1) Californians Now Pay Up to $2.50 per Gallon More than Rest of the Country

On a trip to Los Angeles last weekend, here's what we saw for gas prices. We took the photo.

Here is what most of the rest of the country is paying:

So our advice to our friends who are packing up and leaving the once-Golden State, wait until you hit the Nevada border before filling up!

2) We Need More Immigrant Workers: It's Just Simple Math

Here are the daily numbers on changes in the U.S. labor force of late:

There is an old saying that demography is destiny. Baby boomers are retiring at a much faster rate than young Americans are entering the workforce.

Some obvious policies would help raise the number of working-age Americans in jobs, including cutting the payroll tax (or moving toward personal social security accounts), work-for-welfare requirements, and a greater emphasis on skills-based higher education.

The good news is that robots have already started filling millions of menial jobs. (Driverless Uber and Lyft car are already populating the roads in California.)

But to achieve 3% to 4% growth we also need more visas for young LEGAL immigrants.

Also, instead of raids on factories and farms, ICE should be raiding welfare offices.  

3) Most U.S. Drug Prices Lower Than Other Rich Countries

That headline may seem unbelievable, but it's true.

Our latest Unleash Prosperity study from Senior Fellow Tomas Philipson and two of his University of Chicago colleagues finds that even though other rich countries free-ride off of American consumers and pay less for new brand name drugs, most foreigners actually pay more than we do overall because they have access to fewer generics and they pay more for generics than we do.

This finding has huge implications for the Trump administration's efforts to end foreign free-riding, as the authors explain:

The U.S. pattern supports both affordability and innovation by combining aggressive generic pricing with value-based pricing for brands. While the U.S. accounts for less than 25% of global GDP, it generates about 75% of global pharmaceutical profits, effectively subsidizing R&D for the rest of the world.

Foreign countries suppress branded prices while protecting generic drugs from competition, leading to higher system-wide costs.

Our findings suggest that adopting American-style reforms - higher brand prices with more competitive generic markets - could reduce free riding without increasing total drug spending abroad. Exporting the U.S. model through the trade agreement offers a viable solution.

4) Only 4% of Americans Use Mass Transit to Get to Work

The Census Bureau's just released American Community Survey includes Work Access data (also referred to as "journey to work") confirming that mass transit is an antiquated and expensive boondoggle.  

As has been the case since the pandemic years, US commuters are using cars or working at home for more than 90% of their work days (91.7%). Driving alone was by far the most popular means of commuting, with a 69.2% share, following working from home (13.3%) and car pooling (9.0%).

Transit carried only 3.7% of commuters, still below its pre-pandemic level. Transit has been hit hard by the exodus to working from home, which is now more than double its pre-pandemic level. Working from home is now more popular than transit in 56 of the 57 major metropolitan areas. The New York metropolitan area is the clear outlier, where transit's share is more than double that of working at home.

Given that within the next five years automated cars will take Americans of all incomes where they want, when they want at very low prices, the government should stop wasting billions of taxpayer dollars building transit systems that will soon be totally obsolete.

5) The New York Times Disgraces Itself Again

6) What Do You See Here?

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