Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo, Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government, Hamilton College

Today’s youth cherish “authenticity,” but is it a virtue? According to a report from Ernst & Young, more than 9 in 10 Gen Z respondents indicated that being authentic and true to yourself is extremely or very important. In fact, most of them claimed authenticity is more important than any other personal value.

This finding is not all that surprising: All of us live in an age where we’re bombarded by social media and artificial intelligence – when striving to be your authentic self becomes an increasingly difficult task.

Yet, even if it has somehow become a common goal, it is unclear how many of us can truly define the “authenticity” that we say we are pursuing. I think it’s also worth asking whether sincerity and authenticity are perennial human virtues or just obsessions of this technological age.

As a scholar in the history of political thought and American political development, I think two philosophers can help us understand this problem and how to deal with it: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Martin Heidegger.

Sincerity: A counter to modernity

Rousseau, the 18th-century philosopher from Geneva, arrived in the wake of earlier Enlightenment philosophers, such as Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu.

These thinkers laid many of the foundations for how people understand liberal democracy today, especially the emphasis on individual natural rights – to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson’s later formulation, all human beings are “endowed” with these rights at birth or by nature. In particular, Hobbes popularized the idea of generating a commonwealth in order to escape the uncertainty in a state of nature where self-preservation is fundamental. Locke also emphasized the right to property, while Montesquieu saw the importance of international commerce, among other aspects, including the separation of powers.

But Rousseau became famous for his criticisms of the individualistic civil society born out of their thought. In the modern commercial republic, the fixation turned to luxury rather than duty. “Ancient politicians spoke incessantly about morals and virtue,” he wrote; “those of our time talk only of business and money.”

For Rousseau, modern society was a conformist “herd” where everyone hides behind a “veil” of politeness. People wear masks to hide their selfishness, deceiving others in order to satisfy their own desires.

In this way, he argued, human beings are actually enslaved to each other: While each person pursues self-interest, success requires getting others to see some “profit” in helping each other. The rich need the “services” of the poor just as the poor need the “help” of the rich. Anyone who refuses to yield to this entire enterprise “will die in poverty and oblivion.”

Sincerity is the path to self-realization in Rousseau’s political philosophy, according to political science professor Arthur Melzer. As Melzer states, “We want, as fully as possible, to become what we are, to realize ourselves, to become as alive and actualized as possible, to really live.” For him, Rousseau considered sincerity to be what puts us on “the path” to true human excellence. It’s the “countercultural virtue” needed to oppose the hypocrisy found in modern society.

Authenticity: Uncovering the self

While Rousseau extolled sincerity, 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger significantly influenced today’s understanding of a related idea: authenticity.

In his magnum opus, “Being and Time,” Heidegger considered how the self gets lost in the public world. In everyday life, individuals think and exist in terms of the other people they encounter – a way of being he called the “they-self.” He stated, “Everyone is the other, and no one is himself.”

Heidegger believed that people are inauthentic when they’re driven into “uninhibited hustle” within the world, tranquilizing themselves from anxiety about the true meaning of human life and its eventual end.

In his later work, Heidegger argued that everything and everyone in contemporary life had become technological, treated as raw material for “exploitation.” For example, in the technological age, the Rhine River is not a “river” but merely “something at our command,” a supplier of “water power.”

“Everywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand,” he claimed, “indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering.” This extends even to human beings themselves, now referred to as “human resources.”

By contrast, the authentic human being is called to choose and be the self, rather than being for the sake of others. They don’t flee death, and in discovering the world in this way, it feels like clearing away “concealments and obscurities.”

Still, Heidegger did not explicitly say that authenticity is human excellence or the “highest good.” As political philosophy professor Mark Blitz articulates, Heidegger’s authenticity is the “true understanding of what human beings actually are.” From this perspective, authentic human beings are able to confront and grasp the responsibility they have for their own existence.

Bound by justice

Despite the current obsession with sincerity and authenticity, I believe it’s important to put these concepts in perspective: They might be added to a list of classical virtues, including courage, moderation, justice and prudence, rather than completely replacing them.

There may be nothing intrinsically dangerous about pursuing authenticity. In many cases, it’s clear that people ought to be left to be who they want to be. But there are still a few obvious limits.

At the very least, authenticity must be bound by justice. What if someone being their “authentic self” harms the environment or others? Some people are “sincere” or “authentic” while committing all kinds of harmful actions.

While each of us may pursue authenticity, we should also remember that just and peaceful relations require the celebration of both difference and mutual respect.

Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Today’s obsession with authenticity isn’t new – being true to yourself has troubled philosophers for centuries – https://theconversation.com/todays-obsession-with-authenticity-isnt-new-being-true-to-yourself-has-troubled-philosophers-for-centuries-262004

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Antonio Machado Allison, Professor of Environment and Latin American Studies, Wesleyan University

Venezuela’s Orinoco River Basin is a wild land of lush forests, grasslands and a vast delta of jungle wetlands teeming with wildlife. River dolphins and endangered Orinoco crocodiles ply its waterways, and over 1,000 freshwater fish and bird species can be found there.

