Noah Smith

How and when to phase out Covid-19 relief programs is one of the most difficult policy problems that the Biden Administration will have to solve. Eventually the virus will be vanquished, and the US government won’t be able to keep large swathes of its economy on life support forever. Each relief…

President Joe Biden and other leaders are proposing large amounts of new government investment in order to decarbonize the U+S economy. These plans will inevitably encounter deficit scolds who will balk at the amount of new debt required. But taking on debt to finance this particular kind of…

Last year made it feel as if the US was a nation in steep decline. And in some worrying ways it is. But looking back on 2020, and looking ahead to 2021, there are signs that the country has robust reservoirs of strength and effectiveness that will cause it to outperform the gloomiest expectations…

One of President Joe Biden’s stated economic goals is to shift manufacturing supply chains to the US, especially from China. This is something that advocates of a rebirth of industrial policy have wanted for a long time. But it’s going to be very hard; the US is swimming against vast tidal forces…

The centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s broad proposal for immigration reform is an eight-year path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. This would be the boldest amnesty since Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. It's also likely to prompt the same fear:…

With an economic showdown between the US and China looming over the new Biden administration, it’s increasingly clear that the European Union wants to sit this one out. That presents the US with a dilemma: in which areas can it afford to go it alone against China, and when will it need to pressure…

Advocates of raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour have the upper hand in the debate. Skeptics raise some good points, but all of their concerns can be addressed with simple tweaks to the policy. When people argue about the minimum wage, they usually talk about whether or not it kills…

Jim Simons has stepped down as the chairman of Renaissance Technologies LLC, commonly regarded as the most successful quant hedge fund in history. This marks the end of an era in finance. Throughout Simons’s storied career, Renaissance proved that the finance textbooks — which claim that the market…

Political violence in the US can reduce confidence in the country’s stability, adding a risk premium to Treasury bonds and thus undermining the financial system. But that fallout, which I wrote about earlier this week, is far from the only possible economic consequences of the Jan. 6 attack on the…

The universe of possibilities for the Biden administration radically expanded after the Democrats clinched the Senate majority, but the increase in political capital isn’t infinite. When deciding which problems to tackle first, President Joe Biden should prioritize initiatives that address the…