Read more about the article What Will it Take to Rebuild American Trust in Elections?
Top of Mind with Julie Rose

What Will it Take to Rebuild American Trust in Elections?

Only 44% of Americans say they have a "great deal" or "quite a bit of confidence" that the results of the 2024 election will be accurate. But party affiliation is a big part of the story. If you break down that 44%, only 1 in 4 Republicans have high confidence, compared to nearly 3 out of 4 Democrats. The reasons that so many Americans currently lack trust in elections differ on the political left and right, but a representative democracy like ours relies on all voters having a high level of confidence in the results of an election no matter who wins.

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October 14, 2024
Read more about the article Do Jury Trials Work the Way We Want Them To?
Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Do Jury Trials Work the Way We Want Them To?

A trial by jury is an important American right, enshrined in the 6th and 7th amendments of the constitution. But do jury trials work the way we want them to? Not all countries use citizen juries in their justice systems, and the ones that do generally don't give them quite as much power as America does. But juries are also becoming rare in the United States.

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September 16, 2024
Read more about the article Funny or Offensive? Why It’s So Hard to Draw the Line in Humor.
Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Funny or Offensive? Why It’s So Hard to Draw the Line in Humor.

Why is it so hard to draw the line between what’s funny or offensive? We love to laugh and we prize a good sense of humor in ourselves and others. But the ancient Greeks – Aristotle and Plato – said humor was bad for society: they thought of it mainly as mockery and laughing was a loss of self-control. When you consider how quickly humor can go wrong in the hands of a bully or an edgy standup routine, you have to wonder - were the Greek philosophers right?

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September 2, 2024
Read more about the article The Changing Ways We Decide Who Gets into College and Why it Matters.
Top of Mind with Julie Rose

The Changing Ways We Decide Who Gets into College and Why it Matters.

For a century, the ACT and SAT played a central role in filtering college applicants. Most colleges and universities stopped requiring standardized test scores during the pandemic; that change has turned into a permanent shift across higher education. A lot of people think that's for the better, particularly since the tests have long been shown to disadvantage students of color and those with fewer economic resources.

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August 19, 2024
Read more about the article Why We’re So Anxious About Retirement in America – And How We Can Fix It
Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Why We’re So Anxious About Retirement in America – And How We Can Fix It

Most Americans are anxious about when – or even if – they’ll be able to retire. And we’re not wrong. Social Security is on shaky footing. Half of Americans on the cusp of retirement have no money saved for it. This isn’t how retirement in America was supposed to work. But 40 years ago, Congress shifted the US away from employer pensions and toward a do-it-yourself system based on 401K retirement saving plans. It’s not going well. In this episode we get to the bottom of why so many Americans are unable to retire comfortably and end up, instead, living in poverty or working well past age 70. And we’ll learn what we can do on an individual and national level to improve retirement in America.

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August 5, 2024
Read more about the article Why America’s Childcare Crisis is an Equation We Can’t Seem to Balance
Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Why America’s Childcare Crisis is an Equation We Can’t Seem to Balance

More than two-thirds of children under the age of 6 in the U.S. live in a household where all available parents work. But in most communities, there’s a shortage of slots in childcare centers and home-based providers. Because of unreliable childcare, as many as 100,000 Americans are forced to stay home from work at least once a month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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June 24, 2024
Read more about the article Is Our Perception of Crime in America Accurate?
Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Is Our Perception of Crime in America Accurate?

Americans have a perplexing perception of crime. One in three Americans report watching, listening, or reading true crime on a weekly basis. But our fixation on crime goes deeper than entertainment. Both Republicans and Democrats consider violent crime an increasing problem. But most of us are safer today than we’ve ever been. Violent crime in America is down 50% since the 1990s. What’s driving the disconnect in our perception of crime? And what consequences does it have for our communities? Where might be a better place to direct our attention?

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June 10, 2024