During the rainy season, the Orinoco is the world’s third-largest river by discharge. But this region – which Venezuelans rely on for water and hydropower – is facing a growing environmental disaster.

Over millions of years, organic and geological processes left the fragile region rich in both biodiversity and mineral resources, including the world’s largest proven oil reserve and valuable metals such as gold, iron and coltan, a source of niobium and tantalum for the tech industry.

Illegal mining that accelerated under former President Nicolás Maduro over the past decade is tearing up one of the most biodiverse regions of the world, with little sign of stopping. Now, the Trump administration is pushing to ramp up critical minerals mining and oil drilling in Venezuela, where the industry has a long history of oil spills and neglected equipment, with little discussion of protecting the environment.

Mining is expanding in the forests

Mineral exploitation in Venezuela is as old as the country. Historically, a few big mines were run by international companies and mining was controlled. But in the early 2010s, the government of former President Hugo Chávez nationalized the gold industry and hinted that the government would open small-scale mining to the public.

In 2016, Maduro, facing falling oil production and scrambling for revenue, followed through, declaring a large part of the Orinoco River Basin to be the Orinoco Mining Arc, where mining would be prioritized. The region encompasses about 12% of Venezuela, including national monuments, national parks and Indigenous communities.

Today, tens of thousands of people mine in the jungle, living in often squalid, violent and contaminated conditions.

Criminal gangs known as “colectivos” or “sindicatos” control many of the mining operations with little government intervention. Guerrilla groups from Colombia have also spilled over the border into the region.

The mining operations cut down forests and remove soil. Toxic materials, including mercury used to extract gold from ore, pour into rivers, contaminating the water and harming the workers, wildlife and surrounding communities that rely on local fish and wildfire.

The mines also promote the spread of tropical infectious diseases and disrupt indigenous and rural communities. Evidence of environmental disasters and human rights violations, including human trafficking, child labor and sexual assault, have been documented by several public and private organizations.

Oil and the law

The same Orinoco River Basin holds part of the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves. After the Trump administration seized Maduro on Jan. 3, 2026, and arrested him on drug trafficking charges, it said the U.S would control that oil. But what exactly that will mean and how the oil industry will respond remains to be seen.

By law, oil and other natural and mineral resources belong to the state in Venezuela. Oil exploration, extraction and commercialization are carried out through a system called “concessions” – contracts between the government and national or foreign private companies. In exchange for access to resources, the country receives an income, or tribute, from the profits generated.

However, the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, approved in 1999, also clearly states that “the State shall protect the environment, biological and genetic diversity, ecological processes, national parks and natural monuments, and other areas of particular ecological importance.”

Analysts estimate that rebuilding the industry, which has been plagued by poorly maintained infrastructure and leaks and spills, would take years to decades. It would likely mean more roads in a region already losing pristine forest and put more of the environment and water at risk. The region’s heavy oil production has also led to water pollution.

In the 1920s, oil drilling helped lift the economy of Venezuela, previously a very poor, largely agrarian country. The country had been plagued with malaria and other tropical diseases, the population was poorly educated, and there were continuous fights among military strongmen, known as “caudillos.” Oil brought in foreign investment, making Venezuela the second-largest oil producer in the world by 1928 and its largest exporter.

In 1976, with the country’s economy heavily dependent on oil, Venezuela nationalized the oil industry. Foreign industries could partner with the state oil company, but only if the government held the controlling share of the joint ventures. Boom times led to inflation, and oil price drops became disastrous for the economy.

The U.S. began imposing sanctions on Venezuela in 2015 over drug trafficking and human rights abuses, and those sanctions increased during the Trump administrations. Between the sanctions and mismanagement, Venezuela’s oil production collapsed, and with it, the national economy.

Venezuelans’ future

With the removal of Maduro, former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is in charge of the government.

In January, she signed legislation that eases state control over oil drilling but keeps ownership of the hydrocarbon reserves with the nation. She also met with U.S. officials in March and pledged to accelerate mining reforms that would give foreign companies access to Venezuelan minerals.

The shift in leadership does not guarantee other changes from Maduro’s regime, however. In her past roles, including as minister of foreign affairs and economy and as vice president, Rodriguez was involved in overseeing the Orinoco Mining Arc at a time when criminal activity and illegal mining were rapidly expanding there, environmental groups point out.

Studies of satellite data tracking deforestation suggest that Venezuela lost roughly 185 square miles (480 square kilometers) to gold mining alone from 2018 to 2025. Mining has moved into national parks, including Canaima, home to Angel Falls.

Venezuela, meanwhile, is still deep in an economic crisis that led to millions of people leaving the country.

The majority of the population lives in poverty, and inflation continued to skyrocket in early 2026. As the U.S. eases sanctions, that is likely to help, but the country has many problems to overcome.

