The Century Foundation

The Century Foundation, a leading progressive think tank, today announced the addition of a new trustee and a new visiting senior fellow, along with the election of new officers to its Board of Trustees. Ganesh Sitaraman, the director of the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, will serve as a Century Foundation trustee.

It’s no longer up for debate: the United States is in the grip of an affordability crisis. Americans of every kind have less money to cover their core expenses. But while rising prices and stagnant wage growth is challenging for any household to manage, these challenges hit people with disabilities especially hard. What tools are available to those of us who get caught in a personal crisis on top of the broader affordability crisis?

Big changes have arrived for federal student loan borrowers: on July 1, a new repayment plan, the Repayment Assistant Plan (RAP), replaced all existing income-driven repayment (IDR) plans for new borrowers. Borrowers with existing loans may also opt into the plan.

Download the Care Matters: A 2026 State Report Card on Care Affordability and Access PDF Care and caregiving are foundational to how society functions—sustaining the relationships that hold families and communities together. Investments in care address needs across the lifespan, enabling people to live, learn, age, and work with dignity.

The first day of school is just around the corner, and families across the country are stocking up on notebooks, pencils, and juice boxes for the year ahead.

In rural Northampton, North Carolina, a private Christian school called Northeast Academy is 99 percent White in a county that’s 40 percent White. It receives about half of its tuition from taxpayers, through the state’s private school voucher program. Northeast is one of a number of private schools known as “segregation academies,” because they were founded during desegregation so that White parents could avoid having their children educated in an integrated setting.

New analysis of consumer credit data by The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers reveals a worsening utility debt crisis affecting nearly all corners of the country. In November 2025, in “Fueling Debt: How Rising Utility Costs Are Overwhelming American Families,” we documented how increasing energy prices and rising overdue balances are pushing households deeper into debt.

July 21 is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day—the date in 2026 when, added onto the entirety of the previous year, a Black woman finally earns what a white man earned in 2025 alone. That’s right: a Black woman working full-time, year-round, needs eighteen months to match what her white male counterpart earned in twelve. As this country marks its 250th anniversary, that data point says a great deal about who the country was built for, and who it continues to leave behind. The pay gap is not an accident.

On July 1, 2026, new federal student loan limits for graduate students established by H.R.1, the One Big Beautiful Act, took effect. These limits will have far-reaching consequences for students and families, driving many students to seek private student loans, which are often much costlier and riskier. State governments are standing up to help graduate students fill the gap—several states have announced new proposals to expand their student loan programs to support graduate students.

As the United States approaches its semiquincentennial, families across the country are ready to fire up the grill, fill the cooler, and celebrate 250 years of American independence. But this Fourth of July, the price tag on the great American backyard barbecue is high enough to discourage many families from celebrating altogether.