Joanna Venator

What to make of POTUS's attempt to fire the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)?

Let's run down what knowledgable people are saying...

U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Labor Implement Workforce Development Partnership Today, the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Labor (DOL) announced the implementation of a workforce development partnership to create an integrated federal education and workforce system.

As we see big changes in funding and administration of WIOA (which is often the source of state funding for workforce development programs at the state level), understanding the real benefits of these programs is even more important. www.ed.gov/about/news/p...

Can public workforce training programs grow employment and reduce skill barriers for hiring in large, well-paying firms? Yes! See my new working paper with Nora Dillon, Lisa Kahn, and Mike Dalton:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Supreme Court's liberal majority strikes down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban.

American Democracy Might Not Survive a War With Iran The United States is well down the road to dictatorship. Imagine what Trump would do with a state of war.

“You would never know, as The New York Times churns out its usual policy-option thumb-suckers, that the United States is well down the road to dictatorship at home. That is the context in which a war with Iran will occur.”

Padilla: If this is how DHS responds to a senator with a question you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California.

I'm on my way to the Senate floor to talk about the assault on my colleague, Senator Alex Padilla.

This is a horrifying moment in our nation’s history.

not a data take but this is fucked up. cutting food benefits to poor moms, infants, and toddlers is pointlessly cruel. not a partisan issue, just straightforwardly fucked. the cruelty is the point. call your congressperson

A set of eight rectangular cookies arranged on a square white plate against a dark wooden background. Each cookie is inspired by a wallpaper design by Morris & Co. The patterns represented feature different floral and leaf shapes in shades of baby blue, soft pink, leafy green, mustard yellow, cream, and dark grey.

Today is National Biscuit Day, and it’s about time that I populated this account with biscuit (cookie) sets from the past few years. Here are some of my favourites. 🧵

First up, a set inspired by the delicious designs of William Morris and John Henry Dearle.

Let me say this again:

If a president can illegally deport someone, conspire with that country’s leader to abandon them to human rights abuses, and face no consequences, we are in a hellish authoritarian moment. What a fucking evil, illiberal government this is.

This is evil.

No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found An internal memo, prepared before Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE, raises doubts about the Trump administration’s claims that she supports Hamas.

This Tufts student was grabbed off the street, cuffed and taken out of state solely because she co-wrote a completely respectful oped in the student paper.

And Rubio’s State Dept now admits they have nothing more damning than that.

Gift link wapo.st/4j8d5Uh

On, Wisconsin!

Yikes. Very disappointing.

Our two papers on abortion bans and fertility/infant mortality are now out.

In 14 states w/ abortion bans, fertility increased 1.7% and infant mortality increased 6%.

Key takeaway is that these impacts were disproportionately felt among those w/ greatest structural disadvantages.

Links below.

My university has been pretty silent on all the government grant freezes until today with the NIH cap. I've now received four identical emails in the last three hours telling us about the court injunction and that all grant applications should use our original overhead rate.

Happy International Day of Women in Science. The National Science Foundation’s list of flagged words includes both “Women” and “Female.”

How much student learning do you think a school district could gain just by better assigning its teachers to schools?

Consider a quite politically-feasible change. Do not let district make any assigned teacher worse off, nor change teacher hiring, nor compensation, nor the students.

New evidence!

The NIH cuts are being spun as a way to eliminate bloated university bureaucracy. And looking at the sheer numbers, I get it.

But in fact the story is the exact opposite. The federal research grants system is highly efficient. And it super charges American innovation. 🧵

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1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

USAID What’s Happening & Why it Matters

What can you do about the assault on USAID?

Share this far and wide. Do your part! Please do retweet 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

YouTube video by C-SPAN "Don't Be a Sucker" (1947) Reel America Preview

From an US gov. anti-fascist film from 1947, a line right after this scene: "They used prejudice as a practical weapon to cripple the nation... Remember that when you hear this kind of talk. Somebody is going to get something out of it and it isn't going to be you."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=42X_...

This thread contains info on how to access Census data sets.

Thinking about historical parallels. People talk about coups and autogolpes, the fascist seizure of power in the 1930s, and there are resemblances. But there are other models we could think about.

If you are in danger unless you comply with a regime, you are in danger whether you comply or not

I’ve now posted the national data, 2015-2023, in Stata format here. I will add state and district data when I’m able.

www.datalumos.org/datalumos/pr...

The CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey has monitored the wellbeing of America’s high school students since 1991.

Since 2015, it’s been a vital source of data on LGBQ youth. In 2023, it provided the first ever nationally representative sample of transgender teens.

As of this morning, it’s gone.

The Impact of Being Denied a Wanted Abortion on Women and Their Children* Abstract. This paper examines the impact of denying a wanted abortion on women and children in Colombia using high-quality administrative microdata and cre

Recently accepted by #QJE, “The Impact of Being Denied a Wanted Abortion on Women and their Children,” by Londoño-Vélez (@jlondonovelez.bsky.social) and Saravia: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

It's such a weird thing to hear the news and think "that's bad, but also I have a paper about (an aspect) of that"

Funding delays are really not great for people who work in science. Funding delays of > 30 days lead to:

- 40% increase in scientists exiting US labor force
- 20% decrease in wages