School board votes are overwhelmingly unanimous & cover humdrum issues.
From a high school student's vibecoded open database of nationwide school board votes:
school-board-votes.up.railway.app
Nice example of now-possible independent research
The research and analytics team at @statesunited.org is searching for a researcher to support our survey research program. Come join our fully remote team! Great mission, great pay, and excellent benefits.
recruiting.paylocity.com/recruiting/j...
🚨Fully revamped paper with @iganson.bsky.social: We study levels of, and partisan differences in, "unconditional political bias" (UPB). This is a partisan's own admission that *nothing* a politician could do would lower their support for that politician.
Is there *anything* a politician could do to lose your support? We wanted to know who says "no" to this question, and how we might encourage them to change their mind.
3 survey experiments and a large scale cross sectional study later, and we know much more about this exceptional form of bias!
⬇️
I'm teaching a few survey research courses live and online.
First, a free one hour seminar. Feb 20
instats.org/seminar/surv...
Then a set of two (half) day courses. Not free (sorry!).
-Intro Surveys (Feb 26-27):
instats.org/seminar/intr...
-Advanced Surveys (March 5-6):
instats.org/seminar/adva...
My team at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman.bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) has shared a big data update, covering all recorded US protests through Jan 2026. Some key takeaways 🧵:
As the House preps for another vote on the SAVE Act tomorrow — a bill that would require you to prove your citizenship — 2 reminders:
1. Fraud is effectively nonexistent. And it's already illegal for noncitizens to vote
2. Claims of fraud, and legislative reactions against it, are rooted in racism
The US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023.
The Cato study provides the first-ever 30-year analysis of the fiscal effects of immigration on government budgets.
https://ow.ly/jy8a50Y8kM3
one of the few things ive done academically that i think "actually" matters involves this graph. people who are bad neighbors -- who reject immigrants, people of a different race or religion as neighbors -- want strong (anti-democratic) leaders and army rule.
people who are good neighbors do not.
Who's Afraid of the Minimum Wage? Measuring the Impacts on Independent Businesses Using Matched U.S. Tax Returns* Nirupama L Rao, Max Risch The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 141, Issue 1, February 2026, Pages 373-427, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaf053 Published: 10 December 2025 Article history V PDF • Split View 66 Cite P Permissions < Share V Abstract A common concern surrounding minimum wage policies is their impact on independent businesses, which are often feared to be less able to bear or pass on cost increases. We examine how these typically small and medium-size firms accommodate minimum wage increases along product and labor market margins using a matched owner-firm-worker panel data set drawn from the universe of U.S. tax records over a 10-year period, and using state minimum wage changes as identifying variation. We find that on average, firms in highly exposed industries do not substantially reduce employment-they do not lay off workers but moderately reduce part-time hiring. Instead, these firms are able to fully finance the new labor costs with new revenues, leaving average owner profits unchanged. Higher wage floors, however, forestall entry, particularly for less productive firms, reducing the number of independent firms operating in these industries by roughly 2%. Yet these industries do not shrink; instead, incumbent responses and strong positive selection among entrants reshape industries that rely heavily on low-wage workers, yielding fewer but more productive firms after the cost shock. We also take a worker-level perspective to examine how potentially vulnerable individuals are affected by minimum wage increases. Using panels of low-earning and young workers, we find that their average earnings rise substantially with the minimum wage, while they are no less likely to be employed. Worker transitions indicate that minimum wage increases boost retention and that worker reallocation from independent firms toward corporations buffers dis…
New QJE for the minimum wage literature uses IRS data to study effects on small and medium size businesses. The effects seem…very good
academic.oup.com/qje/article/...
Screenshot of a data visualization titled “The Cost of American Exceptionalism,” subtitled “What would change if the U.S. matched the OECD average?” The page explains that each card shows how outcomes would change if the U.S. matched the average of 31 peer democracies. Below, a section labeled “Economy & Inequality” displays eight cards comparing U.S. figures to OECD averages. Highlights include: +$19K per household per year in redistributed income and +$96K in redistributed wealth if the top 1% matched OECD shares; a 71% lower CEO-to-worker pay ratio (from 354× to 101×); 50 million more workers with union coverage; 26 million more people with health insurance; $2.1 trillion saved annually in healthcare spending; $691 less per person per year in prescription drug costs; and intergenerational economic mobility being twice as high. Each card shows the U.S. value alongside the OECD average.
If there's one empirical insight I'd want everyone to understand about American politics, it's this:
America's problems are solved problems. Just not here.
What would change if the US simply matched the average of 31 peer democracies? Not Denmark or Norway. Just the middle of the pack. 🧵
YouGov survey results by political party for the question, Would you support or oppose the U.S. using military force to take control of Greenland?
Jan 7 poll of 2,223 U.S. adults (+/-2.4 points)
% who would support | oppose the U.S. using military force to take control of Greenland
U.S. adults 8% | 73%
Democrats 4% | 87%
Independents 6% | 73%
Republicans 15% | 60%
today.yougov.com/topics/trave...
Every one of these deals exceeds the severity of the Clinton Foundation and Hunter Biden controversies by orders of magnitude. And there are already dozens, probably hundreds.
