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The early years of the twenty-first century have seen a major decline in the volume of migration from Mexico to the United States. According to one study, during the 2005–2010 period, slightly more Mexicans left the United States (1.39 million) than entered it (1.37 million), a change in the pattern of the last several decades.1 Another study finds that fewer Mexicans than non-Mexicans were apprehended at U.S. borders in 2014, a historic first.2

The policy levers contained in this working paper outline a series of steps that can be taken to advance decarbonization today, create sustainable systems change, and climate align housing for our future.

Parental job loss is an important trigger for a child’s loss of private health insurance.1 For example, research shows that parental loss of full-time employment doubles the odds that a child will lose private health insurance.2 Until the 1990s, substantial numbers of children lacked health insurance, but with the enactment of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1997, followed by changes to Medicaid and CHIP’s 2009 reauthorization, children’s health insurance coverage was expanded through broader eligibility, enrollment simplifications, and outreach efforts.3 From 1997 to 2012, the share of children without insurance fell from 14 percent to 7 percent.4 The growth of public coverage for children notwithstanding, private coverage is still the primary form of children’s health insurance. In 2014, 59 percent of children received coverage from private health insurance.5 But coverage has become less consistent for some children, due to an overall decline in employer-provided private-sector coverage, an increase in switching between public and private sources, and low public health insurance renewal rates.6 Even brief gaps in health insurance produce adverse consequences for children, including fewer medical provider visits over the course of a year, the loss of a primary health care provider, difficulty getting preventive and specialized medical care, and the increased use of emergency department and inpatient hospital visits.7 Loss of employer-based coverage leads to instability in health insurance, gaps in coverage, and more unmet health care needs.8 This brief focuses on children’s loss of private health insurance after a parent left his or her job voluntarily or involuntarily between May 2008 and the end of 2012 (see Box 1 for definitions). The number of uninsured children declined steadily throughout this period,9 and experts project that some of the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 will foster a continued decline in the percentages of children without health insurance over the long term.10 For most of the period under study, many ACA provisions that have likely served to expand coverage—the mandate that persons obtain health insurance, the state option to expand Medicaid to reach more families, the provision of federal subsidies to purchase coverage, and the ACA requirement for states to transition coverage of children up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line from CHIP to Medicaid—had not yet gone into effect. But since most children are still covered under private health insurance plans, the majority of which are linked to the parents’ employment, understanding the relationship and the characteristics of children who are unlikely to remain covered after a parent leaves his or her job may help identify ways to preserve consistency in coverage. For example, health care providers, administrators, and policy makers can keep watch to ensure that eligible children are quickly connected with public sources of coverage.

Research on narrowing the academic achievement gap between lower- and higher-income youth tends to focus on the inputs provided by schools. Little attention, however, is paid to extracurricular activities, both structured and unstructured, even though extracurricular participation and employment can have positive impacts similar to in-school experiences. Such activities keep adolescents engaged during high-risk hours, and consistent participation is linked to improved academic achievement and prosocial behaviors.1 Extracurricular activities are also influential in the college admissions process as well as in healthy development and academic success.2 This brief uses data from the 2012 National Survey of Children’s Health to examine involvement in activities among youth ages 12–18 across income categories and metropolitan status3 in the hopes of informing policy aimed at attenuating inequalities in participation. While not a complete profile of youth activities (time spent on homework, care of younger siblings, or housework, for example, are not included), determining participation rates helps us understand what youth are doing in their out-of-school hours and how these activities vary by income and metropolitan status. Access to extracurricular activities and employment is growing more unequal,4 and as a result lower-income youth may be increasingly disadvantaged compared to middle- and upper-income children.5 See Box 1: Definitions.

Migration—people moving between locations—is now driving much of the demographic change occurring in the United States. In this brief, authors Kenneth Johnson, Richelle Winkler, and Luke Rogers share new research on age-related migration patterns to provide a fuller understanding of the complex patterns of demographic change in the United States.

On November 14th, 2013, a consortium of organizations and interests sponsored All Walks of Life: A Statewide Conversation on Mental Health and Substance Abuse. Over 300 New Hampshire residents met in six different locations across the state to talk about their priorities, concerns, and ideas regarding mental health and substance abuse in New Hampshire. At the outset, the goals of this conversation were related both nationally and statewide.

In this brief, author Kenneth Johnson estimates the influence that the local age structure has on coronavirus death rates among those exposed to it in rural and urban counties in the United States.

Archived report through July 2021: With the strongest national job growth yet in 2021 and 38 states seeing statistically significant employment increases, July continued recent encouraging trends for the country’s economic trajectory. Despite this, all but two states are still short of their February 2020 employment levels. Nationally, payroll employment is still down 5.7 million jobs—a 3.7 percent shortfall—from February 2020.

In this brief, authors Elizabeth Burakowski and Lawrence Hamilton review some basic evidence about winter warming in New Hampshire, explore to what extent state residents are aware of this trend, and ask who is aware, in terms of characteristics such as age, education, or participation in winter sports.