Rethinking Social and Economic Policy Systems

As the world, and the United States in particular, confronts the challenges of economic mobility, health and longevity, and new frontiers of technology and human well-being, have we designed our social and economic systems to effectively address these convergences?

Modernizing social and economic systems comes with modernizing the policy analysis that informs how these systems work. However, big questions remain about whether our policy framework, methods, and tools are being developed in ways that offer sustainable solutions. We also are facing real questions about whether our current solutions will add up to meaningful and positive impacts on social and economic outcomes.

For instance, has policy analysis informed systems to effectively handle twin issues such as

• advancing national economic competitiveness with the ability to live affordably
• adopting artificial intelligence across economic sectors while preserving the fundamentals of humanity
• maintaining a viable social safety net amid disruptions in demography and migration
• supporting our health and longevity with technological and biological innovations while not exacerbating inequity?

The answer, quite simply, is not yet. Through an unprecedented integration effort across RAND’s social and economic policy research and linkages with national and global security, RAND is uniquely addressing these questions. Our integrated approach allows us to break out of siloed and single intervention thinking that has traditionally dwarfed the disciplines that inform policy analysis.

Transforming RAND's Approach to Addressing Social and Economic Policy Challenges

Through the Social and Economic Policy Rethink, RAND is embarking on a series that

• conducts deeper analysis of an interconnected issue, arraying the drivers, primary impacts, and secondary impacts of policy choices
• creates an accessible way for policymakers and policy influencers to understand the contours of where an issue is heading and a way to think about that issue
• develops products that provide frameworks and roadmaps for decisionmakers to craft plans and policies that account for within- and cross-sector dimensions of a complex issue.

Volume 1 The Pace of AI Adoption and Impact on Economic Sectors

The first volume, released in a series of short reports and visual tools in fall 2025, addresses the question, “How will the pace of adoption and choices to take on artificial intelligence affect diverse economic sectors and thus U.S. national well-being?”

This volume encompasses seven reports that

• describe key social and economic stakes for policy on AI adoption
• examine how policymakers can account for rapid AI capabilities development and adoption in and across sectors
• showcase how industry and policy leaders can responsibly meet the challenges of widespread AI adoption.

The second volume underway seeks to reimagine the U.S. social safety net by addressing questions such as

• How are we supporting Americans to live lives of security and prosperity?
• What should be the expectation of the government and the broader social contract?
• How should we redesign a safety net that works for America today and forward and not sixty years ago?

In this volume, RAND is building State INVEST (INvestment in Viable Economic and Social Trajectories), a dynamic, lifecourse microsimulation model that gives states the capacity to stress-test safety net redesign proposals, understand long-term fiscal and family impacts, and make evidence-based decisions about program investments. RAND is currently partnering with states to build out, refine, and calibrate the model to explore impacts of legislation as well as potential policy reforms.