The Century Foundation

Executive Summary For years, the headline economic data describing workers’ well-being have been weak: over the year ending in August, the most recent data available, real earnings fell by 0.1 percent when accounting for inflation. Where income gains have occurred, they have largely accrued to higher-income households, reinforcing what economists often call the “K-shaped” economy. But wage measures alone do not capture the full financial pressures facing workers.

Child care is vital for families to live healthy and happy lives. Increasingly, however, the high cost of child care means that families are forgoing obtaining care and are instead taking time away from working and earning to manage their caregiving responsibilities. Nowhere is this cost burden more daunting than in New York City. A year of care for an infant in New York costs $16,848 on average for family-based care and about $20,978 a year for center-based care.

Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh has raised interest rates after facing pressure from markets, because that’s what markets expect the Fed chair to do when inflation data comes in hot. Personal consumption expenditure (PCE) inflation has been above 3 percent since March of this year, and rising prices are straining workers’ and their families’ budgets.

Visiting senior fellow Kody Kinsley and Dan Rusnyiak, former state secretaries of health from blue and red states, offer their take on the Trump administration’s “War on Fraud.” In a blog, they raise concerns that withholding federal Medicaid funding will risk people’s care. They offer concrete, constructive suggestions on better ways to improve program integrity, including by treating states as partners.

A new Milbank States of Health blog by TCF staff describes a reform idea that would help both low-income Medicare beneficiaries and state Medicaid programs. It would shift the responsibility for payment of Medicare premium and cost sharing from Medicaid to Medicare. Doing so could provide states administrative and potential fiscal relief. It could also increase participation in these Medicare Savings Programs, improving enrollees’ health, finances, and well-being.

The Century Foundation (TCF), a leading progressive think tank, today announced four new hires with expertise in economic policy and research. Tonantzin Carmona joins TCF as director of economic policy and Kyle K. Moore as chief economist; Lorelei Salas moves from visiting senior fellow to senior fellow; and Sameera Fazili joins the organization as a visiting senior fellow.

The 2025–2026 school year has brought significant changes to the educational landscape for immigrant, newcomer, and multilingual students. The U.S. Department of Education dissolved the Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA), the federal office that helps schools pay for services for English learners.

America’s public schools are under strain. Student achievement in reading and math sits at historic lows, concerns over safety and student mental health are widespread, and district budgets are stretched thin. At the same time, a wave of new technology has arrived in classrooms at record speed, with little oversight or parental input, and is transforming students’ lives.

Download the From Spoke to Hub PDF 1. Overview: From Spoke to Hub In the fall of 2024, security forces in Mukalla, a small port city in southern Yemen, detained a Somali man named Ahmed Elmi Samatar. Under interrogation, Samatar confessed that he was a go-between for al-Shabaab, the militant Somali affiliate of al-Qaeda, and Yemen’s Houthis, an Iran-backed armed group that controls much of northwestern Yemen.

Inflation has returned to American life, and it’s hitting us hard. Take your pick of aggravating factors: the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran is perhaps the most glaring, but even that intersects with and exacerbates the problems wrought by, among other things, chaotic tariff policies, the climate crisis, and the AI boom’s titanic energy consumption.