a passport to get on a plane or to buy a beer. Technically, you don't need a photo identification (e.g. you'll get extra screening) to get on a plane. What this is actually about? substack.com/home/post/p-...

Binance Pledged to Crack Down on Crime. Its Employees Found Potential Violations.

I am shocked, just shocked that a crypto exchange was being used for something untoward. Binance investigators found $1.7 billion in transactions to Iran, the *investigators* were fired or suspended. "It’s unclear exactly why the investigators were disciplined."

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/t...

Excited to announce publication of new JHPPL special issue: Public Health Under Siege (ungated) that explores the fate of public health during the second Trump administration:

read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/issue/...

The Project 2025 architect who promised to put federal employees “in trauma” is spending $15 million of former USAID funding—money that would have gone toward fighting HIV, polio, malaria, and other diseases—to bankroll his security detail. trib.al/TSV3cmb

We need to raise the bar on research code right now.

1) documentation and tests are dead simple now.
2) creating benchmarks integrating across multiple implementations
3) have agents double check your work / fix broken tests
4) fix outstanding bugs in major scientific packages

No crypto in Canton: Town blocks data centers and crypto mining operations Canton’s makeshift town hall in a tiny trailer was bursting at the seams Wednesday night with citizens united against data centers and cryptocurrency mining.

For my money, the way thousands of regular people are self-organizing to resist data centers is one of the most cautiously hopeful stories going right now.

www.themountaineer.com/news/no-cryp...

AI + work: Building pro-worker AI - The Hamilton Project On February 25, The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution will host a virtual event to discuss pro-worker AI.

Join @hamiltonproject.org on 2/25 at 2pm ET for a can't miss conversation and paper release: Building pro-worker AI.

With authors @dacemoglumit.bsky.social, davidautor.bsky.social, & @simonhrjohnson.bsky.social, moderated by @natasharsarin.bsky.social!

www.hamiltonproject.org/event/buildi...

I've tried to get this point across myself. Here, @brianbeutler.bsky.social does a great job of it. Liberal bias is a political tool — not a critique of performance — and it will assert itself regardless of how well the newsroom does on truthtelling and fairness. www.offmessage.net/p/a-requiem-...

ICE detention is at a record 70,766. 70% of this fiscal year’s growth comes from people with no criminal convictions. Only 10% comes from people with convictions. The numbers don’t match the rhetoric.

Read more on my substack: austinkocher.substack.com/p/ices-delay...

We have a groundbreaking technology that could prevent untold death and suffering.

But its development is being hindered because HHS is led by a eugenicist roadkill enthusiast and an assortment of cranks and quacks who think their own self-serving contrarianism trumps established health science.

Trump's Stablecoin USD1: Binance Holds 87% After Founder's Pardon World Liberty Financial's founding document describes the company as "pioneering a new era of Decentralized Finance." Its flagship stablecoin is anything but.

New: Binance holds 87% of the Trump family's stablecoin—$4.7 billion—a higher concentration than any other major stablecoin has at any single exchange.

Its U.S. affiliate holds $1,119.

me, for @forbes.com

Health care workers want ICE out of hospitals, and blue states are responding Last month, the parents of a 7-year-old girl whose nose wouldn’t stop bleeding took her to Portland Adventist Health in Portland, Oregon, for urgent care. Before the family could get through the…

Health care workers in Minnesota and other states say ICE is increasing its presence in health care facilities, deterring people from seeking medical care.

via @stateline.org

Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free Using lobbying, the revolving door and “dark pattern” customer tricks, Intuit fended off the government’s attempts to make tax filing free and easy, and created its multi-billion-dollar franchise.

With tax season in full swing, here's our reminder that TurboTax owner Intuit spent two decades fighting to prevent Americans from filing their taxes online for free.

(Published 2019)

How to Actually Reform ICE Accountability, transparency, and trust must be centerpieces of “New ICE.”

Infuriating:

On DHS agents: "one remarkable fact is that today, before recent hiring surge...customs officers and Border Patrol agents have committed crimes at a per capita rate that is greater than the crime rate for people who immigrated here illegally. "
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Republican Megabill Trades Essential Support to Low-Income People for Skewed Tax Cuts The sprawling megabill passed by the Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President Trump in July 2025 will redistribute trillions of dollars upward over the next decade, making it harder for ...

New 25-page @centeronbudget.bsky.social paper from me summarizing the distributional, fiscal, and economic effects of One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts and cuts to health care, food assistance, student loans, and climate investments. 🧵

www.cbpp.org/research/fed...

