• The U.S. spends over $1 trillion annually on over 80 anti-poverty programs. Four programs take up the majority of spending: Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Supplemental Security Income, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
• Welfare is highly vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse. Medicaid, Medicare, the EITC, and SNAP made up 67% of the $186 billion in government-wide improper payments in 2025.
• Federal programs must verify eligibility before granting benefits and use technology to expedite this process. One pilot program identified 14 million cases of duplicate participation in Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF.

By: Patrice Onwuka & Kamryn Crane

• As most car crashes result from human error, autonomous vehicles (AVs), equipped with 360-degree view cameras, have the potential to dramatically reduce fatalities associated with driving.
• AVs eliminate the risk of assault or coercion by rideshare drivers, which is reported at an alarming rate: once every eight minutes.
• AVs could enhance life for women by dramatically expanding mobility for women in underserved communities without access to personal vehicles, busy mothers running multiple errands and juggling child care, older women who can no longer safely drive, and women with disabilities for whom traditional transportation options remain inadequate.

By: Carrie Sheffield & Rachel Chiu

• While 36 states have enacted some form of voter ID law, more states should require photo identification with no alternative.
• Despite its popularity, ranked choice voting rarely reflects the will of the people accurately, prolongs uncertainty, hurts public confidence, increases confusion, and creates new election vulnerabilities.
• Due to a lack of transparency in source coding, hardware manufacturing, and supply chain vulnerabilities, hand-marked paper ballots are demonstrably superior to voting machines.

By: Anna Pingel

• Data centers, 5,000 of which exist in the U.S., are physical facilities that store, process, and deliver digital services and applications.
• Despite fears about the negative impact of AI data centers, AI accounts for 4% of total commercial energy consumption, which is 36% of overall U.S. electricity consumption.
• Private companies and states are embracing efforts like “bring your own power” (BYOP) on existing or parallel grids and consumer-regulated electricity (CRE) off-grid to reduce energy constraints from AI.

By: Gabriella Hoffman

• Through its “Let Teachers Teach” initiative spearheaded by Superintendent Cade Brumly, Louisiana directly asked its teachers what they needed and empowered them to develop actionable recommendations for the state.
• By identifying issues such as uncompensated trainings, useless meetings, and deteriorating student behavior, schools can address causes of teacher burnout.
• Louisiana’s initiative exposed significant disruptions to academic learning environments, including unfettered cellphone use and chronic absenteeism.

By: Neeraja Deshpande