Antonio Machado Allison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Venezuela’s fragile environment faces rising risks as US pushes for oil and critical minerals and illegal gold mining spreads – https://theconversation.com/venezuelas-fragile-environment-faces-rising-risks-as-us-pushes-for-oil-and-critical-minerals-and-illegal-gold-mining-spreads-276859

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Fred L. Pincus, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

In October 2025, the Trump administration made a controversial proposal to nine major colleges and universities, including Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia. The administration offered them a deal: If they agreed to adopt certain policy changes, such as revising admissions and hiring practices, they would receive advantages in federal funding programs.

The administration later expanded the list of schools to more than 100 that could benefit from the deal, which it called the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.

The plan included a wide range of policy changes. For example, it would require schools to cap international student enrollment at about 15% and to use “legal force” against disruptive protesters.

Only three small schools not initially approached by the Trump administration agreed to sign the restrictive proposal: The New College of Florida, a public, liberal arts college in Sarasota; Valley Forge Military College, a private, two-year military college in Wayne, Pennsylvania; and Grand Canyon University, a private Christian school in Phoenix.

Although the proposed agreement has received little public attention in the past few months, as a sociologist who has studied race and inequality, I think it is important to understand what the document says.

The proposal reveals President Donald Trump’s vision for U.S. colleges and universities. In this vision, universities would have less ethnic and racial diversity, and people’s First Amendment rights would be weakened.

The proposal also suggests a stronger federal role in shaping how universities operate, which I see as a major departure from the long-standing U.S. tradition of academic freedom.

A second act?

Despite the compact’s lack of support among universities, the Trump administration has indicated it may revise the plan.

In an interview on Jan. 21, 2026, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the administration is working on an updated version.

“There was a draft version, preliminary version, that went out that was intended to be sent to universities to get their reaction from it. … We are working on developing the right kind of compact with some input that we’re already getting,” McMahon said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

The proposal’s broad scope

The original version of the compact included several major policy requirements.

First, universities would be prohibited from giving any preference to prospective students or faculty candidates based on their “sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations.”

This aligns with a 2023 Supreme Court decision that colleges and universities cannot consider race as a factor in admissions decisions.

Second, the proposal would mandate that college student applicants take a widely used standardized test like the SAT – a requirement that an increasing number of schools have dropped in recent years.

Third, the compact calls on universities to “maintain a vibrant marketplace of ideas where different views can be explored, debated and challenged.”

Universities would also need to transform or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

This follows the Trump administration’s push for more viewpoint diversity, or the exchange of a wide range of philosophical and political perspectives. Conservatives have frequently criticized what they see as a liberal political bias on college campuses.

Fourth, the proposal would require campus administrators to use “lawful force” against “demonstrators” on campus. This action could be directed toward someone disrupting class instruction and libraries, or blocking certain parts of campuses.

The proposal also doubles down on Trump’s 2025 executive order that there are only two sexes: male and female.

This language would provide support for some universities limiting how gender is taught.

Texas A&M University announced in January 2026 that it is ending its women’s studies major. In February, the state of Florida also announced that it is limiting how sex and gender can be taught in introductory sociology classes at public universities.

Academic freedom under threat

The proposal does not specifically say that faculty cannot teach certain subjects or discuss particular issues.

But as a retired sociologist who has taught diversity-related courses and published a diversity textbook, I was particularly struck by the following part of the proposal: “Academic freedom is not absolute, and universities shall adopt policies that prevent discriminatory, threatening, harassing, or other behaviors that abridge the rights of other members of the university community.”

This very broad language gives university administrators, or government officials, leverage over professors’ and researchers’ basic, daily work and their overall academic freedom – meaning, their ability to research, teach and publish whatever they want, without fear of censorship or retaliation.

An ultimatum

None of the schools that the Trump administration initially approached signed on to the proposal.

The American Association of Colleges and Universities, one of the largest national higher education associations, described the compact as an ultimatum: Schools could sign the agreement and receive “multiple positive benefits,” including federal grants, or refuse and risk losing federal funding.

The American Association of University Professors, a national nonprofit that advocates for academic freedom, said that the plan “stinks of favoritism, patronage and bribery.”

Some conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, supported the administration’s attempt to address problems in higher education, such as rising tuition.

However, the organization also warned that “federal officials should avoid expanding the government’s role in higher education” while pursuing those goals.

It is unclear whether the White House will release a revised version of the compact. Still, the original proposal offers insight into how the administration hopes to reshape American higher education.

Fred L. Pincus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Trump offered a restrictive deal to universities that almost all rejected – but the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education may not be entirely dead – https://theconversation.com/trump-offered-a-restrictive-deal-to-universities-that-almost-all-rejected-but-the-compact-for-academic-excellence-in-higher-education-may-not-be-entirely-dead-275203

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Peter McGraw, Professor of Marketing and Psychology, University of Colorado Boulder

In 1960, 72% of adults were married, and over 90% would go on to marry. HR policies and management practices back then catered to nuclear families with a lone, male breadwinner.

Today, dual-career couples and working mothers are common, largely due to the growth of women in the workforce in the second half of the 20th century.

To recruit and retain talent, businesses have expanded family-friendly policies by offering flexible work hours, paid parental leave and subsidized child care. These are much-needed improvements, though many employers still lag in offering them.

