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Matt Unrath

@mattunrath.bsky.social
1.2K followers 522 following 40 posts

Assistant Professor at USC Price School of Public Policy. www.mattunrath.com

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Reposted by Matt Unrath
Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 24/09/2026
Administration gags public servants from serving public talkingpointsmemo.com/news/exclusi...
talkingpointsmemo.com
Exclusive: Census Bureau Directs Staff to Keep Quiet During Comment Period for Controversial New Rule
Leadership at the Census Bureau has ordered staff to halt all external...
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Chloe N East (she/her) @chloeneast.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
New from me @jasonbcook.bsky.social & @elizabethacox.bsky.social with CBPP on SNAP Administrative burdens can lead to procedural denials, where applicants are rejected not due to ineligibility, but because they are unable to navigate the complex processes www.cbpp.org/research/foo...
cbpp.org
Administrative Burden and Procedural Denials in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
The effectiveness of the SNAP program is hampered by complex administrative processes that create significant barriers for potential participants.
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UChicago | Stone Center on Wealth Inequality & Mobility @ucstonecenter.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Who studies inequality, and does it matter? Historian of economics Béatrice Cherrier (@undercoverhist.bsky.social) takes on this question with her research, examining whether the imbalances and hierarchies within the field shape how economists understand inequality. Listen here → bit.ly/4xmKDVJ
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The California Policy Lab @capolicylab.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Skilled programmer who is passionate about improving policy and programs in California? So are we! Join the California Policy Lab's UC Berkeley site as our next Senior Data Analyst. First review is Aug 27th. capolicylab.org/careers/seni...
Senior Data Analyst
UC Berkeley site
We’re hiring a skilled programmer who:

Wants to inform policy development and improvements in California

Is fluent in multiple programming languages

Is experienced with large administrative datasets

First review date is August 27th
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Lauren Bauer @laurenhlb.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
New analysis from me & Diane Schanzenbach, possibly my favorite piece ever: We study the SNAP payment error rate and explain why tying how much a state will have to contribute toward SNAP payments to its PER is inherently empirically unstable. Remand. www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/...
A policy that could cause states to drop out of the SNAP program due to chance should not be left to chance. SNAP should be fully federally funded.Figure 3 shows confidence intervals around the point estimates for a states SNAP payment error rate in FY2023. The confidence intervals are larger than the bins.
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Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Amy O’Hara wrote up a longer piece on all of the red flags in the ‘Census’ report on noncitizen voting. mdi.georgetown.edu/response-to-...
mdi.georgetown.edu
Dissecting the “Beginning Analysis” of Noncitizen Voting - Massive Data Institute
Author: Amy O’Hara,  Director of the Massive Data Institute at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University Rigorous scientific research into voting in U.S. elections consistently finds ...
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Plenty to reflect about re: the Arday affair, but I'm going to repeat this one thing. The playbook the right used here is effective even though it's not especially sophisticated, as it relies on the audience to do the dirty work. I've been calling it "Trojan horse propaganda", let's go with that. 1/
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Joe Cohen @cohenhouse.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Imagine how great Los Angeles will be with a mayor who says "yes" to building homes!
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COPAFS @copafs.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Concerning news regarding using DP for federal statistics (AKA public data). Coarsening or suppression will be the new privacy safeguards of choice. This has implications well beyond the Commerce Dept.
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Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 03/06/2026
Update. The administration did NOT try to reclassify any positions in BLS, Census, nor BEA from civil service to political. They're moving some economist positions at Treasury and OMB and Chief of Staff at the Ag Economic Research Service to political control through Schedule Policy/Career.
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Ben Casselman @bencasselman.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
So on the same day that BLS reported the lowest household survey response rate on record, the White House is proposing further budget cuts. Pretty much every economist that I've talked to says that we should be investing more money in the statistical system right now, not less.
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Larry Levitt @larrylevitt.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
The latest episode of The Pitt shows how people fall through the cracks. A mom works as a hair stylist with unpredictable income and misses the Medicaid renewal notice when they changed apartments. Her teenaged son ends up in the ER because they couldn't afford his asthma drug.
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Honestly it feels sort of miraculous that there's a credible LA mayoral candidate who genuinely wants to end the city's housing crisis therealdeal.com/la/2026/03/2...
therealdeal.com
Mayoral hopeful Raman calls out “delay and denial,” aims to triple resi production in LA
LA City Council Member Nithya Raman revealed a plan to boost housing production in the city, while cutting permitting red tape.
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David Brady @davebrady72.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
We’re delighted to announce a tenure track ASSISTANT PROFESSOR SEARCH. Fields: public management, implementation, governance, institutions & policy process. We will start reviewing applicants immediately & until position is filled. Start date is negotiable. usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...
usccareers.usc.edu
Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Management at USC
Learn more about applying for Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Management at USC
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Ben Casselman @bencasselman.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
But we shouldn't take this system for granted. There are very real strains on it, and a very real need to modernize, including by relying less heavily on surveys. That will require resources. And if that doesn't happen, the quality of the data will erode.
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The California Policy Lab @capolicylab.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
"California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office warned that the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act could strip hundreds of millions of dollars a year in #CalFresh food aid from low-income Californians and shift billions in costs to state and counties." www.sacbee.com/news/local/a...
sacbee.com
California legislative analyst warns SNAP cuts will strain, family state budgets
Federal Big Beautiful Bill will slash CalFresh benefits, drop thousands from aid and shift billions in costs to California and counties.
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Jon Rothbaum @jlrothbaum.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
To be useful in my government-shutdown time off, I've worked on public-use analogs to tools that have been useful at work. jrothbaum.github.io/survey_kit/ - a package for complex survey data, handling nonrespresentative samples in surveys/polls, properly handling missing data, etc.
jrothbaum.github.io
Survey-Kit
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Jesse Rothstein @jrothst.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Come join us at the @capolicylab.bsky.social as our new policy director in Sacramento!
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Lauren Bauer @laurenhlb.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
This is unacceptable. www.wsj.com/economy/trum...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Trump Administration Cancels Annual Hunger Survey
The government has been measuring food insecurity since the mid-1990s, but now says the report has become “overly politicized.”
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Marc Vukcevich, a policy director for the LA-based transit and pedestrian advocacy group Streets For All, a co-sponsor of the bill, said he didn’t think the city of Los Angeles’ opposition to the measure carried much weight.

