A survey of forty economists from across the ideological and partisan spectrum has concluded that on some of its most cherished issues, the Republican Party has simply taken leave of economic reality. For instance, economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers noted that one of the results from the survey — run by the University of…
Category: Economy
Republicans want to raise taxes on the poor. Why?
As the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Orrin Hatch is the Republican point man on taxes in the Senate. And he’s got a plan. It’s called the Tax Hike Prevention Act of 2013. He’s even got Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate Republicans, as a co-sponsor. Hatch’s plan would extend all the Bush tax…
Republican Jobs Bills Won’t Actually Create Jobs, Say Economists
The GOP jobs package, which currently includes 32 bills, represents Republicans’ hallmark legislative accomplishment over the past two years. In the months ahead of the election, they will lean on it as proof of two things: that they are not the do-nothing obstructionists that Democrats paint them as, and that they are working hard to…
STUDY: Super-Rich Hiding At Least $21 Trillion In Tax Havens
According to a new study, the world’s super-rich are shielding at least $21 trillion in secret offshore tax havens. Using data from the Bank of International Settlements, IMF, World Bank, and national governments, the Tax Justice Network found that an astonishing 100,000 people worldwide hold nearly $10 trillion of offshore wealth, equivalent to the size…
The debate we should be having over ‘you didn’t build that’
Let’s try to extract the smart conversation from the contretemps over President Obama’s comments on the debt entrepreneurs owe to society. There are two questions worth thinking about here: 1) What do entrepreneurs owe the society that created the conditions necessary for their success? 2) What level of public investment is consistent with the maximum…
Chart: 6 Walmart Heirs Hold More Wealth Than 42% of Americans Combined
The recession has devastated the finances of many Americans, but it has been very good to the Walton family. Since 2007, Walmart stores have been flooded with millions of folks who’ve lost their shirts in the housing bust, stock market crash, and stalled job market—people who can no longer afford to buy anything that isn’t…
Under Obama, Taxes Hit A 30-Year Low
To hear conservatives and Tea Partiers tell it, President Obama is a serial tax-raiser who has increased taxes on “millions of Americans.” But according to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office, tax rates under Obama hit a 30-year low in 2009, in part because of the tax cuts he implemented in response to…
Republican Resistance Is Holding Back Economy [graph]
Technically, we won’t hit the fiscal cliff — Washington’s preferred term for the near-simultaneous triggering of more than $600 billion tax increases and spending cuts, as well as the predicted point at which we once again hit the debt ceiling — until after the election. But the effects could be felt long before. The 2011…
GOP governors say Medicaid costs are already breaking states’ backs. Are they right?
The Republican governors vowing to opt out of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion argue the program is already burdening cash-strapped state governments and would be a poison pill for state budgets in the long run. Are they right? When you look at all spending on state programs—including money from both federal and state governments—Medicaid is the single…
Expect gas prices to fall below $3
Is it possible the average price at the pump could be below $3 a gallon by the time leaves begin to change? Absolutely, according to experts who follow fuel price trends, and some areas of Georgia have already broken the barrier. At one station in Macon on Friday, unleaded regular was selling for $2.90, and in Duluth and…
Republicans Holding Nearly 3 Million Transportation Jobs Hostage For 6,000 Temporary Oil Jobs
The deadline for new transportation funding is June 30, and if the calendar flips to July without a compromise, as many as 1.9 million workers could lose their jobs, at least temporarily. The Senate version of the bill, if adapted, would create an additional one million new jobs as well, according to Department of Transportation…
Great Recession Doubled Wealth Gap Between Whites And African-Americans
The Great Recession took its toll on millions of Americans, but its effects hit minorities hardest. The housing crisis was especially brutal for minorities, many of whom were pushed into bad mortgages by the nation’s biggest banks. The loss of 600,000 public sector jobs also hit hard, since black and Latino workers are more likely…
Austerity Is Hammering State Economies
Public spending cuts, while on the rise worldwide, are bad for the U.S. economy. U.S. states provide a good illustration of this principle. Since the start of the Great Recession 20 states have cut public spending while 30 states expanded spending. Those that cut spending have fared worse economically than those that expanded spending. The…
The price of a do-nothing Congress
The latest employment data indicate that the U.S. job market is in a holding pattern — the price we pay for a do-nothing Congress focused more on austerity than job creation. Our economy added 69,000 new jobs in May, for an average of 96,000 over the past three months, with a downward revision of 49,000…
Report: US Has One Of The Highest Child Poverty Rates In The Developed World
According to a new report from the Office of Research at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the U.S. has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world. Of the 35 wealthy countries studied by UNICEF, only Romania has a child poverty rate higher than the 23 percent rate in the…
10 Reasons Why Public Policies Rescued the U.S. Economy
The Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 successively helped the U.S. economy turn itself around. These three measures came at crucial times when the economy was facing the prospect of experiencing serious damage unless…
Economic Snapshot for May 2012
Families’ economic security is slowly improving: The labor market is adding jobs and household wealth is gradually increasing. But families continue to struggle given the depth of the past recession and the slow pace of improvements during the economic recovery. Policymakers acted decisively in the past with extended unemployment insurance benefits, payroll tax cuts, and…
Public Opinion Snapshot: Millennials Want a More Equitable Society
Conservatives are hoping to build support among Millennials defined by Pew as those adults born 1981 or after by capitalizing on economic discontent. But Millennials’ high level of concern about inequality may make that very hard, since conservatives deny inequality is much of a problem and actually propose to make it worse through their favored…
The 1 Percent Solution
Nick Hanauer is the kind of innovator and venture capitalist expected to power the country’s next wave of growth. So why does he insist that only the fading middle class can rescue America? SOURCE: Jim Tankersley – NationalJournal.com. The middle class incubates entrepreneurs because it offers a good combination of time, resources, and motivation to invest…
The American Middle Class, Income Inequality, and the Strength of Our Economy
The research for this project began with a series of interviews and a national conference with leading U.S. economists to learn their views about the mechanisms through which income inequality and the strength of the middle class affect economic growth and economic stability. This paper summarizes what we have learned from these conversations, alongside our…