This week, AEI launched the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility (COSM), which will refocus AEI's poverty research on the significant challenges—such as social disconnection, family breakdown, loneliness, and barriers to employment—that millions of Americans face in moving up.

In the first-ever AEI Perspectives on Opportunity report, Angela Rachidi and Thomas O'Rourke reveal the troubling health and employment outcomes experienced by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries. "Our findings raise serious concerns about the employment and health status of SNAP adults and the program's potential contribution to these alarming statistics," write Rachidi and O'Rourke.

As part of COSM's new research series, "The Social Breakdown," Scott Winship and Thomas O'Rourke examine the relationship between Americans' religious traditions and social capital. Comparing various qualities of social capital, Winship and O'Rourke identify the religious denominations with members most likely to have strong family and community ties.

The Pentagon's persistent "divest to invest" strategy has left the US military "with fewer options to manage global events and keep simmering crises from bursting into full-blown conflicts," warns Mackenzie Eaglen. She says this willingness to sacrifice military capacity leaves US forces ill-prepared for even noncombat crises, such as the recent earthquake in Turkey.  

Frederick M. Hess ponders difficult questions confronting the school choice movement. He starts by reconciling the apparent contradiction in most American parents' support for their local public schools and school choice options.

In the Wall Street Journal, Sally Satel reviews Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia (Simon & Schuster, 2023) by Hadley Freeman. Engaging with Freeman's book, which blends memoir and research, Satel offers a thoughtful discussion of anorexia's causes and treatment.