Alexander Arnon leads much of PWBM’s applied policy analysis work, with primary responsibility for microsimulation modeling and conventional budget scoring. His work spans a wide range of policy areas—including tax policy, immigration, demographics, labor markets, and major fiscal legislation—and focuses on producing timely, rigorous estimates of how policy changes affect the federal budget and U.S. economy.
Alex joined PWBM as its first analyst in 2015. Previously, he was an analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. His work is regularly cited by policymakers and in media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Bloomberg.
He received a B.A. with honors in economics from McGill University.
DOL's proposed prevailing wage increase would nearly double the compensation effect of the new wage-weighted H-1B lottery, raising mean selected-registrant pay by $20,611 (+18.4%) over the prior random lottery.
We analyze how employers could exploit DHS' new H-1B lottery rules by reclassifying positions into closely related occupations with lower prevailing wages to increase their chance of selection. We find that 61 percent of registrations would achieve a higher wage level through reclassification, undoing 42 percent of the expected compensation increase.
We project that the new DHS H-1B selection rule, going into effect in March 2026, will shift the H-1B visa allocation toward higher-paid and higher-education foreign-born workers, but by less than alternative designs being debated. Based on data from the current random lottery in the last five years, we estimate that the new DHS rule will have no significant impact on wages of U.S.-born workers, including non-college, college-educated, and STEM workers. Any reduction in competition from fewer STEM H-1Bs is offset by a reduction in productivity growth.
Over 700,000 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients lose legal status by the end of 2025, including 550,000 who are legally working. We estimate that TPS recipients contribute over $36 billion in annual GDP. Withdrawing their work authorization could add to labor shortages in construction, cleaning, and hospitality, especially in Florida, Texas and New York.
PWBM estimates that the COVID-era Employee Retention Credit (ERC) will have cost more than $300 billion when the IRS finishes processing claims later in 2025, nearly four times the initial projected cost. Most of the ERC was paid retroactively, well after pandemic-related economic disruptions had ended, limiting its effectiveness as a worker retention incentive.
We estimate that AI will increase productivity and GDP by 1.5% by 2035, nearly 3% by 2055, and 3.7% by 2075. AI’s boost to annual productivity growth is strongest in the early 2030s but eventually fades, with a permanent effect of less than 0.04 percentage points due to sectoral shifts.
Treasury data through April 28 shows that tax receipts are broadly in line with government projections made earlier this year, before the downsizing of the IRS was announced. Receipts from tariffs have significantly exceeded projections.
The deduction for pass-through income under section 199A provides a benefit in excess of 20 percent (“excess benefit”) for some taxpayers due to its interaction with the progressive tax rate system. As Congress considers extending 199A beyond 2025, options to remove the excess benefit while maintaining the 20 percent tax benefit could raise between $46B and $178B over the 10-year budget window, depending on design.
A package of 13 major tax and spending reforms, based on standard public economics design principles, is shown to reduce federal debt, increase social insurance, and expand the economy more than any previously analyzed policies by PWBM.
The COVID-19 spike in mortality is the pandemic’s most direct demographic consequence, but not the only one. Factoring in changes in fertility, disruptions to immigration, and indirect demographic spillovers, we estimate that the pandemic reduced the U.S. population 0.5 percent over the long term.