“The Legislature knows that LA is a deeply unserious actor when it comes to housing,” he said.
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Charlotte Garden @charlottegarden.bsky.social · 01/09/2025
“a university, non-profit, or media outlet that engages in union-busting in 2025 is making a strategic mistake, prioritizing limited short-term benefits over the big picture.” www.acslaw.org/expertforum/...
acslaw.org
To Defeat Authoritarianism, We Need Labor | ACS
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Erika McEntarfer @erikamcentarfer.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
It has been the honor of my life to serve as Commissioner of BLS alongside the many dedicated civil servants tasked with measuring a vast and dynamic economy. It is vital and important work and I thank them for their service to this nation.
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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 01/08/2025
From @hshierholz.bsky.social: Trump's firing of BLS commissioner is undemocratic and economically dangerous. Between illegal firings, starving data agencies of resources, and now political intimidation, the US looks set to run into the next economic downturn flying blind www.epi.org/press/trumps...
screenshot of the linked post titled "Trump’s firing of BLS commissioner is undemocratic and economically dangerous" by Heidi Shierholz, which reads: 

Today, Trump directed his team to fire the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) because he didn’t like the jobs numbers they released. This is a move straight out of an autocratic playbook.

BLS is one of the most respected statistical agencies in the world, known for its methodological rigor, independence, and transparency. The president’s belief that the BLS commissioner personally “produced” the jobs numbers is preposterous and shows a complete misunderstanding of how government statistical agencies operate. These data are the product of careful work by hundreds of expert economists, statisticians, and civil servants following transparent, well-established methodologies.
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
👇👇👇
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Arin Dube @arindube.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
A timely and trenchant piece by Suresh Naidu. When future generations sift through the wreckage of our era, they’ll find it strewn with the institutional and personal failures of leaders both great and small. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Columbia’s Administrators Are Fooling Themselves
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Conor Lamb @conorlambpa.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
I hope Pope Leo continues to speak against starvation and barbarity in Gaza and U.S. bishops continue to defend those targeted for arrest and internment here. The Church has a unique, non-ideological voice on behalf of the dispossessed and displaced, like Jesus himself was.
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
BLS and Census are planning to put the CPS online within a few years to help address these nonresponse issues, but currently have nowhere near the funding they need to test the new internet instrument or study how that transition will impact official statistics.
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Do you remember when child poverty fell to a record low in 2021 thanks to the expanded CTC? It turns out that the SPM for kids was just as low in 2020 thanks to historically generous unemployment benefits. We missed it because UI is so under-reported in the CPS ASEC.
The figure includes three charts showing alternative estimates of the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The first figure shows the rate for everyone, the second for kids and the third for seniors. The estimates from a blend of survey and administrative data find lower poverty rates than those just based on survey data.
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Joshua Smith @smithmachine.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Senate Parliamentarian advises several more GOP provisions violate the Byrd Rule, including the provision to mandate states cover a portion of SNAP benefits.
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Ben Casselman @bencasselman.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Powell says he is concerned about the impact of cuts at the statistical agencies. High-quality statistics are "a huge public good," he says. "I hate to see us cutting back on that... I would want to continue investing in that for the good of the general public." #EconSky
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SEIU California @seiuca.org · 08/06/2025
Military style ICE raids in our communities. David Huerta was beaten and dragged away. Because he saw them and stood up for justice. Because he’s not afraid. Neither are we. On MONDAY let's #FreeDavidHuerta, #FreeThemAll 11:00 AM @ Grand Park in Downtown LA (200 N Grand Ave)
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Jon Rothbaum @jlrothbaum.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
If you use Stata and parquet files, I developed a stata plugin that could help: ideas.repec.org/c/boc/bocode.... You can read/write parquet files directly from stata (Caveat: tested on windows and linux, but not mac)
ideas.repec.org
PQ: Stata module to read, write, and manage Parquet files in
pq provides commands for working with Apache Parquet files in Stata. Parquet is a columnar storage file format designed to efficiently store and process large datasets. This package allows Stata users
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Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
I was curious how the Medicaid cuts the House passed stacked up historically. That's a big lift, but @standorn.bsky.social did the numbers. It's the largest on record, twice the size of the early 1980s Reagan cuts. Same is true for SNAP. Here's my write-up: mikekonczal.substack.com/p/the-house-...
mikekonczal.substack.com
The House Just Passed The Biggest Medicaid Cut in U.S. History, Twice the Size of Reagan's Cuts
So much for realignment. New analysis from UnidosUS shows the House’s cuts to Medicaid and SNAP are unprecedented, twice as large as anything under President Reagan,
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Emily Badger @emmbadger.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
The reconciliation bill passed by the House GOP yesterday alters the social safety net in many significant ways that are easy to miss if you blink. Let’s take, for one, SNAP, a program where the federal government currently pays 100% of benefits.
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Erica Groshen @ericagroshen.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Not a good idea to convert the leaders of the federal statistical agencies into political appointees. It would undermine trust. Send in your comment today to object to this change in the federal civil service. This article has the link. #econsky
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Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 17/04/2025
IRS Direct File is clear-cut government success story, a shining example of efficiency and social value Every year it will save Americans billions of dollars and hundreds of millions of hours in tax preparation costs So of course Trump and Musk want to kill it
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
Screenshot from an article describing staffing cuts in the HHS office responsible for calculating federal poverty guidelines.
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Charlotte Garden @charlottegarden.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
In a nuts-and-bolts sense, I think I have a good sense of how this happens. But in a much more important sense, it’s incomprehensible that schools are still taking this stance when democracy is on the line
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Hard to overstate how mean and misguided this is.
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Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) @hansilowang.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
NEW: The Census Bureau hasn't been recruiting and retaining enough interviewers for three key surveys, including the source of the monthly job report, and lacks a plan for building up a field representative staff, the bureau's internal watchdog, Commerce OIG, finds www.oig.doc.gov/wp-content/O...
WHAT WE FOUND

