Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Video: Nikki Haley has tough competition in Trump and DeSantis

Last week, Nikki Haley became the first major candidate to challenge former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. She is a former state legislator and two term governor of South Carolina and former ambassador to the U.N. under Trump. If she were to win the nomination, she would be the first woman and first Asian American to lead the Republican ticket.

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses what her path to the nomination could look like, given that Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are the only candidates who currently have sizable support in national polls.


Read More

Woman putting savings in a white piggy bank.

America’s economy now rewards asset ownership over wages. A policy proposal: a $35,000 Birthright Account for every child, and how it could be funded.

Guido Mieth/Getty Images

The American Dream Needs a New Economic Operating System

It is, by now, not an exaggeration to state that the traditional American Dream—work hard, buy a house, raise a family, and retire securely—is failing. It was built for a labor-based economy in which steadily rising wages allowed ordinary families to accumulate wealth. But America has become an asset-based economy, and ownership of those assets is extraordinarily concentrated.

Since the 1980s, the returns from capital have far outpaced the returns from labor. Inflation-adjusted wages for ordinary workers have risen only modestly, while the real value of equities has multiplied many times over. Housing, education, healthcare and childcare costs have soared, employment has become less secure, and defined-benefit pensions have largely disappeared. Even two-income households with respectable jobs often struggle to buy a home, build savings and accumulate enough for retirement.

Keep ReadingShow less
Man wearing Trump hat watches Trump on TV

Trump’s 10-to-1 rule aims to cut red tape, but fewer regulations can mean weaker food safety, Head Start services, and checks on presidential power.

Wu Xiaoling/Xinhua via Getty Images

Trump’s 10-to-1 Rule Gives the Presidency Too Much Power

We only think about the plumbing in our homes when something goes wrong. The same is true for government bureaucracy. Rules, procedures, and bureaucrats operate largely out of sight, making sure food is safe, Social Security checks arrive, workplaces are safe, and children with disabilities receive the services promised to them by law. Yes, there is plenty of red tape in government, just as an old house can accumulate pipes that no longer serve much purpose. But ripping out pipes simply because there are too many of them is not much of a plumbing strategy. Yet the Trump administration has made the number of federal regulations it eliminates a measure of success. That raises a more important question: When does cutting bureaucracy stop making government more efficient and start making it less capable?

1. The Case for Cutting Red Tape

Keep ReadingShow less
US Capitol building
white dome building near body of water during daytime
Photo by José Matute on Unsplash

We The People

On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln concluded the Gettysburg Address with a vision of democracy that has endured for more than a century:

“That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Keep ReadingShow less