The nationwide housing shortage has driven rents up more in low-income neighborhoods than in the U.S. overall, but in areas that have recently added large amounts of housing, rents have fallen the most in lower-income neighborhoods with older buildings, according to an analysis of publicly available housing data.
In cities throughout the United States, residential rents and homelessness are soaring while downtown office space sits vacant, hinting of a solution that has mostly remained out of reach.
Fiscal stress in the U.S.’ largest cities is widespread. In a five-month span from December 2024 to April 2025, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington all experienced credit rating downgrades.
With disease screening and new drugs, Dr. Alexander Bick hopes to slow or even halt blood cancer progression. A decade ago, the 2022 Pew-Stewart Scholar for Cancer Research and a team of scientists discovered clonal hematopoiesis, a precancerous condition that forms due to age-related mutations in blood cells that can lead to blood cancer. This discovery is paving the way for researchers to detect blood cancer even before it develops.
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Good health is important to everyone. Pew conducts research and provides information and fact-based recommendations to state agencies, hospitals, researchers, and other health partners to help them provide better care. We find and share evidence-based practices to improve Americans’ health and well-being, including services that can prevent suicide, improve mental health care, and treat substance use disorder.
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Communities throughout the country share common needs: affordable connections to broadband Internet, modern and reliable energy infrastructure, effective responses to mental health challenges, and ways to resolve legal disputes more quickly and fairly. To address these issues, Pew collaborates with states and local governments to find and promote evidence-based solutions that help provide stability and opportunity.
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Economic opportunity is the foundation of American society. Pew supports national, state, and local efforts to expand opportunity and promote financial well-being. Our work helps people pay off student loans, navigate court proceedings such as debt collection, buy or rent a home, access affordable internet, and save for their retirement.
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Nonpartisan, fact-based improvements in federal policy can create jobs, lower costs, and help the nation prepare for the future. When our research shows that small changes can have a big impact, we work across party lines to improve national challenges like housing affordability, internet access, energy reliability, and health care.
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The global ocean teems with life, and it contributes to the vital cycles that keep people and our planet healthy. But the seas are vulnerable to overfishing, loss of habitat such as seagrasses and mangroves, ineffective fisheries management, plastic pollution, and declining biodiversity. These mounting losses affect the coastal communities that depend on the ocean for food and jobs.
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Conserving natural spaces conveys benefits far beyond the gains to wildlife and their habitats. As scores of studies show, protecting and restoring lands and waters, particularly when done in close partnership with local communities, also improves people’s lives—and local economies—by increasing tourism and outdoor recreation.
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For more than 75 years, we have used data to make a difference
Roads and bridges in the United States are a vital part of daily life, connecting people to jobs, schools, homes, and services and supporting nearly $19 trillion in freight each year. In fiscal year 2024, the latest year for which data was available, states spent about $247 billion—roughly 8% of their total expenditures that year—on these roadway assets.
Low-cost micro-units, often called single-room occupancies, or SROs, were once a reliable form of housing for the United States’ poorest residents of, and newcomers to, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and many other major U.S. cities.