Also: The Education Scorecard and Declining Birth Rates

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Edited by Carter Hutchinson and Hannah Bowen

Happy Thursday! In today’s newsletter, we examine the underlying causes of inflation and high prices in the US, the student learning slump in the post-pandemic era, and falling birth rates across the globe.

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1. Trump’s Affordability Problem ([link removed] )

05.21_Strain-1 ([link removed] )

Topline: Many Americans are worried about affordability in the US—according to a new CNN poll ([link removed] ) , 55 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of independents say President Trump’s policies have increased their cost of living. April’s consumer price index showed an increase of 3.8 percent year over year, but the average wage grew by just 3.6 percent over the same period. AEI’s Michael R. Strain argues ([link removed] ) that much of the culpability for inflation and high prices rests with the Federal Reserve and the previous government, although President Trump is not blameless.

High-Cost Decisions: Since the second Trump administration began, the Federal Reserve has misread the economy. It has placed too much weight on the risk of a meaningful increase in unemployment and assumed underlying inflation would drift back to the target rate without tariffs. Nonetheless, consumers’ jarring sticker-price shock in the grocery store is heavily rooted in former President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus in 2021 and the Fed’s sluggish reaction to the inflation that came after.

Road to Affordability: Strain asserts that President Trump should avoid pressuring new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh to cut interest rates further in 2026 due to the risk of inflation acceleration. The president should direct his attention toward affordability issues that have concerned Americans for decades—including high childcare costs, housing, health care, and education—instead of statist impulses, such as demands for caps on credit card interest rates.

“Making progress here would require master statecraft—proposing solutions, driving a consistent message, persuading voters of their merit and building a consensus in Congress. This would mark a significant change for the president. But a major change is required if he is to convince Americans that he understands their concerns and is moving to address them.”

—Michael R. Strain ([link removed] )

More on Inflation
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2. Education’s Latest Test ([link removed] )

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Topline: The latest Education Scorecard ([link removed] ) shows alarming data on the continued education decline across the US, writes ([link removed] ) AEI’s Nat Malkus. The report uses district-level reading and math scores from the National Assessment of Education Progress and other assessments across 40 states. The data span 2015 to 2025, which allows comparison of student achievement before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another Failed Test: The learning slump is most apparent in reading comprehension results. Reading scores declined at the same rate between 2017 and 2019, the two years preceding the pandemic, as they did during COVID-19. Although this year’s report showed some recovery between 2024 and 2025, 83 percent of districts still lost ground on reading overall from 2015 to 2025. For math scores, COVID-19 was a bigger driver of learning loss, but recovery in math was evident immediately after the pandemic. Even with a stronger recovery, however, 70 percent of districts still performed worse in math in 2025 than in 2015.

Education on the Front Line: This year’s scorecard shows that learning loss recovery since the pandemic has been U-shaped, with the highest- and lowest-income districts improving more than middle-income districts. Education recovery would have been meaningfully better if chronic absenteeism rates had not skyrocketed during the pandemic. Student learning has been in decline since 2013, a problem that Malkus argues is deep and widespread yet still lacking the attention it deserves.

“There has been a dramatic decline in student learning since 2013. It started well before the pandemic, and it is both deep and widespread. This is the central problem in American education. Schools, families, and policymakers ought to pay it far more attention.”

—Nat Malkus ([link removed] )

More on Education
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3. The Looming Population Decline ([link removed] )

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Topline: Global birth rates are in the midst of a decades-long crash. In nearly every region with available statistics to track birth trends, birth rates are falling relentlessly. AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick find ([link removed] ) that the birth rate decline is rooted not in an increase in biological fertility problems but rather in a decrease in the demand for children.

Slowing Rates: The decline in birth rates is affecting nearly all regions of the globe. In Europe, total fertility is around 1.4 births per woman, and in East Asia, it has collapsed to less than one baby per woman. Canada has a total fertility rate of one in many provinces, and Latin America has a rate just above one. Israel is the lone affluent democracy that has seen an increase in fertility over the past generation. A unique exception, Israel’s total fertility rate has risen to 3.1, up from 2.4 in 1995. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the only global region with high average fertility rates of over four births per woman. Still, even in that region, sub-replacement fertility has emerged in some major cities.

Population Slump: Falling birth rates across the globe are due mainly to individuals choosing to have fewer children than their predecessors, rather than a rise in biological fertility problems. The argument that children are more expensive than ever before matters, but it is not the complete picture. Modern societies worldwide have more of almost everything than ever before—food, education, private vehicles, health care, housing, free time, and vacation—but individuals continue to choose to have fewer children. Eberstadt and Norrick contend that the persistence and spread of sub-replacement fertility can lead only to eventual world depopulation.

“It would appear that tradition, duty, and sacrifice are exerting less of a call on our moderns than they did in the past, while the allure of convenience, autonomy, and self-actualization are increasingly affecting even family formation.”

—Nicholas Eberstadt ([link removed] ) and Patrick Norrick

More on Global Birth Rates
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Dive into More Data

05.21_Pethokoukis ([link removed] )

Breaking Up Big Tech Affects AI ([link removed] )

More on the AI Revolution
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05.21_Pinto ([link removed] )

The Los Angeles Housing Supply Shortage ([link removed] )

More on the Housing Supply
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Special thanks to Henry Long, Rosalie Blacklock, and Drew Kirkpatrick.

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