some notes on the impact of student debt forgiveness across income groups

The following is a guest post by Raphaël Charron-Chénier and Louise Seamster.

As the debate over student debt cancellation ramps up, some of the more basic information about the impact of different loan forgiveness plans is not easy to find. Because some of our work has informed the current debate, we often get questions about how some of the more prominent policy proposals would impact borrowers at different income levels. Here, we’re sharing some basic analyses that look at where Black and White borrowers tend to fall, and how Senators Schumer and Warren’s recent proposal to cancel $50,000 in debt for all households would impact them.

climate change economics goes to congress

Who speaks authoritatively about climate change? What role, in particular, do social scientific experts play in the conversation? This second question in particular is a key part of my next big research project on debates over the costs of climate change. Today, I was delighted to read a new paper by Maher et al that presents an incredibly useful new and freely-available dataset of testimony offered at congressional hearings in the U.S. by social scientists. Making use of their data, I was able to get a little bit of insight into one piece of this question. Spoiler: not that many social scientists have testified before Congress about climate change, but those who have are overwhelmingly economists.