LawLiw

Writing

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

Sticker price for a private university this year: $45,000.

What the average student actually pays after grants and scholarships: about $16,910, per the College Board.

At public colleges, average net price has fallen since 2012, down to roughly $2,300 a year in today's dollars.

Published price and paid price are almost different subjects.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

For the first time ever, Medicare negotiated drug prices directly with manufacturers instead of paying whatever was billed.

New prices took effect January 2026, cutting costs on the first 10 drugs by 38 to 79 percent.

Those drugs cost Medicare $50.5 billion in 2023.

It took an act of Congress to let the biggest drug buyer negotiate like one.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

Landlords filed 1.23 million eviction cases in 2025, but that's only the 10 states and 38 cities that track this. Most of the country doesn't measure it.

That's one filing per 13 renter households in tracked areas. In Atlanta, it was 1 in 4.

Most of America has no idea what its eviction rate is, because most isn't counting.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

The Pentagon has failed its financial audit for eight straight years, since Congress made audits mandatory in 2018.

It's the only one of 24 major agencies that has never passed.

This year found 26 unresolved weaknesses, including an entire F-35 parts inventory nobody could verify.

Its target for finally passing is 2028. Ten years of trying.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

Amazon now runs over 1 million robots in its warehouses, nearly matching its 1.5 million employees.

The New York Times obtained documents showing plans to avoid hiring 160,000 people by 2027 while automating 75 percent of operations.

Its Shreveport site already runs with 25 percent fewer people than it would without robots.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

In 2017, the University of Chicago asked economists, seven of them Nobel winners, if taxpayer funded stadiums are worth the cost.

83 percent said no. Just 4 percent said yes.

From 1970 to 2020, governments still spent $33 billion on stadiums, covering 73 percent of costs on average.

Rare unanimity among economists. Zero effect on construction.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

How many Americans live paycheck to paycheck? The answer swings from 33 to over 60 percent depending on the survey.

The Fed's stricter measure, covering a $400 emergency, sits at 33 percent and has for years.

Looser surveys just ask if people feel broke month to month. Those run much higher.

Both numbers are real. Different kinds of broke.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

When pandemic protections ended and states rechecked Medicaid eligibility, more than 25 million people lost coverage.

Only 31 percent of them were actually found ineligible.

The other 69 percent, per KFF's tracking of state data, lost coverage over paperwork. A missed form. An outdated address. Nothing about whether they still qualified.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

A third of people released from federal prison never held a single job in the four years after release, per Bureau of Justice Statistics data.

Not underemployed. Zero employment, four straight years.

Separately, 70 percent of people released from state prison get arrested again within five years.

Same population. Probably not unrelated.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

A court ordered Apple to let apps link to outside payment options, avoiding its 30 percent commission.

Apple complied, then charged a new 27 percent commission on those payments anyway.

A judge ruled this violated the order, referring an Apple executive for criminal contempt.

Ordering a door open is easy. The rent on the doorway is separate.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

In 2019, the typical HOA fee was $108 a month. By 2025, it was $135. A 25 percent jump in six years.

Almost 44 percent of homes for sale now carry one of these fees, up from 34 percent in 2019.

Buying a house was supposed to mean the monthly bill stops changing. HOAs added a second landlord that never introduced itself.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

US employers announced 1.2 million job cuts in 2025, the most since the pandemic year of 2020.

The single most cited reason, ahead of AI and tariffs: cuts tied to the Department of Government Efficiency, nearly 315,000 jobs.

An efficiency initiative was the year's biggest driver of job losses for the people who lost theirs.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

Ask Americans what share of the budget goes to foreign aid and the average guess is 26 percent.

The real number, historically, is about 1 percent.

When pollsters reveal that to people who guessed high, 78 percent say it's about right or too low.

The fight over foreign aid usually isn't about foreign aid. It's about a number nobody has right.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

Six years. That's how long Social Security's retirement trust fund has left before automatic cuts kick in.

The 2026 trustees report moved the depletion date to late 2032, three months earlier than last year's estimate.

When it hits, benefits get cut 22 percent overnight. Not because Congress voted for it. Because nobody voted on anything at all.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

88 profitable US corporations made a combined $105 billion in 2025.

Federal income tax paid: zero. Some got refunds instead.

At the standard 21 percent rate, that would have been $22.1 billion, per the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The tax code has room built in for exactly this.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

If you're on traditional Medicare, not Medicare Advantage, you're still paying more because of Medicare Advantage.

MedPAC estimates the program was overpaid by $76 billion in 2025. Those costs get folded into everyone's Part B premium.

Since 2016, that's added $82 billion in extra premiums, MA enrollee or not.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

$5.08 billion. That's what got spent lobbying the federal government in 2025, a new record.

2,354 separate organizations lobbied on a single bill alone, the tax and spending package signed in July.

Persuasion doesn't usually need an army this size.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

The richest 1 percent of American households now hold about $55 trillion.

That's roughly what the bottom 90 percent of the country holds combined, per Federal Reserve data through late 2025.

Highest share on record since the Fed started tracking this in 1989.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

Expectation: home values fell, so property taxes should fall too.

Reality: the average tax bill still rose 3 percent in 2025, hitting $4,427, the highest effective rate since 2020.

Some Cook County homeowners saw their bill jump over 130 percent in one reassessment.

Your home's value doesn't set your tax bill. The budget does.

[LawLiw @Lawliw]

A company called ROR Partners built detailed profiles on 262 million Americans without registering as a data broker like California law requires.

The fine: $56,600.

That works out to about two hundredths of a cent per person profiled.