In the News
On any given day, Groundwork's analyses, op-eds, reports, and commentary are featured in leading publications and on the most influential news programs and podcasts.
On any given day, Groundwork's analyses, op-eds, reports, and commentary are featured in leading publications and on the most influential news programs and podcasts.
The cost of school supplies has risen nearly 8 percent since last year, according to a report from the left-leaning groups the Century Foundation and Groundwork Collaborative, which pointed out that the makers of such school staples as Elmer’s glue and Sharpies and Expo markers, Mead and Five Star notebooks, and Logitech headphones have all spoken publicly about raising their prices because of the Trump administration’s tariffs on imported goods.
Liz Pancotti, vice president at Groundwork Collaborative, said she’ll be watching to see if consumers cut back on Halloween. “Are they having kids do it yourself with a sheet and cutting a couple holes out or are they buying a costume?” she said.
In December 2025, Consumer Reports and partners Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union investigated pricing practices employed by online grocery shopping service Instacart. They found that consumers paid different prices for the same goods from the same store at the same time.
“If we’re talking about kind of more permanently anchoring and lowering long-term bond yields, I think it’s going to be quite ineffective,” said Alex Jacquez, a senior vice president at the left-leaning Groundwork Collaborative. “The market is incredibly right to be worried about what the president is going to do day-to-day.”
This morning, the Federal Trade Commission announced it is seeking public comment on an enforcement policy to curb corporations’ use of consumers’ personal data to set individualized prices.
Inspired by America’s original Sears Homes, Groundwork Collaborative introduces a direct-to-consumer approach to affordable, accessible homeownership.
In a paper published this week, advocates from the left-leaning policy group Groundwork Collaborative explored the history of the early-20th-century Sears home, ordered from a catalogue and delivered by mail, and proposed it as a model for a government-sponsored expansion of manufactured housing.
According to a study by the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank, the cost of school supplies is up 11% this year. Families are expected to spend almost $4,000 per child for school items and lunches for the 2026-27 school year.
“Clearly, there has been interference and political posturing around what the administration is able to control,” said Jacquez, now with Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive think tank in Washington. “There’s still good progress going on, and I think there’s a lot to build on and to then learn from and not recreate exactly.”
Although ticket-selling platforms take a chunk of the profit from increased prices, performers rarely earn more even if consumers are paying higher prices. Nashville native, economist and author Lindsay Owens told The Tennessean there's a term for this split. "We're increasingly seeing what people like me refer to as a K-shaped economy, which is really just a story of the lower end of the market bottoming out, but the higher end of the market continuing to have a rapacious spending profile," Owens said.