Building an Economy for All

4 Lessons on Creating Good Manufacturing Jobs Through the Biden-Harris Administration’s Industrial Investments

The Biden-Harris administration's industrial investments from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act are creating U.S. manufacturing jobs and often result in high-quality union jobs, but policymakers can go further to uphold job quality on projects that receive federal investments.

In the Wake of Hurricane Helene, Congress Must Invest in Rebuilding Strong, Prosperous, and Climate-Resilient Communities

The Biden-Harris administration has rapidly mobilized disaster relief aid to Appalachia and other hard-hit areas. Congress must act quickly to deliver the funds required to rebuild communities that can prosper and withstand future climate disasters.

America’s Small Businesses Need a National Paid Leave Program

Guaranteeing paid leave levels the playing field for small businesses and supports a competitive, entrepreneurial economy.

The Inflation Reduction Act Lives Up to Its Name

Trevor Higgins, senior vice president of the Energy and Environment department at the Center for American Progress, filed written testimony before the U.S. House Budget Committee at a hearing on energy costs titled “The Cost of the Biden-Harris Energy Crisis.”

Using Learning Science To Analyze the Risks and Benefits of AI in K-12 Education

Before adopting AI tools, it is important that schools think critically about whether these tools will further divorce students from how their brains are primed to learn.

Building Opportunity: Expanding Housing in America by Reforming Local Land Use

Reducing regulatory barriers to housing production can unleash new supply and serve as an important complement to federal, state, and local programs that provide direct subsidies for low-income housing construction and maintenance.

Incentivizing Housing That Is Affordable, Sustainable, and Transit-Accessible

Reforming existing federal programs to expand the supply of affordable, sustainable, and transit-accessible housing will provide millions of Americans with a stable foundation for economic success.

A New Vision for Social Housing in America

The most effective way to solve America’s severe housing affordability crisis is to undertake a bold federal program of social housing construction that will deliver millions of new affordable, self-sustaining housing units located in opportunity-rich areas.

Hear From a Child Care Director: How Extreme Heat Affects Young Children

Extreme heat places a strain on child care program facilities and poses risks to children’s health, learning, and development.

Project 2025 Would Undermine Registered Apprenticeship System and Put Corporations Over Workers

Instead of weakening apprenticeships, policymakers should invest more in the existing registered apprenticeship system, which benefits workers and employers alike.

Project 2025’s Plan To Gut Checks and Balances Harms Rural America

The new authoritarian playbook would devastate rural America in many ways.

Hear From a Teacher: How Extreme Heat Affects Student Learning

In rural and low-income communities, inadequate school infrastructure fails to protect students from extreme heat, negatively affecting student attendance, engagement, and achievement.

Project 2025 Is Already a Reality in Many States

Here are examples of how some states are already working to implement the extreme policies outlined in Project 2025.

Lower Costs Through Better Competition

Please join the Center for American Progress for an event featuring FTC Chair Lina Khan and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) about protecting consumers and preserving competition.

WIOA Turns 10: The Next Decade of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

Hear From a Pediatrician: How Extreme Heat Endangers Children’s Health and What We Can Do About It

Dr. Debra Hendrickson, clinical professor of pediatrics and author of The Air They Breathe, explains the risks extreme heat and climate change pose to children's health and the actions parents, communities, and policymakers can take to protect them.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Must Be Adequately Funded To Preserve Economic Data and Improve Americans’ Financial Security

Accurate U.S. Census Bureau data are essential to understanding how Americans are doing financially; a lack of proper investment puts it at risk.

Building the Future: Innovative Solutions to the U.S. Housing Crisis

Please join the Center for American Progress for a half-day summit on housing policy.

Tracker: Student Loan Debt Relief Under the Biden-Harris Administration

The Biden-Harris administration has delivered historic levels of student debt relief by fixing broken programs and fulfilling promises to borrowers who had been left behind.

How Joy and Belonging Can Help Underrepresented Students Succeed in STEM

Fostering joy and belonging in STEM has the potential to open doors for underrepresented students in both STEM education and the STEM workforce.

