Return On Investment
The Pew Charitable Trusts applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public, and invigorate civic life, as these recent accomplishments illustrate.
Improving Public Policy
Indiana and Utah modernize electric grids
Indiana Governor Mike Braun (R) and Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) in March signed bipartisan legislation in their respective states to help modernize the electric grid by accelerating the use of advanced transmission technologies (ATTs). ATTs are fast-to-deploy technologies that can be installed on existing infrastructure to boost the capacity of transmission lines to carry 20% to 110% more power, depending on the technology. There are an estimated 2,600 gigawatts of electricity generation projects around the nation—95% of which are from solar, wind, or battery—that are stuck in the queue and unable to connect to the grid because of inadequate transmission capacity. By unlocking transmission capacity, ATTs help more of these clean energy projects connect to the grid and on a faster timeline than constructing new high-voltage transmission lines. Pew’s energy modernization project provided research to policymakers in both states and worked with local partners to develop coalitions supporting the legislation.
New Mexico approves major conservation measures
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) in April signed three bills into law that will protect the state’s waters and wetlands and provide for wildlife crossings on highways and roads. One law seeks to avoid, minimize, and mitigate pollution in New Mexico waters. Another expands the strategic water reserve and empowers the state to purchase, lease, or accept donations of water rights for conservation purposes and cultural uses. And legislation approving the state budget includes $50 million—the largest one-time appropriation by a state—for wildlife crossings that allow herds of migratory animals to pass on bridges or through culverts constructed along highways and roads, preventing the deaths of drivers, passengers, and animals by reducing collisions. Pew staff provided technical advice and worked with local partners on the legislative efforts.
Fisheries managers adopt important ocean protections
Regional organizations and their 75 member governments that oversee major fisheries across more than half of the global ocean have agreed to new policies that they will be required to adhere to starting this year. Pew and its partners helped to secure these measures, which address inadequate management and control of large-scale fishing activities, and their implementation will help to protect marine biodiversity throughout these regions and safeguard food and livelihoods for the world’s growing population. The policies adopted include:
- New science-based frameworks called harvest strategies that will automate management decisions for fishing activities based on the long-term health of fish populations, among other priorities. New harvest strategies were adopted for commercially and ecologically important species such as sardines and anchovies in the Mediterranean Sea and swordfish in the north Atlantic Ocean.
- Plans that modernize oversight of fisheries operating on the high seas in the western and central Pacific Ocean, including new standards for electronic monitoring of these fisheries and improvements to inspections at port to reduce illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.
- New commitments by fisheries managers in the northeast Atlantic Ocean to consider the impact of those commercial fisheries on the wider ocean ecosystem, including on wild species that depend on the targeted fish population as food.
- New commitments to incorporate the effects of climate change into fisheries management by regional organizations overseeing shared fisheries, like tunas, in the Atlantic and western and central Pacific oceans.
Pew co-hosts ‘Corridors, Connectivity, and Crossings Conference’
In January, Pew joined with the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and state and Tribal natural resources agencies to host the Corridors, Connectivity, and Crossings Conference in Palm Springs, California. The event—attended by more than 300 federal, state, and Tribal officials; scientists; and conservation leaders—highlighted new research on wildlife migration and best practices and policies to maintain, enhance, and restore ecological connectivity as well as species movement across intact and fragmented environments. Conference speakers included U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA); U.S. Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who was secretary of the interior during the first Trump administration and spearheaded a Pew-backed secretarial order to conserve big-game migration corridors and habitat; and Tom Dillon, Pew senior vice president, environment and cross-cutting initiatives. Speakers noted the importance of federal and state bipartisan efforts to facilitate wildlife migration by protecting corridors and establishing wildlife-friendly transportation infrastructure such as highway crossings.
Invigorating Civic Life
The ‘State of the City’ of Philadelphia
As 2025 began, Philadelphia appeared to be entering a new and different phase after years of COVID-19 pandemic reverberations: The question, according to Pew’s annual State of the City report, is which effects from recent years will be temporary and which will endure? The report, a study of Pew’s hometown that was released in April, noted that homicides and shootings, which rose dramatically at the height of the pandemic, have fallen to the lowest levels in a decade. Unemployment rates, which were high in 2020 and 2021, have been relatively low for several years, and the city’s poverty rate continues to decline. The analysis found that the city still faces uncertainties from shifts in federal spending, increasing housing costs, the ongoing opioid crisis, and a population that’s shrunk from its pre-pandemic peak. Eagerly awaited by city government, business, and civic leaders each year, the 2025 findings were presented at a release event on economic mobility in the region, held in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel, for an audience of approximately 400 people.
Informing the Public
Survey examines teens’ stresses and challenges
American teens face a host of challenges these days—both inside and outside the classroom. A Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teens age 13 to 17 that was published in March finds that anxiety and depression top the list of problems teens say their peers at school are dealing with, with 3 in 10 saying they’re extremely or very common among their fellow students. The survey found that academics are the biggest source of pressure for teens today. Roughly 7 in 10 (68%) say that they personally feel a great deal or fair amount of pressure to get good grades. As they look forward in life, majorities of teens say it’s extremely or very important to them that as adults they have a job or career they enjoy (86%), have close friends (69%), and have a lot of money (58%). Smaller shares of teens place a high level of importance on family life milestones such as getting married (36%) and having children (30%).
Economic inequality seen as major challenge around the world
A Pew Research Center survey of 36 nations that was published in January found widespread public concern about economic inequality. A median of 54% of adults across the nations surveyed said that the gap between the rich and the poor is a very big problem in their country. Most say that the political influence of the rich is a major cause. In addition, a median of 57% of adults across the nations polled expect children in their country to be worse off financially than their parents when they grow up.
Men less likely to turn to friends for emotional support
About 1 in 6 Americans (16%) say that they feel lonely or isolated from those around them all or most of the time—including roughly equal shares of men and women—and about 4 in 10 adults (38%) say that they sometimes feel lonely, according to a Pew Research Center survey published in January. The analysis showed that women were more likely than men to say that they’d be extremely or very likely to seek emotional support from their mother (54% of women versus 42% of men), a friend (54% versus 38%), another family member who is not a parent, spouse, or partner (44% versus 26%), or a mental health professional (22% versus 16%). The findings also showed that men don’t communicate with their close friends as often as women do, with higher shares of women than men saying that they send text messages, interact on social media, and talk on the phone or video chat with a close friend at least a few times a week.
Explore the Issue
