Difficult to overstate how profound a failure DOGE was. Spending in FY2025 was not only than in FY2024 – but higher than it was projected to be when Trump first took office.* The little bit of spending DOGE cut has already killed hundreds of thousands and will eventually lead to millions of deaths.

DOGE was both an operational and moral failure. But please remember this, next time someone implies that a team of "innovators" with no respect for public sector employees will quickly solve social challenges by working around or bypassing "the bureaucracy." It's more common than you think.

This is a new open position but we have other open positions too! Please apply!

Just two quotes from my kid tonight as a gift to you: 1. "The first human in the whole world was called Lucy. And there was a man too, right? Adam and Lucy?" 2. "Today we had to write down what we were thankful for. I said my family, my friends, and Felipe's taqueria."

Cool paper!

this has got to be one of the best things the onion has done in years

Who said people don't want to work in government anymore.... This will be exciting to follow/study!

#APPAM2025 day two! Here is where you can find The People Lab today...

Standing room only at 8:30am! What a committed group :)

TPL is @ APPAM! Come say hi!

Thrilled to be in Seattle for the Evidence Matters fair! See if you can spot a @thepeoplelab.bsky.social star, representing our work and speaking to the dedicated public servants of King county.

📣 New NBER Working Paper out today 📣 "The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct" Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu

*Women receive substantially lower "potential" ratings despite receiving higher performance ratings *Differences in potential ratings account for half of the gender promotion gap *Women’s lower potential ratings do not reflect future performance: women subsequently outperform male colleagues

How - and I truly mean *how* is it possible to have lived through the DOGE failures and the "run government like a business" debacles, acknowledge the gross disinvestment in public sector workers, and then still go back to the old and tired "maybe if we privatize?" routine.

Zohran Mamdani will become New York City's next mayor, CNN projects, after a meteoric rise in Democratic politics. Follow live updates. https://cnn.it/43gCYeJ

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

Ughhh so many people worked so hard on this.

There is no way to understand what is happening around SNAP without talking about the deep and pervasive stigma against being poor in America.

Pleased to share that the Kennedy School has been authorized to conduct a faculty search in American politics This is as an extraordinary opportunity for us - please share widely with your networks and consider applying academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/15418

Very thought-provoking piece by an excellent scholar and colleague. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/22/o...

Hiring for a research associate to join the team! Please only apply if you have over two years of work experience post-undergrad (this is not entry level!) and a genuine interest in the work that we do. We're so excited with how our team is growing!

A beautiful day in Boston!

Apparently it needs to be said one more time: the way to keep our cities safe is to invest in the people who keep us safe. The people who make sure our water is safe, our roads are safe, our food is safe, our kids are safe...

Go check out the HUD website.

Many thanks to @elizabethlinos.bsky.social for speaking today @taubmancenter.bsky.social @watsonschoolbrown.bsky.social. So many insights into using cutting-edge research to improve government performance!

Really looking forward to talking about the work of @thepeoplelab.bsky.social and thinking together about what comes next!

Super interesting interview on the use of AI in the classroom by the expert on AI and pedagogy at HKS @tedsvo.bsky.social - he's right, this is the big AI question we need to talk about more. www.wbur.org/upnext/2025/...

New in @pnas.org! Light-touch government outreach boosted take-up of the Child Tax Credit & stimulus payments among very low-income families—while higher-touch strategies added little. By: @elizabethlinos.bsky.social, J. Lasky-Fink, V. Dorie, @jrothst.bsky.social 🔗 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This was never about performance

CDC employees standing up and walking out in light of the mass shootings, firings, and *waves hands in the air* everything else. #USAnotRFK Lets gooooo

The people of government doing what needs to be done to serve the nation.

We'll be sending out our annual report soon so sign up now!

A really important and clear summary of where we are.

This one will be in the history books.

🚨 ICYMI: The People Lab is growing — and we’re hiring! We’ve got two exciting opportunities: 🔹 Research Associate Fellow (rolling review) 🔹 Senior Project Manager (first review Sept 2, 2025) Learn more + apply here 👉 peoplelab.hks.harvard.edu/careers/

Looking at images of all the happy crowds doing the #ZcavengerHunt and 7yo says "oh cool which protest is this from?"

If you’re on the academic job market this year, it’s a great time to submit proposals for external funding based on your JMP or other ongoing work. Make this your back-up plan! See thread below.

🎤What Does Efficiency Really Mean? Catch up on our recent IIPP #RethinkingTheState Forum panel with Josh Entsminger in conversation with @mazzucatom.bsky.social, Yamini Aiyar, @choprausa.bsky.social, @elizabethlinos.bsky.social, & @damonsilvers.bsky.social. 📷 Watch the recording: buff.ly/6yYfDii

A terrorist targeted federal workers last week. There wasn’t much reporting on it. But I’m not finished thinking about it! 🧵 An anti-vaxxer fired more than 500 gunshots into CDC Atlanta, shattering 150 “blast-proof” windows on 6 buildings. Employees were pinned down in terror.

My team at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman.bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) has finalized our participation estimates for No Kings Day on 6/14. Here are five key takeaways🧵:

Yup.

Our latest study @jamahealthforum.com shows the harms of work requirements for safety net programs. Women who were subject to harsher requirements and who received less cash assistance from TANF were less likely to breastfeed. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... @donmoyn.bsky.social @hsph.harvard.edu 1/

So who is writing the piece on datasets as democracy?

We're getting hundreds and hundreds of applications for this RA fellows position so if you're planning on applying, applying before August 14th is a great idea. Also, you got this! Take the leap and apply!

May you all have at least one person on your team that is very very punny.