The Weeds: Teen births are plummeting — and economists are judging your Christmas gifts

If all you wanted for Christmas was an in-depth discussion of the falling teen birth rate, well, you are in luck!

Since 2007, the teen birth rate in the United States has declined 42 percent. So this week, Matt, Ezra, and I spend a lot of time trying to understand why that change happened, and what type of policies could encourage even more decline in the future.

We also talk about Hillary Clinton's pledge to the middle class — she defines it as Americans who earn less than $250,000 — and what type of constraints that puts on policy-making.

Last, but certainly not least, we have what is now my all-time favorite discussion on the Weeds: why economists generally think Christmas gifts are a bad idea.

Small programming note: the Weeds will be off next week for the New Year's holiday, but back on Jan. 8. As always, you can email us here here and subscribe on iTunes. See you in 2016!

Show notes

• 4 reasons the teen birth rate just hit an all-time low (see this article for a chart on the rise of contraceptive implants, too)
• Caroline Framke's review of Master of None
• Melissa Kearney and Philip Levin's paper arguing that 16 and Pregnant helped reduce the teen birth rate.
• CNBC finds that 23 percent of people who earn $5 million or more consider themselves middle class
• Tax the (upper) middle class, please
• Joel Wadfogel's classic paper, "The Deadweight Loss of Christmas"
• Joel's first person piece on Vox, with his two daughters, on what Christmas was like in their house
• Andrew Prokop on the time FDR tried to move Thanksgiving to create a longer shopping season

Will you join us?

Our biggest supporters are our readers — and we’re so grateful to everyone who has made a contribution during our September campaign. We’re less than 1,000 contributions away from reaching our goal for the month, which in turn will allow us to say yes more often when our incredible journalists come to us with questions they want to answer and projects they want to pursue. Will you make a contribution before the month ends and support our policy coverage through 2024 and beyond?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via