We found that the bureau does not have effective strategies to address staffing gaps and high vacancies in FR positions. Specifically, the bureau did not:

• Meet its staffing goals for ACS, CPS, and NCVS.
• Implement a process to track and assess vacancy information from the regions.

Without a workforce plan, the bureau lacks a comprehensive strategy to ensure it has the necessary FR staff to help accomplish its mission of providing high-quality data. Unaddressed FR staffing gaps increase the risks of lower response rates on surveys and higher attrition of other field staff, who bear the burden of increased workloads. Developing and implementing a workforce plan for FRs will help the bureau address the issues we identify in this report.
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Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) @hansilowang.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
NEW: The Commerce Department is giving federal employees at the Census Bureau and most other parts of the department until April 17 to apply for a voluntary early retirement authority or voluntary separation incentive payments offer if they're offboarded by May 3, according to emails shared with NPR
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Dani Sandler @dismalscientist86.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
The Society of Government Economists is holding back-to-back mentoring workshops on transitioning between sectors The first one is on March 4th at 6pm EST The second is on March 13th at 7pm EST mailchi.mp/a681e5651456...
TWO Virtual Mentoring Events 

Jobs for Economists: Transitioning Between Sectors
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
"To target this tiny portion of the federal budget in such a haphazard and irresponsible way is going to cost people's lives and livelihoods," Colecchi said. "It is not a thoughtful or humane way to go about treating programs that help the poorest of the poor all over the world."
ncronline.org
Exclusive: Catholic Relief Services lays off staff, cuts programs after USAID shakeup
An internal email says CRS is likely to be cut in half this year from Trump's freeze of U.S. foreign assistance. Cuts will "cost people's lives and livelihoods," a former bishops' conference official ...
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
And now these data have been taken down again! Where's the public statement clarifying what data is being made unavailable, for what reason, and when it will be restored?
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Most of these public use files now appear to be back online. ACS still seems to be down.
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
What Census research is now unavailable? All CES papers are down: www.census.gov/library/work... All SEHSD, CED, ADEP, POP working papers published before 2024 appear to be down: www.census.gov/library/work... Some 2024 and 2025 papers are still up.
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Check out our new and improved estimates of post-tax + disposable income and poverty -- produced by some very hardworking and dedicated federal government workers.
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Bitsy Perlman @bitsyperlman.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
It's such a weird thing to hear the news and think "that's bad, but also I have a paper about (an aspect) of that" Funding delays are really not great for people who work in science. Funding delays of > 30 days lead to: - 40% increase in scientists exiting US labor force - 20% decrease in wages
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Matt Unrath @mattunrath.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
This is ultimately the same old argument against any type of redistribution. No different from "We have to cut SNAP to stop surfers from buying lobsters." But it's shocking to see it applied to this example.
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Jacob Goldin @jacobsgoldin.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
Whether you care about fairness or fiscal responsibility, cutting the IRS’s enforcement budget (as many Republicans have proposed) would be an absolute disaster. New evidence from back-to-back studies in the latest @qjeharvard.bsky.social ... (1/4)
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