Patrick T. Brown

Policymakers can improve options for parents without forgiving student debt.

The pressure campaigns on religious freedom and voting bills would look like child’s play if a state moved to enact restrictions potentially enabled by Dobbs. Social conservatives need to prepare a counteroffensive.

With D.C. consumed with a social spending bill that could dramatically reshape life for America’s families, Virginia could offer an example of authentically pro-family policy from early childhood to high school.

Borrowing a family policy prescription from Helsinki or Budapest is bound to disappoint. A distinctly American family policy platform must be seen as expanding choice, not constraining it, and working with our national character, not trying to reshape it, all while understanding family as the essential institution in society, one that stakes an unavoidable claim on our public resources.

The family is the fundamental unit of society, and has a claim on our resources. Here are five important steps policymakers could take to put that philosophy into practice.

‘Build Back Better’s’ plan for child care has an ugly blind spot when it comes to faith-based programs.

Childcare subsidies would dramatically reshape the landscape for parents of young children—perhaps in ways its authors don’t intend.

Proposals to reduce or eliminate student debt on a large scale are often proposed in the spirit of lifting barriers to family formation, allowing young adults to marry or become parents. But understanding what role student debt plays in the lives of young Americans is important before adopting widespread policy prescriptions.

Not only do marriage penalties leave families economically worse off, they also undermine marriage, an essential institution in a functioning society.

EPPC Fellow Patrick T. Brown talks with Spotlight on Poverty about the congressional debate over child tax credits and what working-class families think about proposed federal aid.

David Wessel’s book Only the Rich Can Play offers an uncomfortable reminder that no matter how much you may appreciate an idea’s intellectual lineage or conceptual clarity, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

If politicians want expanded child benefits to stick, they need to listen to the families that will benefit most.