Catherine Rampell Profile picture
Syndicated op-ed columnist @washingtonpost, commentator @cnn, special correspondent @newshour. Previously econ/theater NYT. Econ, immigration, tax, politics etc
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Nov 6 5 tweets 2 min read
Voters' complaints about inflation seem to have handed the election to Trump.
Alas, Wall Street analysts are now forecasting *higher* inflation/interest rates as a result of Trump's win.
A thread 🧵 Capital Economics projects slower GDP growth, higher inflation, higher interest rates Image
Oct 30 6 tweets 3 min read
Sen. Ted Cruz tells @edlavaCNN that he won't talk about abortion access because it's only "the press" that is "obsessed" with the issue. Not voters.
Meanwhile, Texan women are going into sepsis & dying because the TX abortion ban delayed their ability to receive emergency care🧵 Josseli Barnica is one of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed emergency care. This issue probably matters to the daughter and husband she left behind, among her other loved ones.
Oct 22 13 tweets 7 min read
YouGov blind-tested voters on 100+ Trump/Harris policies, i.e. without candidate names attached. Results:
1) Harris's agenda is way more popular than Trump's
2) Even on issues like crime
3) But unfortunately voters often don't know which ideas are hers 🧵
wapo.st/4dQpNUgImage In general, Harris's policies poll much better than Trump's.
Nearly all of hers get majority support; only around half of Trump's do.
wapo.st/4dQpNUgImage
Sep 26 8 tweets 3 min read
Brief thread of independent economic analyses of a 2nd Trump presidency. They generally show he'd spike inflation, reduce growth, and/or increase federal deficits. 🧵

First, here's @PIIE today, looking at effects of his deportation, tariff, Fed policies: piie.com/blogs/realtime…Image Pantheon Macroeconomics, from a few days ago
Sep 17 5 tweets 2 min read
The SALT cap exists because of Trump's own 2017 tax law!! My view: It's better policy to keep cap on SALT deductions in place. Lifting it, as Trump seems to propose, is expensive & very regressive. 70% of benefit of ending it would go to those making $500k+
But...I'd love to know where Harris stands on the issue, which has divided Dems
Sep 15 5 tweets 2 min read
"In Texas, a woman whose water broke at 18 weeks—far too early for her baby to survive outside the womb—was unable to get an abortion until she became septic. She spent three days in the ICU, and one of her fallopian tubes permanently closed from scarring. In Tennessee, a woman lost four pints of blood delivering her dead fetus in a hospital’s holding area. In Oklahoma, a bleeding woman with a nonviable pregnancy was turned away from three separate hospitals. One said she could wait in the parking lot until her condition became life-threatening." theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
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Aug 6 9 tweets 4 min read
Completely agree with empathizing with Americans' struggles.
My objection is to outright fabricating statistics.
We can talk about why people feel lousy without falsely claiming, as Mr. Singleton did just before this video began, that "household incomes [are] at a decade low." Here is that section of the transcript, with Mr. Singleton's full comment. Image
Jul 27 8 tweets 3 min read
Scenes from the Harris fundraiser in Pittsfield MA Image Guy with the guitar was singing (I think) “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let It Shine” Image
Jun 28 6 tweets 3 min read
The kind of polling we need more of: @YouGov asked respondents about major policies proposed by Biden and Trump...without specifying which candidate proposed them.
Turns out, in a blind test, Biden's agenda is way more popular. A short 🧵
today.yougov.com/politics/artic…

