Karen Benjamin Guzzo
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karenguzzo.bsky.social
Karen Benjamin Guzzo
@karenguzzo.bsky.social

Demographer and Sociologist. Director of the Carolina Population Center. LEGO Karen

Sociology 28%
Political science 28%

My sister keeps Old Bay on the kitchen table next to the salt and pepper.
People really really downplay dental health. Cavities are not the worse case scenario here. Poor oral health can kill you
At a time when the birth rate is less than 2 per couple, negative net migration will bring bad news for the economy & innovation. This closing of borders & decline in immigration & pop. was only seen during the worst of the pandemic in 2020 & after the Great Depression in 1929; I told El Clarin

Listen to Dudley Poston. He knows what he’s talking about.
China is taxing condoms and birth control to boost births. Demographers say it won’t work: A 13% hike on contraceptives is nothing compared with the $77,000 cost of raising a child — and China’s fertility slide is driven by economics, not access to protection. buff.ly/NdvWcYF
China’s new condom tax will prove no effective barrier to country’s declining fertility rate
The Asian giant is grappling with a dramatic population decline, with a fertility rate of 1.0, well below the 2.1 replacement rate.
buff.ly
China is taxing condoms and birth control to boost births. Demographers say it won’t work: A 13% hike on contraceptives is nothing compared with the $77,000 cost of raising a child — and China’s fertility slide is driven by economics, not access to protection. buff.ly/NdvWcYF
China’s new condom tax will prove no effective barrier to country’s declining fertility rate
The Asian giant is grappling with a dramatic population decline, with a fertility rate of 1.0, well below the 2.1 replacement rate.
buff.ly

Hope you’re not up to anything fishy today! #legokaren
Trump is demanding $1B from countries seeking permanent seats on his “Board of Peace,” per draft obtained by Bloomberg. Plan puts Trump in control of funds, terms many states deem unacceptable. Netanyahu rejected it, as several countries push back, wary Trump is building a UN rival under his control

Yeah, I know, but I’m trying to find wins where I can. It’s just still hard to believe how quickly it all fell apart.

Reposted by Clark Gray

Please share: Pew Research Center will provide $3,000 each for 19 new papers using our recent global datasets. We encourage reuse of our Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures data!
https://www.pewresearch.org/2026/01/16/seeking-research-using-recent-pew-templeton-global-religious-futures-datasets/

What kind of monkey business are you up to this weekend? #legokaren
It’s bad enough how many losses there have been in federal jobs, but the private sector should be ashamed of itself for being complicit in this process.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/b...
Black Women Turn to One Another as Their Career Paths Suddenly Recede
www.nytimes.com

“Big picture, this sounds like an attempt to solve or address the problem of housing affordability by potentially exacerbating a separate problem of retirement security.”
Trump’s 401(k) Home Buyer Idea Requires Retirement Rule Shifts
A forthcoming White House proposal to allow use of 401(k)s for down payments on home purchases would mean shifts in long-held regulations on plan withdrawals, and possibly new legislation.
news.bloomberglaw.com

This administration knows exactly what it’s doing with these social media posts.
Some Trump administration social media posts mirror extremist rhetoric
While the posts are a small part of the administration’s overall social media presence, experts say they are clear references to white supremacist messaging.
www.nbcnews.com
Man, Du Bois had some bangers, but for me, it doesn't get much better than his scathing indictment of the "Christianity" of the United States.

Certainly this was all true of the nation in his lifetime. But in my lifetime, his criticisms have never felt so true of the nation right now.
My latest in the @theguardian.com on how the Trump admins latest immigrant visa ban takes us back to the racial quotas abolished in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Racial quotas for immigration are back | Heba Gowayed
The Trump administration’s immigration policies hearken back to the racist 1924 Immigration Act, meant to whiten the US
www.theguardian.com
Nick Miroff: After 9/11, George W. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security to prevent future terror strikes. Now DHS shifted from defending the country against foreign terrorists to deploying agents on American streets for the purpose of terrorizing American citizens.
‘Maybe DHS Was a Bad Idea’
Two decades after its founding, the department has become what its critics feared.
www.theatlantic.com
New at Can We Still Govern?
"I am writing as an ordinary citizen of Minneapolis/St Paul...to share with the outside world what is really going on ─ the terror being inflicted upon a U.S. city and state by our federal government."
Please read, share, help. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/dispatch-f...
Dispatch from the occupation
What life is like in Minneapolis now
donmoynihan.substack.com
Being required to present proof of citizenship to someone not required to present proof they're actually law enforcement is one hell of a dichotomy
NEW: Trump’s DHS forces have shot 11 people since September. NBC News examined every case, revealing a pattern that policing experts called alarming: officers firing into cars, injuring and killing drivers.
Trump's DHS has shot 11 people during immigration enforcement operations since September
The ICE and Border Patrol shootings show a pattern that policing experts say is alarming: officers firing into cars and injuring and killing drivers.
www.nbcnews.com
For decades, Republican presidents supported legal immigration because they knew that taking entrepreneurial people was in America’s best interest. The Trump administration’s discriminatory policies threaten the ability to attract top talent
MAGA wants a moratorium on legal migration, too
The most committed members of the base mean to impose an unpopular litmus test
econ.st

Here's the paper osf.io/kfcvs/download
osf.io

Reposted by Rebecca Sear

Unionization has sizeable impacts on fertility rates & completed fertility via "wage growth, protection against adverse labor market shocks, & impacts on female labor force participation."

If Heritage was serious about raising birth rates, it would be pro-, rather than anti-, union. (link below).
ICE Violence Against Women Is Increasingly Visible—and Largely Untracked

This story was originally reported by @19thnews.org , and republished through RNG‘s partnership with The 19th News Network.
ICE Violence Against Women Is Increasingly Visible—and Largely Untracked
The killing of Renee Nicole Good—and the viral video that followed—underscores the forceful tactics long used against marginalized women.
buff.ly
Do you ever wait until the last minute to mail a ballot, tax return or another important document by a deadline?

You may want to make one more New Year's resolution to change that because when your mail gets postmarked is getting more complicated.

ICYMI:
Your ballot or other mail may not get postmarked by USPS the day it's dropped off
Close to a deadline for mailing your ballot, tax return or legal document? To make sure it gets a postmark on time under the latest USPS changes, you may want to send it early or visit a post office.
www.npr.org

Sigh

As the share of union members declined in the construction industry, wages fell. Native-born Americans no longer saw construction as “good” jobs, and foreign-born workers filled the void.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/u...

TGIF! LEGO Karen is planning on hitting up the new microbrewery in town.
When a wildlife agency starts asking which refuges “no longer align with the mission,” it’s preparing to liquidate.

Habitat doesn’t fail a mission.
Missions fail habitat.
www.cpr.org/2026/01/11/u...
Fed agency looking for wildlife refuges that 'no longer align with the mission'
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it's looking for ways to make hundreds of wildlife refuges and dozens of fish hatcheries more efficient.
www.cpr.org