Manhattan Institute

It's been less than 2 months since the @CityJournal team came to California. So far, they've uncovered: - Gavin Newsom has subsidized the migrant invasion - California provides sex-change procedures to homeless illegal aliens - California's "in-home care" program loses an estimated $6-$12 billion a year to fraud - Fraudsters, scammers, and organized crime rings have stolen an estimated $180 billion or more from taxpayers on Newsom's watch - California is building a $114 million butterfly bridge - San Francisco's mayor revived a benefit program once lauded as a step toward "reparations" Yes, this is all real. ⬇️ city-journal.org/article/califo… city-journal.org/article/homele… city-journal.org/article/califo… city-journal.org/article/gavin-… city-journal.org/article/califo… city-journal.org/article/san-fr…

The Chicago Teachers Union encouraged kids to skip class on Friday for "May Day" protests. @DanielDiMartino joined @marthamaccallum to discuss: "The Chicago Teachers Union used to send their teachers to Venezuela to learn how to indoctrinate American students... Of course they're also telling the kids, 'come support us'... Teachers unions have no right to get kids out of class to support their political activities. They should be investigated."

Recent funding for campus "mental health services" has gone to things like pet therapy, awareness campaigns, relaxation rooms, and even DEI initiatives. @CarolynGorman_ breaks down her latest report on what's really going on in higher education: manhattan.institute/article/the-tr…

Incredibly proud to work with @reihan at the Manhattan Institute. This captures so much of what makes MI special: a love of dynamism, capitalism, urbanity, and the American project. I too grew up with MI's writers and ideas. It's a privilege to work here wsj.com/opinion/reihan…

Available now. I was honored to write the foreword for the 25th anniversary edition of Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass by Theodore Dalrymple. As you can probably tell from the title, the book is about life at the bottom of society. Not just in terms of money but in terms of behavior, values, and daily choices. Drawing on his many years working as a doctor with prison inmates and patients in low-income neighborhoods, Theodore Dalrymple describes how violence, addiction, broken families, and despair are sustained not only by material hardship but by ideas that excuse bad behavior and reject personal responsibility. Dalrymple challenges a comforting story. Many people believe poverty is mainly about a lack of resources or unfair systems. This book argues that culture and norms matter just as much, sometimes more. When society stops expecting discipline, self-control, and accountability, the people who most need those guardrails suffer the most. I read the original version of Life at the Bottom about a decade ago when I was in college. One of the most important books I’ve ever read. Writing this foreword for the 25th anniversary edition feels like coming full circle. First living the world Dalrymple describes, then discovering his work in college, and now helping to bring it to new readers. Strongly recommended. It is available today. Get your copy here: us.amazon.com/Life-Bottom-Wo…

American K-12 public education spending reached $1 trillion for the first time in 2024. Most states with increased education budgets have not improved student outcomes, and some have even experienced declines. What they have done is hire staff. A lot of staff. @dany_egorov in @realDailyWire: dailywire.com/news/were-spen…

I couldn't be more proud to work for @Reihan Salam and the @ManhattanInst. This @WSJ weekend interview captures something essential about both: a deep belief that decline is not inevitable—and that serious people, armed with evidence and conviction, can change the trajectory of a city and a nation. Reihan’s worldview was shaped by firsthand experience—including a moment as a teenager when he had a knife held to his throat outside his parents' Brooklyn home. That experience sharpened his sense of the fragility of order, the importance of public safety, and the simple but often ignored truth that civilization depends on competent institutions and a culture that values responsibility and achievement. At a moment when figures like Zohran Mamdani are advancing a politics rooted in grievance, scarcity, and zero-sum thinking, the Manhattan Institute is making the opposite case: New York’s future depends on abundance, ambition, and the freedom to build. The city’s problems are solvable. We are not powerless. We’re going well beyond critiquing bad ideas. We’re equipping leaders with better ones—providing the language, the data, and the confidence to push back, shaping the intellectual environment now, and laying the groundwork for what comes next. Never blackpill. Fight for America—all of America. wsj.com/opinion/reihan…

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California’s 911 dispatch system is a disaster: an aging network in collapse, a stalled replacement, and residents facing dropped emergency calls. Still, delays and cost overruns persist, @christopherrufo and @StrackHaley report: city-journal.org/article/califo…

A range of policy debates—from rising extremism and NYC’s wage proposals to California’s 911 system—is shaping outcomes across cities and states. MI scholars examine today’s critical issues🧵

Terrell Dunn's new report details how Workforce Pell can drive institutional renewal and student success: manhattan.institute/article/workfo…

The Workforce Pell program represents the most significant expansion of federal student aid in decades. With "nontraditional" students now making up the majority of college enrollments, Workforce Pell can help colleges adapt—if they are prepared to implement it thoughtfully.

The full investigation from @christopherrufo and @StrackHaley details exactly what happened with California's failed 911 system overhaul and the legacy system that risks "catastrophic failure": city-journal.org/article/califo…

"Gavin Newsom, in his first year in office, promised to deliver a brand new 911 system within 3 years for $132 million. Now it is 7 years later, almost $500 million has been spent, and the system they rolled out as pilots was such a disaster...a whistleblower told us it might have left one man dead because the calls dropped when he was seeking help from 911." On Fox Business, @christopherrufo discusses his latest @CityJournal investigation into California's 911 system:

The bodega owner, 28-year-old Abdul Saleh, has two young children. The local community spoke highly of him —they said he would even give people credit for food if they had no money. He was killed by a man who remained on the streets despite being well known for harassing bodega workers.

"I think it is absolutely true that there are families who are more likely to be surveilled...a lot of these families, frankly, need to be surveilled. And it's not because they're poor." @NaomiSRiley responds to critics claiming the child welfare system unjustly targets poor families. Watch the latest @CityJournal podcast with @Rafa_Mangual: youtube.com/watch?v=3J9P1E…

.@eric_kober wrote about the "antisocial housing" problem last year in @CityJournal. In 2019, the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act gutted investment in rent-stabilized units—this, along with the Rent Guidelines Board’s unwillingness to set rent raises at the inflation rate, rewarded bad actors and led to NYC's affordable housing units falling apart. It's a fixable problem, which Kober elaborates on here: city-journal.org/article/new-yo…

@elonmusk @ManhattanInst Thanks for replying. Love your cars & rockets. There’s a correct & laudable emerging consensus that conspiracism is growing—& that it’s net-bad for the country. But elites are kidding themselves if they think it’s an exclusively right-wing phenomenon. x.com/Jesse_Leg/stat…