Today, another demographic shift also demands employers’ attention: the growing share of the workforce that is single – particularly those without dependents. About 1 in 3 American adults haven’t gotten married by midlife.

More adults aren’t married

The workplace has always included recent grads, never-married professionals, divorced empty nesters and widowed retirees. But these categories now represent a far larger share of the labor force than they did a generation ago – and people move in and out of them throughout their lives.

As a behavioral economist and business school professor, I study what I call the “Solo Economy” – how institutions and markets are adapting, or failing to adapt, to this shift.

Workplace policy is one area where the gap is especially wide.

A growing mismatch

Today, 46% of U.S. adults are unmarried. Half of these unmarried Americans aren’t interested in dating. Population forecasters project that about 25% of millennials and 33% of Gen Z will never marry.

Around 29% of U.S. adults live alone – the most common household type in the country. Compare that to 1960, when the median age of first marriage was 20 for women and 22 for men, and single-person households were relatively rare.

The average age of getting hitched for the first – or only – time has risen by nearly a decade since then to 28.4 for women and 30.8 for men.

And yet, many HR policies have not adjusted to this new normal. Of course, there’s a word for this: amatonormativity. It’s the assumption that marriage and family are the ideal relationship model.

Amatonormativity underpins more than 1,000 legal benefits for married people, from tax breaks to Social Security payments. These disparities extend into the workplace when family-friendly policies don’t take the needs of the “family of one” into account.

In one survey, 62% of single workers reported feeling treated differently from married colleagues with children – and 30% said the disparity reinforced the message that their lives mattered less.

I believe that employers can do better by singles with no kids at home without putting anyone at a disadvantage.

Scheduling can seem unfair

Workers with spouses or who are raising children have real obligations that deserve support. But too often, single employees without dependents are expected to pick up the slack by working on holidays, traveling more for their jobs and taking vacations at less desirable times.

“My manager asked me to take on an extra responsibility, saying she couldn’t ask the teacher who handled it before because she ‘has four boys,’” Sarah Brock, founder of Sarah Bee Talent, posted on Linkedin. “I felt like my life didn’t have the same value because I wasn’t raising a family.” Brock received hundreds of similar stories in response to her post.

Researchers have found evidence that confirms these patterns: Single, childless employees are more often expected to travel, work longer hours and take less desirable vacation times than their married colleagues.

Krystal Wilkinson, a British human resource management professor, has written about finding that children and child care are considered far more legitimate reasons for placing boundaries on work than engaging in hobbies, fitness or dating. Even with policies such as unlimited paid time off, singles may hesitate to take vacations, fearing that their managers will see their reasons for taking time off as illegitimate.

Better benefits for married employees

Employee benefits often favor married workers – not by design, but by default.

The total compensation package is typically worth more for a married employee doing the same job as a single one. A 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 95% of large employers extend health coverage to employees’ spouses, with employers subsidizing part of the cost. This is entirely reasonable – but single employees typically receive no equivalent value in return.

This gap extends to many life insurance policies, retirement plan features, wellness programs and employee assistance programs.

Leave policies reflect a similar pattern. The Family and Medical Leave Act grants up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a parent, child or spouse. Bereavement leave is typically limited to deaths of members of your immediate family. Yet singles without kids at home often have broader support networks that include their close friends and members of their “chosen family” – whom current policies don’t recognize. This tends to be especially true within the LGBTQ+ community.

The issue isn’t that married employees receive too many benefits. It’s that the system was built for one kind of lifestyle and hasn’t kept pace with how many people live today.

What employers can do

Employers can close these gaps without taking anything away from married employees – and in many cases, benefit everyone with these approaches.

Flexible benefits: A cafeteria-style model lets employees allocate a budget based on their own needs, covering everything from child care to gym memberships to pet insurance. Netflix already does this by offering up to US$16,000 per employee yearly to cover medical, dental and vision premiums – regardless of marital status – with unused portions partially refundable.

Broader leave policies: Bereavement leave could cover close friends. Employees might exchange one type of leave for another, based on need.

Fair scheduling: Rather than assuming single employees are more available, companies can adopt first-come, first-served vacation systems with seniority breaking ties. Or companies could adopt a points-based system, giving every employee an equal budget to bid on preferred time slots – ensuring those who value certain dates most get priority, regardless of relationship status.

Inclusive language and culture: Small changes signal who belongs. When employers use wording like “you and your loved ones” instead of “you and your family” in their communications with their staff, it acknowledges relationships beyond traditional structures.

Organizational values: Just as companies affirm diversity in age, gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity, they can explicitly commit to valuing employees regardless of relationship status.

A simple test

If employers want to see whether any of their personnel policies could put their married or single employees at a disadvantage, I suggest they use this litmus test: Would this policy harm a married employee who gets divorced? If so, the policy needs to change.

Many people shift between singlehood and partnership throughout their lives due to breakups, divorce and the death of their spouses or partners. A workplace built for a family of one is built for everyone – wherever they happen to be in their life journey.