"On December 2, 1783, then-Commander-in-Chief George Washington penned: “America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respected Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions.”1 More than two centuries later, Congress reaffirmed President Washington’s vision by establishing the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. See 8 U.S.C. § 1254a (TPS statute). It provides humanitarian relief to foreign nationals in the United States who come from disaster-stricken countries. It also brings in substantial revenue, with TPS holders generating $5.2 billion in taxes annually. See Part VI. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem has a different take. [screenshot of tweet].

So says the official responsible for overseeing the TPS program. And one of those (her word) “damn” countries is Haiti. Relevant here, three days before making the above post, Secretary Noem announced she would terminate Haiti’s TPS designation as of February 3, 2026. See 90 Fed. Reg. 54733 (Nov. 28, 2025) (Termination). Plaintiffs are five Haitian TPS holders. They are not, it emerges, “killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies.” They are instead: Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease, Dkt. 90 (Second Am. Compl. (SAC)) ¶ 1; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank, id. ¶ 2; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department, id. ¶ 3; Marica Merline Laguerre, a college economics major, id. ¶ 4; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse, id. ¶ 5. They claim that Secretary Noem’s decision violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), and the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Government counters that the Court does not have jurisdiction, and, in any case, the Secretary did not violate the law. Plaintiffs seek to stay the Secretary’s decision under 5 U.S.C. § 705 pending the outcome of this litigation. See Dkt. 81 (§ 705 Mot.). To decide their motion, the Court considers first whether it has jurisdiction. It does. See Part II. It then considers: whether Plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; whether they will be irreparably harmed absent a stay; and whether a merged balance of the equities and public interest analysis favors a stay. See Part III. Each element favors Plaintiffs. See Parts IV, V, and VI. Plaintiffs charge that Secretary Noem preordained her termination decision and did so because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants. This seems substantially likely. Secretary Noem

has terminated every TPS country designation to have reached her desk—twelve countries up, twelve countries down. See Section IV.A.2. Her conclusion that Haiti (a majority nonwhite country) faces merely “concerning” conditions cannot be squared with the “perfect storm of suffering” and “staggering” “humanitarian toll” described in page-after-page of the Certified Administrative Record (CAR). See Section IV.A.3.a. She ignored Congress’s requirement that she “review the conditions” in Haiti only “after” consulting “with appropriate agencies.” 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(b)(3)(A); see Section IV.A.1. Indeed, she did not consult other agencies at all. See id. Her “national interest” analysis focuses on Haitians outside the United States or here illegally, ignoring that Haitian TPS holders already live here, and legally so. See Section IV.A.3.b. And though she states that the analysis must include “economic considerations,” she ignores altogether the billions Haitian TPS holders contribute to the economy. See id. The Government’s primary response is that the TPS statute gives the Secretary unbounded discretion to make whatever determination she wants, any way she wants. And, yes, the statute does grant her some discretion. But not unbounded discretion. To the contrary, Congress passed the TPS statute to standardize the then ad hoc temporary protection system—to replace executive whim with statutory predictability. See Section I.A. As to irreparable harm, the Government contends that, at most, the harms to Haitian TPS holders are speculative. But the Department of State (State) warns [screenshot]

Dkt. 100 (§ 705 Reply) at 20–21.4 “Do not travel to Haiti for any reason” does not exactly scream, as Secretary Noem concluded, suitable for return. And so, the Government studiously does not argue that Plaintiffs will suffer no harm if removed to Haiti. Instead, it argues Plaintiffs will not certainly suffer irreparable harm because DHS might not remove them. But this fails to take Secretary Noem at her word: “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.” See Section IV.B.2.b. Finally, the balance of equities and public interest favor a stay. The Government does not cite any reason termination must occur post haste. Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. She complains of strains to our healthcare system. Her answer? Turn the insured into the uninsured. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them. For the reasons below, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ Renewed Motion for a Stay Under 5 U.S.C. § 705, Dkt. 81.

Even if you don't have time to read all 83 pages of Judge Reyes's opinion barring the Trump administration from rescinding Temporary Protected Status for 350,000+ Haitians, please at least check out the four-page introduction.

It's a tour de force:

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

This is now without question the biggest politico-financial scandal in United States history. Teapot Dome was trivial in comparison.

Screenshot from JAMA Health Forum website: “Changes to SNAP Under HR 1 and the Implications for Food Insecurity”

Massive administrative changes are underway for SNAP. A good summary in @jama.com Health Forum:

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... 🥗 🛟

Woman who recorded shooting of Alex Pretti through car windshield speaks out | CNN Anderson speaks with Kayla Schultz who recorded the shooting of Alex Pretti through a car windshield. She’s now speaking out for the first time. More from their conversation tomorrow night at 8p ET.

Another brave person in Minneapolis standing up to Trump and his goon squads
www.cnn.com/2026/01/28/u...