The Trump Tax Cuts Led to Record-Low, Not High, Revenues Outside of a Recession

Federal revenues lag far behind pre-tax cut budget projections.

Project 2025’s Tax Plan Would Raise Taxes on the Middle Class and Cut Taxes for the Wealthy

The far-right extremist playbook would immediately raise taxes for the middle class by thousands of dollars while also pushing for long-term changes that could raise taxes by $5,900.

What Comes Next for the Equal Rights Amendment?

Three-fourths of U.S. states have ratified the amendment, and many argue it is the 28th Amendment to the Constitution; Women’s Equality Day serves as a reminder of the amendment’s importance.

States want to reduce qualifications for teachers. That’s a huge mistake.

Paige Shoemaker DeMio writes in MSNBC about why teachers should be treated as trained professionals.

Project 2025’s Plan To Gut Checks and Balances Harms Parents

The new authoritarian playbook would devastate parents in many ways.

Reauthorizing the CFTC: Stakeholder Perspectives

Alexandra Thornton testifies on the CFTC before the House Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development.

Project 2025’s Plan To Gut Checks and Balances Harms American Workers

The new authoritarian playbook would devastate American workers in many ways.

CAP Comments on the CFTC’s Event Contracts Proposal

The Center for American Progress submitted a comment letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on the agency’s event contracts proposal.

Project 2025’s Plan To Gut Checks and Balances Harms the American People

The new authoritarian playbook would devastate Americans in many ways.

Project 2025 Would Cut Access to Overtime Pay

Project 2025 would make eligibility for overtime—also known as time-and-a-half pay—more confusing for workers to navigate and easier for employers to abuse.

The Economic Status of Single Mothers

Original Center for American Progress analysis shows that single mothers in the United States face economic insecurity, including high poverty rates and low incomes, that could be alleviated by strengthening the social safety net and advancing policies to support women in the workforce.

New Student Debt Relief Policies Fix Broken Promises and Benefit Borrowers Most in Need

The Biden-Harris administration proposed new regulations that would bring the share of student loan borrowers across the country who receive full or partial relief to about 3 in 4, targeting those who are the most likely to struggle repaying their debt.

Self-Employed Workers’ Access to State Paid Leave Programs in 2024

This issue brief explains the availability of state paid family and medical leave programs for self-employed workers in the United States.

Fact Sheets: The Harmful Effects of Project 2025, by State

These fact sheets provide insight into how Project 2025 would affect people in states across the country.

Raising the Retirement Age for Social Security Would Cut Benefits by Thousands of Dollars Each Year

Far-right plans, endorsed by Project 2025’s authors, to increase the full retirement age would cut benefits for nearly three-quarters of Americans and threaten low- and moderate-income workers with economic insecurity once they leave the workforce.

Reducing Housing Burdens While Creating a Longer-Term Affordable Housing Solution

The nation’s housing affordability crisis can be softened in the near term through multiple production efforts to create a sustainable, affordable housing infrastructure for generations to come.

Converting Vacant Office Space Into Housing

The adaptive reuse of underutilized office buildings, if paired with government support and comprehensive planning, might be a valuable tool in many local markets for addressing the vast need for more—and more affordable—housing.

How States and Districts Can Close the Digital Divide To Increase College and Career Readiness

To ensure that all students are college and career ready, policymakers and educators must focus their attention on closing the digital divide.

New Samsung Semiconductor Plant in Taylor, Texas

An investment by Samsung, spurred by funding from the CHIPS and Science Act, will create a new semiconductor plant in Taylor, Texas, to complement the company’s previous investment in chips in Austin, Texas.

City of Las Vegas GreeNVision Reconstruction of Stewart Avenue

This grant provides funding for the city of Las Vegas to reconstruct Stewart Avenue to be easier and safer to traverse and access.

New York Castleton-on-Hudson Bridge Restoration

This investment provides funding to restore one of the most economically significant bridges in the country, currently in deep disrepair, so that it can remain in use for another 65 years.

