Economic Policy News

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that births in the U.S. reached another historic low in 2020. For the sixth consecutive year, the birthrate dropped—this time by 4%. The average annual drop in the five previous years was 2%. The rate at which American women are having babies is way below the rate…

The Biden administration’s recently released budget request would significantly expand the federal footprint on education through a greatly accelerated education spending spree. The administration requested nearly $103 billion for K-12 and higher education—a 41% funding increase—for the Department of Education. The president’s budget request includes significant funding increases for: School districts with students from low-income…

As the worst and most devastating initial economic impact of the global pandemic begins to fade, nations around the world face a number of challenges in rebuilding their economies. One of them is the specter of greater inflation. As a component of the monetary freedom score in the Index of Economic Freedom, higher inflation will…

The lack of economic freedom in the countries of the Northern Triangle—Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—has long been a consistent push factor of illegal immigration to the north. It did not suddenly cause the 2021 U.S. border crisis, and resolving it requires serious, lasting solutions.  There are a great number of interwoven factors behind why…

After proposing a massive $2 trillion tax-and-spending binge, President Joe Biden released his budget request for fiscal year 2022 discretionary appropriations. This so-called skinny budget proposal would drive up wasteful spending, shortchange actual priorities such as national security, and increase the likelihood of the appropriations bills not being passed through regular order. The budget is…

Fast on the heels of signing a bloated $1.9 trillion spending package, President Joe Biden has introduced yet another gigantic spending plan. While the administration’s messaging focuses on broadly popular themes such as “jobs” and “infrastructure,” the details of the plan show that it would be a destructive power grab for Washington. Here are just…

The Biden administration on Wednesday released details of the first part of its latest enormous spending plan. Although President Joe Biden is promoting the plan as a way to create jobs through infrastructure projects, its combination of tax hikes and central planning would leave the nation poorer and more dysfunctional. Amazingly, this $2 trillion-plus in…

The media were flooded Monday with news that the Biden administration is working on a colossal new $3 trillion to $4 trillion spending plan. While full details are not available yet, the plan appears to be another left-wing grab bag of big-government proposals. Rather than stimulating the economy, it would stimulate bigger government while funneling…

Economic freedom helps to inhibit the spread of fake news, according to a recent academic paper featured in the European Journal of Information Systems. According to the study, titled “Impact of Mobile Connectivity and Freedom on Fake News Propensity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Country Empirical Examination”:  [O]ur empirical analysis demonstrates the significant role of…

Although it has faltered, Chile continues to lead South America in having a free economy, according to the 2021 edition of The Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Chile also leads South America in the race to achieve herd immunity from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Those two developments…

In the latest in a series of kidnappings (and even killings) of schoolchildren reported earlier by media outlets, including The Daily Signal, a criminal gang of more than 100 armed bandits invaded a boarding school in Zamfara, northwest Nigeria, on Feb. 26 and abducted as many as 300 innocent schoolgirls. No sooner had the government…

Last week, two important reports were released, shining a light on one of the major challenges facing America—excessive government spending that is causing the poor and declining fiscal health of the federal government. This reduces economic freedom and threatens prosperity, making it more difficult for families to live the American dream. In The Heritage Foundation’s…

Charles Payne of the Fox Business Network sat down with Jack Spencer, vice president of the Institute for Economic Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, to discuss the revealing—and alarming—key points from the 2021 Index of Economic Freedom at the index’s launch event Thursday. The index shows that the United States suffered a large setback in…

The year 2020 was extraordinary for the global economy, with slowing growth and economic turmoil caused and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which engulfed the entire world. In the midst of the health crisis, perhaps not so unexpectedly, our free-market system was questioned yet again by some as a root cause of systemic economic woes…

The results of The Heritage Foundation’s 2021 edition of the Index of Economic Freedom will be announced soon. But here is a sneak peek: economic freedom in Argentina, which had registered considerable improvement during the four years of the center-right Macri government, has begun to decline (again) in the year since the Peronist Party returned…

Sure, you know that being an Uber driver is great for someone who wants to make their own hours. But did you know that many Americans are choosing freelance work because they need flexibility because of family or other responsibilities? Did you know that small businesses rely on independent contractors? Or that Americans who were…

Speaking on the 73rd Independence Day of Sri Lanka on Feb. 4, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa observed: “The foundation of our citizen-centric economic policy is that the true potential of the economy cannot be unleashed without economic freedom.” He further noted that “to achieve the government’s aims of eliminating poverty, providing equal opportunity for improvement of…