How is it that in perhaps the richest country in the history of the world such a large number of people struggle to acquire the basic necessities of life? Clearly, merely increasing the total quantity of goods and services produced in the market does not address this core problem. I review new work both inside and outside of economics that seeks to understand the persistence of poverty in the United States. With a particular focus on Desmond (2023) and Kearney (2023), I draw out the hypotheses in this work, suggest interesting avenues for future research, and discuss potential policy implications.

Abortion legalization in the early 1970s led to dramatic changes in fertility. Some research has suggested that it altered cohort outcomes, but this literature has been limited and controversial. In this paper, we provide a framework for understanding selection mechanisms and use that framework to both address inconsistent past methodological approaches and provide evidence on the long-run impact on cohort characteristics. Our results indicate that lower-cost abortion brought about by legalization altered young adult outcomes through selection. In particular, it increased likelihood of college graduation, lower rates of welfare use, and lower odds of being a single parent.