Peter McGraw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Family-friendly workplaces are great − but ‘families of 1’ get ignored – https://theconversation.com/family-friendly-workplaces-are-great-but-families-of-1-get-ignored-276260

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Olivier Sterck, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Oxford

Michael W. Green, a Wall Street investor, created a buzz in late 2025 by arguing that the U.S. poverty line should be jacked up to US$140,000 for a family of four. Currently, a family of that size has to be eking by on $33,000 a year to qualify as poor in the federal government’s eyes.

His critique builds on a broader debate about how to measure poverty in the United States. The U.S. government has made few changes to how it officially calculates the poverty rate since President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the “war on poverty” in the 1960s.

Outlets such as The Washington Post, Fortune and Fox News covered Green’s assertions, sparking a flurry of public debate over a topic usually relegated to economists like me.

Having spent more than 15 years researching poverty as an economist, I believe that whether the government ought to draw this line at $33,000, $100,000 or $140,000 is not the real issue. Instead, I’ve been arguing that there is no magic threshold below which you are poor and above which you’re doing fine. Instead, poverty should be understood as a spectrum that can be measured without relying on arbitrary lines.

3 different poverty lines

Think about it: Living on $100 a day is better than $75 a day, which is better than $50, which is better than $25. Nothing magical happens when you cross some arbitrary line. People don’t suddenly escape the constraints and vulnerabilities of having low incomes when they make one dollar more than they used to.

And yet almost all public debates, research and policy treat poverty lines as legitimate – as if this threshold really exists.

Consider three very different poverty lines:

Moving the poverty line to $80 per person per day, which today amounts to roughly $140,000 for a family of four per year, as Green proposes, then 56% of Americans are poor according to World Bank data. So are most people in other high-income countries.

Drawing the poverty line at about $20 per person per day – approximately equivalent to the official U.S. poverty threshold for a family of four – the share of Americans who are below that line plunges to 6%, according to the World Bank data I analyzed.

The World Bank also has a definition of extreme poverty: $3 per person per day. If you put the line there, only 1% of Americans would be officially experiencing poverty.

Even among experts, there is little agreement on where the poverty line should fall. As a result, debates about poverty lines often reveal more about the choice of threshold than about poverty itself.

Measuring poverty without lines

Based on my research, I have proposed letting go of poverty lines to get a more meaningful view of how poverty evolved over time and in different countries.

Instead, I propose a new way to measure poverty, through what I call “average poverty,” which reflects the fact that having less income is always worse than having more.

Average poverty builds on a simple intuition. If someone I’ll call Alex earns half as much as someone else I’ll call Barbara, then Barbara is twice as rich as Alex and Alex is twice as poor as Barbara.

Similar inverse relationships are widespread in other fields: Pace is the reciprocal of speed in running as resistance and conductance are in electricity.

This means that poverty can be defined as the inverse of income, and its unit is simply inverted. If incomes are measured in dollars per day, poverty is measured in days per dollar.

Average poverty therefore captures something very concrete: the average number of minutes, hours or days that it takes to get $1 in income.

For these purposes, income includes earnings from work, government benefits and other sources of money, and it is averaged among all family members. It is expressed in international dollars, which account for inflation and global price differences. The time to get $1 refers to a day of life for anyone at any age and in any circumstance, not just the hours worked by someone with a job.

My proposed measure casts the U.S. in a strikingly different light from traditional poverty statistics. In the U.S., I’ve calculated that it takes 63 minutes on average to get $1 in income. That’s much slower than in many other high-income countries:

• United Kingdom: 34 minutes

• France: less than 31 minutes

• Germany: about 26 minutes

This indicates that average poverty is substantially higher in the U.S., even though U.S. average incomes are higher than in most Western European countries. While average poverty declined over time in most other high-income countries, it has increased almost continuously in the U.S. since 1990 despite swift growth in average incomes.

There is one exception to this trend: during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the U.S. adopted several short-term anti-poverty measures.

The price of inequality

At first glance, this seems paradoxical. How can a rich country’s economy grow and yet get poorer?

The answer is simple: inequality.

Seeing poverty as a spectrum rather than a switch that’s on or off casts light on what traditional measures hide: Inequality matters no matter where you are on the poverty-prosperity continuum. Under this approach, poverty can change for two reasons: either incomes rise or fall on average, or the distribution of income may become more or less unequal.

And the U.S. has one of the most unequal economies in the world, and by far the most unequal among rich countries. Across all 50 states, inequality has risen sharply since 1990, regardless of political orientation, demographic composition or economic structure.

When inequality rises faster than incomes grow, average poverty increases even in a growing economy. This is why the U.S. appears poorer under a continuous measure than when there’s a simple line drawn at the $20-per-day mark: Its income distribution has been getting more unequal even as the average income has risen.

Seeing poverty as a spectrum changes the conversation. It reveals what poverty lines miss and why inequality matters so much.

Olivier Sterck receives funding from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). He does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any organization that would benefit from this article.