Project 2025’s Elimination of Title I Funding Would Hurt Students and Decimate Teaching Positions in Local Schools

Project 2025 would decimate more than 180,000 teacher positions and negatively affect the academic outcomes of 2.8 million vulnerable students across the country.

Why the crypto industry doesn’t want to be regulated by the SEC

In an op-ed published in The Hill, Alexandra Thornton explains why the crypto industry is pushing so hard to be regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The Minimum Wage Is a Poverty Wage

The federal minimum wage has lost the ability to keep workers out of poverty; but this November, voters in multiple states will have the chance to ensure better wages.

AGOA Reauthorization Offers an Opportunity for Expanded Commitments to Development, Labor, and Climate in Sub-Saharan Africa

Congress faces a critical opportunity to support workers in the United States and Africa while diversifying supply chains and protecting the climate by authorizing a strengthened African Growth and Opportunity Act next year.

Industrial Policy To Reduce Prescription Generic Drug Shortages

Policy interventions, including large-scale private-public partnerships, are key to reducing prescription drug shortages and averting patient harm.

Public Officials Should Use Their Bully Pulpit To Support Worker Organizing and Bargaining

Pro-worker policymakers should use public and private rhetoric to support organizing campaigns and ensure government spending creates high-quality union jobs.

Project 2025 Would Exploit Child Labor by Allowing Minors To Work in Dangerous Conditions With Fewer Protections

The elimination of protections for young workers, if enacted, would lead more children to work in dangerous workplaces such as factories and slaughterhouses—as well as increase the likelihood of injuries and death—to the benefit of greedy corporations.

Sen. Ted Cruz’s No Tax on Tips Act Does Little for Low- and Moderate-Wage Workers But Opens Door to Tax Abuse by Wealthy

This legislation may sound like pro-worker tax reform, but it’s just more of the 2017 tax law’s empty promises for workers and giveaways for the wealthy.

4 Ways Unions Make Our Economy and Democracy Stronger

Unions raise wages for workers, reduce inequality, increase voter turnout, and advance middle-class interests; policymakers should make strengthening unions a top priority.

A Progressive Prescription for U.S.-China Trade

U.S.-China relations will shape the 21st century, and no issue will be more consequential than trade.

Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

Emily Gee testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions about improving affordability for Americans.

Op-ed: Airport service workers demand better support in the workplace. It’s time we listen

Karla Walter published an op-ed in Crain’s New York Business arguing for why airport service workers under the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey deserve better workplace standards.

Project 2025 Would Allow Financial Disaster To Bolster Wall Street’s Bottom Line

New CAP analysis gauges the potential effects of a present-day financial disaster on workers and the economy if a far-right plan to put short-term gains for Wall Street above long-term prosperity for American families is successful.

Any Budget Deal Should Preserve Parity

As Congress renegotiates the budget levels for fiscal year 2025, it should match every additional dollar of defense investment with an equal amount of nondefense spending.

LGBTQI+ Americans Deserve—and Need—Inclusive Paid Leave

LGBTQI+ Americans are particularly harmed by the lack of national paid leave program—and have much to gain from comprehensive, inclusive paid leave.

The 2017 Tax Bill’s Pass-Through Deduction Largely Favors the Wealthy and Encourages Gaming of the Tax Code

Congress should reject attempts to extend the 2017 tax bill’s costly pass-through deduction.

The Inflation Reduction Act Still Reduces the Deficit

Higher clean energy tax credit costs mean they are working better than expected.

Project 2025 Would Eliminate Head Start, Severely Restricting Access to Child Care in Rural America

If enacted, the elimination of Head Start would undermine economic growth and exacerbate inequalities among families with young children.

Project 2025 Would Increase Costs, Block Debt Cancellation for Student Loan Borrowers

The radical Project 2025 policy agenda for student loan repayment would multiply costs for borrowers, increase defaults, and end existing programs that allow borrowers to earn cancellation.