About FREOPP
All FREOPP research considers the impact of public policies and proposed reforms on those with incomes or wealth below the U.S. median.
OUR IMPACT
120M
American lives impacted by FREOPP’s work
3M
veterans with access to privately provided community care, thanks to FREOPP’s work on veterans’ health reform
49.6M
kids receiving in-person education as a result of FREOPP’s work on reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic
OUR MISSION
Our Mission
All FREOPP research considers the impact of public policies and proposed reforms on those with incomes or wealth below the U.S. median. The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity seeks to expand economic opportunity to those who least have it, using the tools of individual liberty, free enterprise, technological innovation, and pluralism.
AS SEEN IN
POLICY AREAS
01
Bitcoin & CBDCs
The vicious cycle of rising public debt, monetary inflation, and consumer price inflation is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Inflation primarily harms lower-income Americans, and we must protect Americans’ ability to place their savings in inflation-protected assets like bitcoin. Furthermore, we must reform financial regulations to ensure that lower- and middle-income Americans have access to basic financial services and the innovation economy.
02
COVID-19
We should learn from excessive economic restrictions and school closures in order to ensure that we protect both lives and livelihoods in future pandemics. Most importantly, we must overhaul the ways in which we make decisions and acquire data about critical public health threats.
03
Energy
American prosperity and national security depends on affordable, abundant, reliable, low-carbon energy. Instead of making energy scarcer or less reliable—which primarily harms lower- and middle-income Americans—we should dramatically expand the role of nuclear energy in the United States. Natural gas has a constructive role to play in the low-carbon transition, as do emerging technologies.
04
Finance
The vicious cycle of rising public debt, monetary inflation, and consumer price inflation is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Inflation primarily harms lower-income Americans, and we must protect Americans’ ability to place their savings in inflation-protected assets like bitcoin. Furthermore, we must reform financial regulations to ensure that lower- and middle-income Americans have access to basic financial services and the innovation economy.
05
Health Care
Americans deserve a health care system that provides universal—and universally affordable—coverage for today’s Americans, and a fiscally sustainable system for the generations to come. All Americans should have the freedom to choose among a wide variety of plans that suit their needs. Taxpayer-funded subsidies should be reserved for the poor, the sick and the vulnerable—not the wealthy. Enabling competition and curtailing the power of health care monopolies will lower patients’ costs and increase innovation in patient care.
06
Higher Education
Student debt now exceeds $1.5 trillion. We must overhaul a system that, for too long, has incentivized colleges and universities to charge unaffordable prices for degrees that do not always improve the lives of their recipients. Measures of return on investment (ROI) can help ensure that that institutions are accountable for the economic outcomes of the students they plunge into indebtedness.
07
Housing
A critical obstacle to universally affordable housing in the United States is the nationwide web of “not-in-my-backyard” laws and regulations that restrict growth in the supply of housing. In addition, we should modernize housing assistance so that it can help people live near their jobs and families, and reform macroeconomic policies that have placed home prices out of reach for middle- and lower-income Americans.
08
Immigration
While much of the political controversy around immigration in the United States has revolved around illegal immigration, it is the broken system for legal immigration that is the core problem. If America once again becomes a magnet for the world’s best and brightest, those already here will greatly benefit from job growth, wage growth, and innovation.
09
Inflation
The vicious cycle of rising public debt, monetary inflation, and consumer price inflation is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Inflation primarily harms lower-income Americans, and we must protect Americans’ ability to place their savings in inflation-protected assets like bitcoin. Furthermore, we must reform financial regulations to ensure that lower- and middle-income Americans have access to basic financial services and the innovation economy.
10
K–12 Education
Parents and students should have more sovereignty over their children’s education, especially by enabling parents to use Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) to supplement their children’s brick-and-mortar schooling. The landmark enactment of universal ESAs in Arizona, in which every K-12 pupil will receive $6,500 for tutoring, technology, and instructional expenses, is a model for every other state. Microschools and charter schools give parents additional affordable options for their children. Well-designed testing is a key element to helping students succeed in school.
11
Public Safety
We can improve public safety, reduce crime, and improve opportunities in disadvantaged communities with smarter policing and a fairer criminal justice system. We must overcome resistance from vested interests within police unions to holding unethical officers accountable for their actions.
12
Social Mobility
A core promise of America is the ability of people to rise up from humble beginnings. The challenges faced by lower- and middle-income Americans today are multidisciplinary in nature, and require our renewed focus. Job and wage growth are essential; in particular, Americans need access to more blue-collar work and other jobs that don’t require a college degree. Our employment and welfare policies should encourage work, family formation, and income security. Paid family leave can help strengthen families at their times of need.
OUR TEAM
LEADERSHIP
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
SCHOLARS
ADVISORS
MEDIA COVERAGE OF FREOPP
—The Washington Post
“The FREOPP crew…surveyed the policy landscape and saw no groups that blended…a grounding in market principles [with] a focus on harnessing them — and bending them, when needed — to aid Americans struggling in the country’s transition to an information economy.”
—The Atlantic
“[Avik Roy and others] launched a new think tank, the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, which aims to promote policies that will help people with below-median incomes or net worth.”