– ref. Measuring poverty on a spectrum instead of an arbitrary line conveys a more accurate picture of inequality – https://theconversation.com/measuring-poverty-on-a-spectrum-instead-of-an-arbitrary-line-conveys-a-more-accurate-picture-of-inequality-271912

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Terrence Liu, Assistant Professor, University of Utah

Americans age 65 and older who are insured by Medicare logged about 60 million telehealth visits annually between 2021 and 2023 – about 31 million for mental health and 29 million for other health issues. That’s the key finding in a new study I co-authored in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

We also found that people with Medicare coverage who used telehealth services were generally in poorer health and faced more physical and functional limitations in their daily life, compared with their counterparts who only had medical appointments in person.

To get at these numbers, we analyzed a national survey called the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey, which provides a nationally representative snapshot of how different groups of Americans use and receive health care. Based on our analysis, we generated national estimates of telehealth visits that reflect care patterns for everyone insured through Medicare, a federal health insurance program primarily for people age 65 and older as well as some younger people with disabilities.

Why it matters

In just a few years, telehealth has become a central part of how health care is delivered in the United States – and it is likely to continue to play an important role in the health care system.

Before 2020, patients rarely got their health care virtually. About 1.7% of Medicare patients – 910,490 people – used telehealth for medical appointments in 2019. These were mostly patients in rural areas, and only certain clinics were authorized to offer it.

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government expanded telehealth coverage for people insured by Medicare to make it easier for patients to maintain access to health care. Many insurance companies did, too. The number of Medicare patients using telehealth services jumped to 53% in 2021, corresponding to nearly 28.3 million telehealth users at the peak of the pandemic.

While telehealth appointments overall – not just for people with Medicare coverage – have dropped since the height of the pandemic, they remain much higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to data from Epic, the largest electronic medical record company in the U.S.

Legislation passed in 2021 made Medicare’s coverage of telehealth permanent for mental health services. But coverage for accessing care via telehealth for other types of health conditions, such as respiratory infections or diabetes, is set to expire in 2027 – and policymakers are still deciding whether to continue it.

Our findings underscore the important role that telehealth has come to serve in enabling older adults to access health care for all types of acute and chronic medical conditions. Emerging research suggests it can help them see their providers more consistently without compromising the quality of care compared to in-person visits.

Limiting access to telehealth services could reverse recent gains in access for older adults – particularly for patients who have geographical or health limitations that can make getting to in-person appointments challenging.

What still isn’t known

While our study sheds light on who used telehealth and for what medical conditions, several important questions remain.

First, we did not explicitly examine quality of care. More research is needed to pin down whether telehealth visits are comparable to in-person visits for treating different conditions. My colleagues and I plan to explore this issue for specific conditions, such as diabetes.

Second, our analysis focused on people who have Medicare coverage. Patterns may differ for younger patients or those with other kinds of health insurance.

However, our study aligns with others that have examined telehealth use since the pandemic.

While no single study or report is perfect, the overall evidence suggests that telehealth can help improve access to care and appears to be a reasonable alternative – either by itself or as a complement to in-person care for certain medical conditions.

Terrence Liu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Telehealth is widely used by older adults insured by Medicare, new research shows – https://theconversation.com/telehealth-is-widely-used-by-older-adults-insured-by-medicare-new-research-shows-276566

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Max Crowley, Professor of Human Development, Family Studies and Public Policy, Penn State

Since early 2025, several large federal health grants to states have been suspended and then restored after legal challenges. On Feb. 13, 2026, for example, the federal government moved to suspend about US$600 million in public health grants to four states before a federal court temporarily blocked the action. Hundreds of millions of dollars that had already been allocated by Congress were briefly put on hold before the court intervened.

From the outside, these episodes may look like routine disputes between states and the federal government, as such cancellations do happen. But inside state agencies and in communities, they create something more consequential: uncertainty that interrupts crucial public health programs – even if states ultimately get the money.

As a scholar who studies how to build infrastructure for preventing human suffering, I’ve seen how instability – even when temporary – changes how agencies and the communities they serve plan, hire and invest.

Even when funding is eventually restored, repeated cycles in which funding is frozen and then temporarily reinstated, pending lawsuits, can disrupt how public health systems operate. This, in turn, erodes the public health infrastructure that federal funding helps build and maintain.

That infrastructure includes vaccination clinics, restaurant sanitation inspections, opioid response teams, school violence prevention, maternal health programs and disease surveillance systems, to name a few. Programs like this play a critical role in public health, but because they focus on preventing problems before they occur, many people aren’t away of the critical need for them until something goes wrong.

Most disruptions never make headlines, but they affect services communities rely on.

Public health depends on continuity

Despite the heavy media focus on emergency response during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, most public health work is long-term planning built around multiyear prevention strategies.

Federal grants support epidemiologists, prevention specialists, behavioral health providers and data analysts. They fund disease surveillance systems, maternal and child health initiatives, substance use prevention programs and partnerships with community organizations. These efforts operate on multiyear timelines. Each one requires hiring staff, bringing on outside contractors and service providers, and setting up systems to track outcomes.

