Youran joins Penn Wharton Budget Model as a recent graduate from Columbia University with a master’s degree in Economics. She has a sound theoretical grounding and practical experience in the fields of development economics and public finance. Her research interest includes macroeconomics research and policy analysis, with a focus on development and labor.
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.
The current Social Security program faces a significant shortfall, equal to 4.2 percent of all future covered payroll over the next 75 years. This shortfall persists under alternative and favorable projections of fertility, interest rates, immigration and the projected impact of AI on future wages.
PWBM estimates that exempting from immigrants with advanced STEM degrees from numerical limitations on green cards would reduce deficits by $129 billion over the 2025-2034 period and by $634 billion over the 2035-2044 period.
The economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic were widely expected to fall disproportionally on women. Instead, the employment rate of prime age women recovered faster than men’s and rose to its highest point in U.S. history in 2023. We show that the resilience of women’s employment is driven by two long-term trends that predate the pandemic and continued through it: 1) the growing share of women who are college graduates, and 2) the rising labor force participation of college-educated mothers with young children.
We estimate that each new preschooler for a universal pre-K program requires about $21,000 in new construction costs for facilities expansion. Including non-construction costs, a universal pre-K program for three- and four-year-olds will cost about $351 billion over the 10-year budget window. If made permanent after 10 years, this program will have essentially no impact on long-run GDP. A pre-K program for just four-year-olds reduces the 10-year cost to $196 billion and slightly increases long-run GDP, if that program is made permanent.
Using recently available data on learning loss from pandemic school closures, PWBM estimates that projected 2051 GDP is 1.4 percent lower than it would have been without the learning loss. Extending the 2021-22 school year for all public schools by one month would cost $78 billion and limit the reduction in 2051 GDP to 1.0 percent—a net present value gain in GDP of more than $1 trillion over the next three decades, equal to a $15.14 return for each $1 invested.
By 2051, we find that a combination of targeted preschool and targeted childcare programs increase GDP by 0.1 percent relative to current policy, even if deficit financed. Universal versions of these programs are more costly and would instead reduce GDP by 0.2 percent by 2051.
PWBM estimates that President Biden’s FY2022 budget proposal would increase spending by $5.9 trillion and increase revenue by $3.9 trillion over the 2022-2031 budget window. By 2050, we project that the President’s budget proposals would decrease public debt by 7.3 percent and decrease GDP by 1.1 percent relative to current law.
PWBM estimates that the learning loss from school closures reduced GDP by 3.6 percent in 2050. Extending the 2021-22 school year by one month would cost about $75 billion nationally but would limit the reduction in GDP to 3.1 percent. This smaller reduction in GDP produces a net present value gain of $1.2 trillion over the next three decades, equal to about a $16 return for each $1 invested in extending the 2021-22 school year.
PWBM estimates that schools in the Philadelphia and surrounding suburb districts with more Black students are less likely to reopen with in-person instruction relative to schools with more White students, even after controlling for differences in income by district. By March 2021, Black students in grades K-5 have incurred a 11.9 percent loss in lifetime income from school closures while White students have lost 10.4 percent. Students educated in the city face larger losses than students educated in the surrounding suburbs.