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27 of 28 Biden proposals are supported by more people than oppose them. 24 get outright majority support.
Most popular: criminal/mental health background checks for all gun purchases (82% approve). Least popular (the only one underwater, 30%): 10-yr military support for Ukraine Image
Jun 21 5 tweets 2 min read
Pay more attention to what politicians *do* than to what they say
There's been credulous media coverage of Trump's "proposal" to give green cards to immigrant US college grads. It's odds with everything Trump actually did as president, to reduce *legal, skilled* immigration examples of actual policies he put in place, curbing visas, work permits, or green cards for skilled immigrants: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
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Jun 13 4 tweets 2 min read
Yes. Problem is most Americans don't understand how difficult it actually is to come here legally.
<1% of people who want to move permanently to the US can do so legally
Confusion is understandable. Our system is convoluted; demagogues take advantage🧵1/x
cato.org/policy-analysi…
Biden has proposed, and in some cases already opened, new legal, orderly pathways to come here—designed to take pressure off the border, among other objectives ("law & order")
Most Americans, including most **Republican voters,** support such efforts 2/x washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/…
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Jun 7 11 tweets 4 min read
This labor market just won't quit. 🧵

To wit: Labor force participation rate for prime-age workers at highest level since 2002 Image Prime-age women's labor force participation rate at highest level EVER Image
Apr 7 4 tweets 1 min read
Rep Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chair of House intel committee, tells @jaketapper on @cnnsotu that some of his colleagues have fallen for Russian propaganda and repeated it on the House floor This follows similar comments from House Foreign Relations Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Tex) to @juliaioffe, which Turner was asked about.
Mar 22 18 tweets 6 min read
Immigration Is Helping the U.S. Edge Out Asia wsj.com/world/asia/imm… Immigration Is Fueling US Economic Growth While Politicians Rage
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Mar 13 4 tweets 2 min read
Immigrant families are hugely overrepresented in the health care workforce
E.g., adult children of immigrants make up 2x the share of physicians, surgeons, & other health care practitioners compared with their share of the population (13% vs. 6%)
kff.org/racial-equity-…
Image Immigrant adults also make up a larger share of physicians, surgeons, & other health care practitioners than they do of the population (23% vs 19%) and play a particularly large role as direct care workers in long-term care settings, representing 28% of these workers.
Mar 9 7 tweets 3 min read
Americans overwhelmingly think Trump would handle the economy and immigration better than Biden.
Again: I implore voters to look at what each candidate would actually do on economic and immigration policy in a 2nd term.
today.yougov.com/politics/artic…
Image All of Trump's 4 key economic planks would *worsen* inflation: wapo.st/3PdHxiY
Feb 27 4 tweets 1 min read
Short 🧵 on political FREEDOM.
The more significant political fallout of this IVF discourse may not be revelation that GOP is often anti-family (surprise!), but rather the undermining of narrative that Dems are merely "pro-abortion" (rather than pro-reproductive freedom) (1/x) Subtext (or text) of Repub attacks on Dem abortion positions is that they're driven by childless elites who want to kill babies.
IVF debate suggests Ds are promoting not abortion, but freedom—specifically, reproductive freedom, to choose when to begin or expand your family (2/x)
Feb 7 6 tweets 2 min read
Everyone's favorite time of year: CBO budget/econ outlook day!
Here's how CBO's economic forecast has changed since last year. Check out interest rates, bottom right quadrant below
cbo.gov/publication/59…
Image Thanks largely to those higher-than-previously-expected interest rates, CBO raised its estimate of net outlays for interest over the next decade by $1.2 trillion (or 11%) Image
Oct 27, 2023 8 tweets 3 min read
Unemployment is near record lows, inflation is coming down, and we just had a quarter of gangbusters GDP growth.
But consumers are about as negative about the economy today as they were during stretches of the Great Recession
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/…
Image We actually do measure underemployment, known as the "U-6" measure. It is also around historically low levels.
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Sep 14, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
I sometimes wonder whether the internet has made mankind more informed, on average, or less. On the one hand -- the entire accumulation of human knowledge, at everyone's fingertips!
On the other hand.
washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/… More on this theme. washingtonpost.com/health/2024/03…
Sep 12, 2023 8 tweets 3 min read
holy moly, child poverty rate rose from all-time low of 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% (!!!) in 2022, reflecting end of temporary child allowance and other programs. changes in child poverty by race/ethnicity. To be clear this is the supplemental poverty measure (SPM), which takes into account taxes/govt benefits. Image