When funding is suddenly paused or regulatory environments change, agencies cannot simply wait for clarity. Hiring slows. Leaders draft contingency plans in case the suspension becomes permanent. Many state and local employees begin exploring more stable employment opportunities.

National workforce surveys show that roughly 1 in 4 state public health employees report considering leaving their job within a year. In 2023, local health departments lost an average of 19% of their staff, reflecting how the COVID-19 pandemic strained the public health workforce. In a small county health department, where the entire staff may consist of only four to seven people, losing even a single nurse or disease investigator can significantly disrupt services.

If funding is later restored, as has occurred in several cases in 2025 and early 2026, agencies must reverse course. They reissue guidance, renegotiate contracts and reassure partners. But the disruption has already consumed time and public resources.

Some projects and communities may not fully recover. Volatility creates costs even when the money returns.

The financial and administrative cost of legal battles

Suing the federal government over funding suspensions is expensive. When states challenge federal decisions, state attorneys general devote staff time and legal resources. Health departments must coordinate with lawyers, compile documentation and model alternative budget scenarios. Senior leaders shift attention from program oversight to legal and fiscal risk management.

Those administrative hours are funded by taxpayers. They represent real expenditures, though they rarely appear in public debate. And while litigation proceeds – often for months – agencies must prepare for multiple possible outcomes.

The uncertainty itself shapes planning. Agencies may hesitate to launch new initiatives if funding could disappear midstream. They may shorten contracts, delay hiring or scale back expansion plans to reduce exposure. Over time, that caution can slow implementation and limit innovation.

Instability extends beyond grant dollars

Suspended funding is not the only source of instability. The federal government has also announced structural changes within some health agencies, starting with a major reorganization of the Department of Health and Human Services in March 2025. These changes, too, inject uncertainty into how public health systems operate.

For example, federal health officials recently indicated they plan to significantly scale back the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families.

Since 1995, that office has studied the impact of programs serving families and children, including Head Start, the foster care system and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Independent research and policy organizations, including the Data Foundation and Results for America, warn that interrupting those studies could undermine states’ ability to assess and improve these programs.

Similarly, recent grant terminations and restructuring within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which administers major behavioral health grants to states, have introduced uncertainty. When staff supported by grants are cut or funding terms shift abruptly, payments can be delayed, reporting guidance becomes unclear, and local treatment providers may struggle to plan. For communities trying to prevent opioid overdoses or rising mental health needs, even short-term disruption can be a matter of life or death.

Pausing or reorganizing such studies midstream disrupts the ability to understand what works and what doesn’t. Experienced staff may leave. Rebuilding that expertise can take years.

Prevention is especially vulnerable

Almost by definition, people take prevention for granted. If programs focused on vaccination, substance use treatment and youth mental health are effective, many people never experience the crises that might have occurred without them.

But prevention depends on continuity: sustained staffing, stable partnerships and consistent data collection. The effects of disruption are difficult to measure in a single budget cycle, but they influence how confidently agencies invest in long-term strategies. In that sense, funding instability can become a public health issue of its own.

Policy priorities will always evolve. Courts review executive actions. Congress revisits allocations. Change is part of governance. But if policymakers want stronger, more resilient public health infrastructure, stability is not simply administrative convenience. It is part of the foundation that makes prevention and preparedness possible.

Max Crowley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Public health needs steady budgets – and federal funding uncertainty cause real harms, even if the money is later restored – https://theconversation.com/public-health-needs-steady-budgets-and-federal-funding-uncertainty-cause-real-harms-even-if-the-money-is-later-restored-276500

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Carolina Rossini, Professor of Practice and Director for Program, Public Interest Technology Initiative, UMass Amherst

A Los Angeles courtroom is hosting what may become the most consequential legal challenge Big Tech has ever faced.

This is an inflection point in the global debate over Big Tech liability: For the first time, an American jury is being asked to decide whether platform design itself can give rise to product liability – not because of what users post on them, but because of how they were built.

As a technology policy and law scholar, I believe that the decision, whatever the outcome, will likely generate a powerful domino effect in the United States and across jurisdictions worldwide.

The case

The plaintiff is a 20-year-old California woman identified by her initials, K.G.M. She said she began using YouTube around age 6 and created an Instagram account at age 9. Her lawsuit and testimony allege that the platforms’ design features, which include likes, algorithmic recommendation engines, infinite scroll, autoplay and deliberately unpredictable rewards, got her addicted. The suit alleges that her addiction fueled depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia – when someone see themselves as ugly or disfigured when they aren’t – and suicidal thoughts.

TikTok and Snapchat settled with K.G.M. before trial for undisclosed sums, leaving Meta and Google as the remaining defendants. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the jury on Feb. 18, 2026.

The stakes extend far beyond one plaintiff. K.G.M.’s case is a bellwether trial, meaning the court chose it as a representative test case to help determine verdicts across all connected cases. Those cases involve approximately 1,600 plaintiffs, including more than 350 families and over 250 school districts. Their claims have been consolidated in a California Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding, No. 5255.

