campaign-issue

As major political questions about unauthorized immigrants in the United States continue to be debated, the size and nature of the undocumented population is changing. Observers note several new trends that may be driving such changes. Law enforcement tactics and policies are evolving, home country economies are changing, and the negative economic and labor situation within the United States has made the country less attractive to some potential migrants.

The Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, yet the U.S. unemployment rate has remained persistently high.  The long-term unemployed — individuals out of work for 27 weeks or more — risk losing professional skills and network connections, and may encounter discrimination from employers reluctant to hire applicants not currently working.

Few issues in American politics prompt more partisan passions and conflicting points of view than tax policy. One would think that there would be a definitive historical record of successes and failures that could inform future policy, but since other macro economic trends are operating at the same time, it can be difficult for economists to isolate the impact of tax cuts and hikes independent of these confounding factors.

For researchers, it has often been difficult to conduct experimental studies on health care outcomes due to biases introduced by differences between insured and uninsured individuals. To produce unbiased data, the ideal circumstance would require the provision of health care to be randomly assigned across a population.

Up to 60% of Iowa 2008 Republican presidential caucus attendees considered themselves Protestant evangelicals, which likely led to the unexpected victory of born-again Republican candidate Mike Huckabee over front-runner Mitt Romney. The relation between religious and political affiliations, however, is not always so clear-cut, as evidenced by the decisions Democratic evangelicals must make.

The United States has traditionally led the world in the manufacture of advanced technological products, but in recent decades global patterns have shifted. The country recorded a trade surplus in terms of such products as recently as 2001, but by 2010 that trade balance was a deficit of $81 billion. Overall, from 1998 to 2010 the U.S. lost some 6 million general manufacturing jobs and now has only 11.6 million such jobs, representing just 11% of the labor market.

Social science research has focused extensively on rising income inequality and the consolidation of household wealth in the hands of the top 1% of U.S. households over the last 30 years. Recently, some policy makers have also been examining the causes and implications of this dynamic.

The general public continues to perceive a large degree of uncertainty among scientists on issues relating to climate change. A May 2011 survey sponsored by Yale University and George Mason University, for instance, showed that only 39% of the public believes that most scientists agree on global warming (up from 34% in 2010.)