On Our Radar

There’s got to be some despairing people thinking: “I wish I were the repo market because then policymakers would help me the minute I needed help.”

Stop to think this over for a minute: For the first time in the past hundred years, the working class — the 50 percent of Americans with the lowest incomes — today pays higher tax rates than billionaires.

Congress envisioned a white, Protestant and culturally homogeneous America when it declared in 1790 that only “free white persons, who have, or shall migrate into the United States” were eligible to become naturalized citizens.

Maryland’s largest jurisdiction has an affordable housing shortage — and according to one local official, a segment of the population has not been contributing its fair share to address it.

When it comes to economic development, positive change is typically gradual and only noticeable over long periods of time; by contrast negative developments—economic crises—are often rapid and spectacular.

When was the last time you heard good news about the state of Black America?

Brilliant, brash founders such as WeWork’s Adam Neumann may waste investors’ money, flout regulations and put workers at risk.

The federal government has dramatically expanded its exposure to risky mortgages, as federal officials over the past four years took steps that cleared the way for companies to issue loans that many borrowers might not be able to repay.

In 2018, the average effective tax rate paid by the richest 400 families in the country was 23%, a full percentage point lower than the 24.2% rate paid by the bottom half of American households.

If the rich have all the money, there is less spending throughout the whole of the economy and fewer opportunities for businesses to pursue.

The nation’s wealthiest people never expected the real revolution would come from inside their own families.

“Inclusionary zoning is perhaps the most prevalent strategy for providing affordable housing at the local level,” says Emily Hamilton, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, a free-market–oriented think tank at George Mason University. “There are open questions about the legality of that and the effectiveness of that.”

A broad analysis of federal records finds that homeowners hoping to relocate out of flood zones in the U.S. don’t have equal access to the main source of federal funding meant to help them.

When the federal government announced earlier this week that it would allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to rebuild a portion of their capital reserves to a total of $45 billion combined as part of a plan to exit conservatorship, the message was clear: The government-sponsored enterprises are back and they’re not likely to go away any time soon.