$3.2 Billion
A recent study released by the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimates that the cost of tumultuous engagement with the country’s K-12 public schools reached $3.2 billion in the 2023-2024 school year. They distinguish this type of conflict from genuine democratic discussion and deliberation, which they indicate is both inevitable and healthy in public policy. Instead, they outlined the real financial implications to districts of threatening behavior, violent rhetoric, and the spread of misinformation.
The study surveyed 467 superintendents in 46 states. The district demographics mirrored those of the country with respect to rural vs. urban districts, enrollment numbers, and percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch, a key indicator of poverty in a particular district. Followup interviews were conducted with nearly 50 participants, where they detailed various methods utilized to navigate unrest. The study distinguished between direct costs and indirect costs, including staff time spent navigating conflict and the resulting turnover and recruitment expenses for teachers and administrators who decided to leave the profession. The most common direct spending increases were in expenditures on legal services, including responding to public records requests, and increased security.
Researchers broke districts into three tiers of conflict based on severity and frequency, with 66% of districts reporting medium or high degrees of conflict. Unsurprisingly, high conflict districts reported the most significant financial impacts, including $460,823 in costs associated with staff turnover, $80,750 in direct and indirect costs related to legal work, $61,294 in direct and indirect costs related to increased security and $97,477 on social and traditional media relations to combat misinformation.
Researchers estimated that even a reduction of conflict in high and medium districts would save $1.96 billion across the United States, which could then be redeployed for direct educational expenses, teacher and support staff compensation, and school safety measures.
18 million
As cleanup and recovery efforts continue after Hurricanes Milton and Helene on the Eastern coast of the United States, individuals in these areas who rent their homes are often burdened with increasing costs, barriers to access available relief funds, and higher rates of eviction.
More than 18 million rental units across the country. are exposed to climate- and weather-related hazards, according to the latest American Rental Housing Report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. This accounts for about 41% of the total occupied rental stock across the United States. Of this total, 960,000 public housing, Project-Based Section 8 units and those available for older adults and individuals with disabilities exist in hazardous areas. This also exposes 200,000 units subsidized by the US Department of Agriculture’s rural multifamily housing program, more than half of available units in that program.
A joint study by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Brookings Institution also highlighted an alarming trend in increasing rental rates after presidentially-declared disasters as well as disparities in aid coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Their research found that in the wake of the Gulf Coast’s Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 62% of homeowners received disaster recovery assistance, only 18% of renters got similar aid, despite higher impact to rental units. They also note immediate spikes in rental prices, largely driven by increased demand due to widespread displacement of homeowners and difficulty affording rental insurance, especially in high risk areas.
From 1980–2024, there have been 65 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect Nebraska, including severe storms and tornadoes, drought, winter storms, and flooding. The 1980–2023 annual average is 1.4 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2019–2023) is 4.0 events (CPI-adjusted). The state received the second-highest insurance premium hike in the nation last year.
$1.3 trillion
With more Americans turning 65 this year than ever before, seventeen states have implemented automated retirement savings programs, known as auto-IRAs, to help stem the tide of individuals retiring with insufficient savings to meet their basic needs, with several more states considering similar efforts. In most cases, workers whose employer does not already offer a retirement savings option are automatically enrolled and can choose to defer a portion of their earnings to a retirement account. They may also opt out at any time.
Pew Charitable Trusts, a strong advocate for such programs, estimates that by the end of 2040, insufficient retirement savings will have cost states and the federal government a combined $1.3 trillion since 2021 in increased public assistance spending, administrative costs and reduced tax revenue. This includes increasing reliance on Medicaid and other support programs, which Pew estimates would shift costs to those still in the workforce, estimating cumulative additional taxpayer liability because of insufficient retirement savings to be $13,600 per household. Additionally concerning is that the number of working households has not grown at a pace that will replace those aging out of the workforce. In 2020, there were 37 households aged 65 and older for every 100 working-age households. They project that ratio to increase to 54 older households for every 100 working-age households by 2040.
Their analysis included a state-by-state estimate of the increased costs for each state due to insufficient retirement savings. They put Nebraska’s estimate at about $6.5 billion in state and federal costs needed to fill the gap over the next 20 years.