Hannah Bruck is a Policy Scholar at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where she specializes in family policy research and quantitative assessments of legislative efficiency in the Texas Legislature. A graduate of Patrick Henry College, she is passionate about advancing policies that strengthen families and foster thriving communities.
“If he likes it, then he should put a ring on it.” Those words, delivered with Pop Princess authority by Beyoncé, are now backed by mountains of social science, not just catchy hooks. As we celebrate National Marriage Week (Feb. 7–14), we should reflect not only on the romantic symbolism of marriage but on what...
In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey’s great ambition is not wealth or status. It is something far more ordinary and far more powerful: the ability for working families to afford a home, put down roots, and build a future together. Bedford Falls thrives not because of grand social programs, but because ordinary people can buy modest homes...
At the beginning of Home Alone, Kevin McCallister is not dreaming of independence or adventure. He is frustrated, overlooked, and angry enough to wish his family would simply disappear. It is a familiar childhood impulse, played for laughs and quickly resolved by the warmth of family reunion. But in today’s Texas households, new artificial intelligence tools...
This week, I took one of my colleagues to family court. We wanted to better understand the system that processes thousands of cases each year. These courts are designed to protect children and families, but what we witnessed raised questions about whether they truly function as courts at all. The first time I attended a...
Natural gas is the reason you can tweet. Coal powers your Facebook stalking and snapchat streaks. Oil allows you to post outfits of the day and vacation updates on your Instagram. Bottom line, fossil fuels make possible the connections and conversations facilitated by social media. Without the utilization of fossil fuels, like many things in...
Carolina Yoc is 15 years old; she entered the United States alone to live with a relative she did not know. Once inside the border, she was moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Now, she spends her nights working in a factory with other young workers, stuffing plastic bags of cereal into passing yellow cartons. She...