DOGE was A LOT less likely to cancel contracts from companies that donated money to Republicans than companies that donated to Democrats.
Join @stevelevitsky.bsky.social & me online, Monday 11/24 at 3:30pm ET, to talk about where we are in the US struggle for democracy. ash.harvard.edu/events/the-b...
Data visualization titled “Even Trump’s Own Judicial Appointees Rule Against His Administration Nearly Half the Time.” Top section shows 81 rulings against (49.1%) vs 84 for (50.9%) among Trump appointees. Middle section compares rulings by appointing party: Democratic appointees ruled against Trump 752 times vs 169 for; Republican appointees 232 against vs 126 for. Bottom section shows historical comparison - how other presidents’ appointees ruled on Trump cases: Biden appointees 252 against/46 for, Obama 368/91, Bush 62/23, Clinton 125/22, Reagan 88/19. Source: Federal Court Dockets from Courtlistener.com. Data from Jan 21, 2025 through Nov 11, 2025, lower federal courts only, Supreme Court not included.
As Trump again ramps up attacks on judges as biased, consider: his own appointees rule against his admin 49% of the time. Republican appointees 65%. Reporters should ask: If the judiciary is biased, why do the judges he picked keep ruling against him?
Racial Resentment Among White Americans by Birth Year and Demographics This figure presents the same four-panel layout (education, gender, geography, religion) but for White Americans from birth years 1940 to 2000. Education panel: A pronounced divide shows non-college Whites with substantially higher resentment across all cohorts, increasing sharply for older birth years. College-educated Whites rise more modestly but remain distinctly lower, especially among younger cohorts. Gender panel: Male and female trendlines rise together, with women slightly higher in mid-century cohorts. Younger cohorts of both genders start lower and climb with age. Geography panel: Regional lines separate clearly: the South is highest in resentment, followed by the Midwest. The West and Northeast show lower levels, with the Northeast consistently at the bottom. All regions slope upward toward older cohorts. Religion panel: Protestants show the highest resentment, peaking among mid-century cohorts. Catholics sit in the middle. Non-affiliated Whites show the lowest resentment, especially among younger respondents, with a small rise among mid-century generations. The figure notes CES 2024 data with GAM-smoothed trendlines.
Those claiming Dems should retreat on racial justice aren't hard-headed realists, they're pushing against the electoral tide rather than leaning into it. The story of Gen Z isn't about racist backlash or red-pilled young men. It's the most racially progressive generation in American history. 🧵
Table showing the five richest men in the U.S from Bloombergs billionaire list ., all in technology. Elon Musk tops the list with a net worth of $461B and a year-to-date gain of $28.2B. Larry Ellison is second at $300B with a $107B YTD gain. Jeff Bezos has $268B (+$29.5B YTD), Larry Page $250B (+$81.9B YTD), and Sergey Brin $234B (+$75.5B YTD). Each row also lists last-day change, country (all United States), and industry (all Technology).
Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.
@chrischirp.bsky.social is doing a fantastic work here
www.trumpactiontracker.info
Look at how Trump's tariffs are affecting retail prices.
In 34 states and D.C., more people say abortion generally should be legal than say it generally should be illegal. For example, in the District of Columbia, 81% of adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Support for legal abortion also stands at about 75% or higher in several New England states, including Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut. Meanwhile, people in Arkansas are more likely to say abortion should generally be illegal (57%) rather than legal (41%). Arkansas is the only state where the balance of public opinion is against abortion by a statistically significant margin. In 15 states, the shares saying abortion should be legal and saying it should be illegal are not significantly different once the margins of sampling error in each state are taken into account.
The balance of public opinion is against abortion being legal in only one state, Arkansas.
www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...
Trump bill is the second most unpopular in recent history. GOP don’t care.
via @gelliottmorris.com
Sharing this one because it should be a bigger story-
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/u...
Ok, so Republicans just introduced a 900 page bill none of them have read. But my team is going through it line by line and on this 🧵you can see the hidden provisions we found. Will update all day.
1/ NEW Medicaid cuts, so now 17 million - instead of 16M - lose health care.
To top it all off, as I wrote in @medpagetoday.bsky.social, the bill goes against the federalism principles that Republicans have historically espoused, literally penalizing states for offering more generous health coverage with their own state funds. www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco...
Now let’s talk behavioral health. The opioid epidemic ravaged Appalachia (where I live, and which largely voted for Trump), and Medicaid is critical lifeline for people requiring treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, as I write on in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2025/06/12/m...
As Republicans expedite their efforts to rip health coverage from millions of Americans, re-upping my writing on the not so-beautiful bill. First, my piece in The Hill w/ @mshepruralpolitics.bsky.social on harms to rural (conservative) communities (ex: hospital closures). thehill.com/opinion/heal...
One of the tough things about covering Trump’s 2nd term is that he is breaking so many laws & norms that when you cover them each on their own, you come off as an anti-Trump Dem pundit w “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” But when you list it all out things indeed look pretty alarming
if Congress does not seize its powers back Trump *will* fly the American economy straight into the side of a mountain.
The US government is pumping right-wing conspiracy theories into other countries. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
