This past week, one of the rising political figures in the Democratic Party, Mayor Peter Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana penned an op-ed for the South Bend Tribune arguing that raising the minimum wage is “the right thing to do.” Mayor Buttigieg, cites three reasons why he believes raising the minimum-wage is the right thing to do: It’s good for business, good for the economy, and good for family. All these “goods” assume that raising the minimum-wage does not reduce...

“We see immediately that grace is inseparably connected with nature, that grace and nature belong together.” –Abraham Kuyper In their new book, One Nation Under God: A Christian Hope for American Politics, Bruce Ashford and Chris Pappalardo offer a robustvision ofChristian political engagement, one that neither retreats from the world nor modates to its ideological whims. While many have sought to construct such a vision by trying toalign “Christian values” with particular political programs, Ashford and Pappalardo begin by focusing...

The scene can be found in almost every major U.S. city: a panhandler stands on a street corner holding a sign saying, “Need a job.” But one U.S. mayor decided to try something different — by taking them up on the offer and give the person a job One year ago Berry started a campaign to curb panhandling, called There’s a Better Way. The goal of the campaign is to give panhandlers a chance at a change in life and...

Writing two decades ago, Gertrude Himmelfarb observed: In Britain, as in America, more and more conservatives are returning to an older Burkean tradition, which appreciates the material advantages of a free-market economy (Edmund Burke himself was a disciple of Adam Smith), but also recognizes that such an economy does not automatically produce the moral social goods that they value—that it may even subvert those goods. –Gertrude Himmelfarb, The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values (New York: Alfred...

For decades, researchers have documented large differences in average test scores between minority and white students and between poor and wealthy students. But a new study finds that Americans are more concerned about—and more supportive of proposals to close—wealth-based achievement gaps than Black-White or Hispanic-White gaps. “The achievement gap’s ubiquity in policy discourse and implications for American society make it important to understand the public’s beliefs about it,” say the study’s authors, Jon Valant and Daniel A. Newark. “Many proposals...

The State Department recently released its International Religious Freedom Report for 2015. A wide range of U.S. government agencies and offices use the reports for such efforts as shaping policy and conducting diplomacy. The Secretary of State also uses the reports to help determine which countries have engaged in or tolerated “particularly severe violations” of religious freedom in order to designate “countries of particular concern.” A major concern addressed in this year’s report is the threat to religious freedom posed...

Frank Borman, then-chairman of the Eastern Airlines, said that “capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.” That’s one way to take Peter Heslam’s reflection on the closing of BHS in the UK, “Business with a Human Face.” I would add that the purportedly impersonal nature of market exchange is also what attracts many of its supporters. Drones and automated checkout lines are increasingly allowing us not to see any faces at all. And as Martin Luther would surely have...

How did the economy begin? ErikaGrace Davies and Antony Davies posit one theory, “At some point in our distant past, a human who had food met another who had a spear. The two exchanged, and departed better off than when they met.” I prefer a different version of this story — one that starts with Genesis 4:2b — but the e is the same: the economy started when mankind discovered specialization and trade. ...

Today, we celebrate the 96th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified on August 18, 1920). Here are five facts you should know about women’s suffrage and the 19th Amendment: 1. The 19th Amendment doesn’t directly mention women. The text states: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article...

“The appeal of Bernie Sanders’ socialism is a puzzle to many, but it shouldn’t be, not if we understand how most people think about economics,” says Rev. Johannes Jacobse in this week’s Acton Commentary. Economics rightly understood then touches on deeper, transcendental truths. And, as the great Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn taught, any discussion about materialism and transcendence must answer the fundamental question about whether the final touchstone of truth lies inside or outside the human person. The answer determines...