The California proceeding shares legal teams and evidence pool, including internal Meta documents, with a federal multidistrict litigation that is scheduled to advance in court later this year, bringing together thousands of federal lawsuits.

Legal innovation: Design as defect

For decades, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded technology companies from liability for content that their users post. Whenever people sued over harms linked to social media, companies invoked Section 230, and the cases typically died early.

The K.G.M. litigation uses a different legal strategy: negligence-based product liability. The plaintiffs argue that the harm arises not from third-party content but from the platforms’ own engineering and design decisions, the “informational architecture” and features that shape users’ experience of content. Infinite scrolling, autoplay, notifications calibrated to heighten anxiety and variable-reward systems operate on the same behavioral principles as slot machines.

These are conscious product design choices, and the plaintiffs contend they should be subject to the same safety obligations as any other manufactured product, thereby holding their makers accountable for negligence, strict liability or breach of warranty of fitness.

Judge Carolyn Kuhl of the California Superior Court agreed that these claims warranted a jury trial. In her Nov. 5, 2025, ruling denying Meta’s motion for summary judgment, she distinguished between features related to content publishing, which Section 230 might protect, and features like notification timing, engagement loops and the absence of meaningful parental controls, which it might not.

Here, Kuhl established that the conduct-versus-content distinction – treating algorithmic design choices as the company’s own conduct rather than as the protected publication of third-party speech – was a viable legal theory for a jury to evaluate. This fine-grained approach, evaluating each design feature individually and recognizing the increased complexities of technology products’ design, represents a potential road map for courts nationwide.

What the companies knew

The product liability theory depends partly on what companies knew about the risks of their designs. The 2021 leak of internal Meta documents, widely known as the “Facebook Papers,” revealed that the company’s own researchers had flagged concerns about Instagram’s effects on adolescent body image and mental health.

Internal communications disclosed in the K.G.M. proceedings have included exchanges among Meta employees comparing the platform’s effects to pushing drugs and gambling. Whether this internal awareness constitutes the kind of corporate knowledge that supports liability is a central factual question for the jury to decide.

There is a clear analogy to tobacco litigation. In the 1990s, plaintiffs succeeded against tobacco companies by proving they had concealed evidence about the addictive and deadly nature of their products. In K.G.M., the plaintiffs here are making the same core argument: Where there is corporate knowledge, deliberate targeting and public denial, liability follows.

K.G.M.’s lead trial attorney, Mark Lanier, is the same lawyer who won multibillion-dollar verdicts in the Johnson & Johnson baby powder litigation, signaling the scale of accountability they are pursuing.

The science: Contested but consequential

The scientific evidence on social media and youth mental health is real but genuinely complex. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) does not classify social media use as an addictive disorder. Researchers like Amy Orben have found that large-scale studies show small average associations between social media use and reduced well-being.

Yet Orben herself has cautioned that these averages might mask severe harms experienced by a subset of vulnerable young users, particularly girls ages 12 to 15. The legal question under the negligence theory is not whether social media harms everyone equally, but whether platform designers had an obligation to account for foreseeable interactions between their design features and the vulnerabilities of developing minds, especially when internal evidence suggested they were aware of the risks.

First, a manufacturer has a duty to exercise reasonable care in designing its product, and that duty extends to harms that are reasonably foreseeable. Second, the plaintiff must show that the type of injury suffered was a foreseeable consequence of the design choice. The manufacturer doesn’t need to have foreseen the exact injury to the exact plaintiff, but the general category of harm must have been within the range of what a reasonable designer would anticipate.

This is why the Facebook Papers and internal Meta research are so legally significant in K.G.M.’s case: They go directly to establishing that the company’s own researchers identified the specific categories of harm – depression, body dysmorphia, compulsive use patterns among adolescent girls – that the plaintiff alleges she suffered. If the company’s own data flagged these risks and leadership continued on the same design trajectory, that would considerably strengthen the foreseeability element.

Why it matters

Even if the science is unsettled, the legal and policy landscape is shifting fast. In 2025 alone, 20 states in the U.S. enacted new laws governing children’s social media use. And this wave is not only in the U.S.; countries such as the U.K., Australia, Denmark, France and Brazil are also moving forward with specific legislation, including mandates banning social media for those under 16.

The K.G.M. trial represents something more fundamental: the proposition that algorithmic design decisions are product decisions, carrying real obligations of safety and accountability. If this framework takes hold, every platform will need to reconsider not just what content appears, but why and how it is delivered.

I was staff at organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Harvard Berkman Klein Center, which were funded by various foundations and companies. Refer to their websites for disclosures. I was a staff member in the connectivity policy team at Facebook (2016-2018). I am an advisory board member of non-profits, including Internet Lab (Brazil) and Derechos Digitales (Chile). I am a senior advisor (without any honorarium) at the Datasphere Initiative and Portulans Institute. More details at https://www.carolinarossini.net/bio

– ref. How Instagram addictiveness lawsuit could reshape social media – platform design meets product liability – https://theconversation.com/how-instagram-addictiveness-lawsuit-could-reshape-social-media-platform-design-meets-product-liability-277066