EconoFact Chats

The US ran a budget deficit of $1.9 trillion in 2026 -- nearly 6% of GDP. Ongoing deficits have led to publicly-held federal debt rising to almost 100% of GDP, with Congressional Budget Office projections showing it rising to 120% by 2036.    A necessary part of closing the budget deficit is raising revenues. What are the prospects for collecting more in taxes from corporations, imports, bequests and inheritances, and digital services? And what challenges does each source present in terms of collection, economic effects, and fairness? This week's EconoFact Chats episode is an abridged version of a webinar on these issues, co-hosted with The Journalist’s Resource, featuring William Gale, John Sablehaus, and Elena Patel of the Brookings Institution, Kyle Pomerleau of the American Enterprise Institute, and Daniel Shaviro of New York University School of Law.

Recent policy changes have affected some of the more vulnerable people in the United States, including those who rely on Medicaid for their health insurance, people who are retired or disabled and get by month-to-month with their Social Security benefits, and workers whose income includes tips or overtime pay. What are the effects of Medicaid and Social Security on people’s economic security and well-being and what is the long-run prospect for these programs? Who benefits from tax breaks on tips and overtime and what are the fiscal costs? This week’s EconoFact Chats episode is an abridged version of a webinar, co-hosted with The Journalist’s Resource, that featured Gopi Shah Goda of the Brookings Institution, Mark Shepard of the Harvard Kennedy School, and Bill Gentry of Williams College.

In 1958, Eastman Kodak advertised openings for chemical engineers, accountants, and lawyers, but only for men, while women were asked to apply for jobs as secretaries or stenographers. The 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed such ads. Yet, firms that expressed a stronger preference for hiring men before the law still had significantly higher shares of male workers in 1995. Lisa Kahn joins EconoFact Chats to discuss how the labor market for women has evolved since the civil rights era, what her recent research reveals about the remarkably persistent effects of employers’ pre-civil rights gender preferences, and what policies could help close the remaining gender wage gaps. Lisa is the Helen F. and Fred H. Gowen Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester. She previously served as a senior economist on President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Do online prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket provide a service beyond the entertainment of gambling? Prediction markets are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the same agency that oversees futures contracts. Is this agency well-positioned to serve this role and guard against insider trading and market manipulation? And what should policy be towards online prediction markets? Futures contracts help companies and people hedge against risks. What is the social value of guessing the designer of Taylor Swift’s wedding dress, or of guessing which countries the President will mention in a given month? Gary Gensler joins EconoFact Chats to discuss these questions. Gary is Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He previously served as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

In July, the US Treasury joined Japanese authorities in a joint intervention to prop up the yen -- the first US action in support of the yen since 1998. Maurice Obstfeld joins EconoFact Chats to discuss why the intervention reflects the pursuit of conflicting goals -- strengthening the yen, even as US tariffs weaken it, claiming a strong-dollar policy while pursuing currency interventions that weaken the dollar, and championing the dollar's reserve role while treating foreign sales of Treasuries as a problem. He also contrasts the openly political support for Argentina's peso with the strictly non-political criteria that have governed Fed swap lines -- and why a request from the UAE puts that distinction to the test. Maury is a Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley and a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He served as Chief Economist at the IMF from 2015 to 2018.