Is School Choice “Welfare for the Rich”?
As school choice policies advance nationwide, and to a lesser extent in Missouri, there appears to be a new line...
How to Lose a City of St. Louis Guy in 10 Days
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released new population estimates for cities around the country, and the City of St. Louis...
Part 6: Does Kansas City Have and Affordable Housing Problem?
(You can read part one, part two, part three, part four, and part five in this series here.) As earlier posts in...
Honey, I Shrunk the City
It’s not exactly news that the City of St. Louis and the region as a whole have been losing population...
MetroLink Light Rail is MetroWaste
A version of this commentary appeared in the St. Louis Business Journal. Between 2014 and 2019, ridership on St. Louis...
Missouri Is 49th in a Meaningless Statistic!
Earlier this week a headline came across my Twitter feed blaring “Missouri ranked No. 49 in state K-12 funding in...
We’re Not in Last Place—We’re Not Even in the Race
The release of the 2020 Census Bureau numbers brought bad news: The St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has dropped...
Missouri K-12 Enrollment Declined 3 Percent this Year
New data released by the National Center for Education Statistics (ably summarized here) show a substantial decline in K-12 student...
Why Should the Early Bird Get the Worm?
A version of this commentary appeared in the Columbia Missourian. Although it’s a little trite, “the early bird gets the...
Missouri’s Population Growth Is Still Lagging
The U.S. Census Bureau just released its updated state populations from the 2020 census, and the results were not good...
Homeschooling in Missouri Nearly Doubled in 2020
Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released the results of its Household Pulse Survey, an effort by the government to...
Free Markets in the Wake of the Pandemic
The pandemic has disrupted our daily lives and changed our day-to-day activities. Who would have thought we could do so...
Census Estimates Show St. Louis Population Falling . . . Again
While the world is facing a whole new set of problems with the COVID-19 crisis, the city of St. Louis...
Many Missourians Are Moving . . . To Missouri
If you live in a rural community in Missouri and it feels like your neighbors are moving away, you might...
Missouri Education Spending Continues To Grow
Earlier this week, the Census Bureau released the Annual Survey of School System Finances. It provides detailed spending figures for...
The Child Poverty Rate in Mississippi County Is How High?
In December of last year, the U.S. Census Bureau released its most recent American Community Survey data, including five-year estimates...
Here Are the Latest Census Data on Poverty in Missouri
Between 2016 and 2017, the poverty rate in Missouri decreased from 14.0 percent to 13.4 percent and the child poverty...
Should Missouri Increase the Minimum Wage to Help the Working Poor?
In Missouri, a single parent employed full time at a minimum wage job will still be in poverty. Some see...
St. Louis Is Failing, and It Has Only Its Government to Blame
Last month the U.S. Census Bureau found that St. Louis had, once again, shrunk in population over the last year....
Employment and Payrolls in Missouri Lag Nation
Since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, the Missouri economy has recovered slowly relative to the nation as...
