Wall Street Journal (June 11)
Unemployment has been slowly trending down in the U.S. but still remains too high. The Federal Reserve has been doing everything it can to improve the situation, but there are limits to monetary policy. In contrast, “the fiscal cupboard is not bare. There are things we could be doing to boost employment right now. That we are not doing anything constitutes malign neglect of the nation’s worst economic problem.” Instead of complacency, “policy makers should be running around like their hair is on fire…. Congress could make a good start on faster job creation simply by ending what it’s doing—destroying government jobs.”
New York Times (June 10)
“Those who see Japan’s performance over the last decades as an unmitigated failure have too narrow a conception of economic success. Along many dimensions—greater income equality, longer life expectancy, lower unemployment, greater investments in children’s education and health, and even greater productivity relative to the size of the labor force—Japan has done better than the United States. It may have quite a lot to teach us. If Abenomics is even half as successful as its advocates hope, it will have still more to teach us.”
Tags: Abenomics, Children, Economic success, Income equality, Investment, Japan, Labor force, Life expectancy, Productivity, U.S., Unemployment
The Economist (May 1, 2013)
“Youth unemployment is a big and growing problem.” With a few exceptions, such as Germany, youth unemployment has been grown worse since the 2008 financial crisis. “Globally nearly 290 million young people are neither working nor studying calculates the Economist, almost a quarter of the planet’s youth.”
Tags: Financial Crisis, Germany, Studying, Unemployment, Working, Youth
Washington Post (February 18)
Joblessness remains protracted in the U.S., with the CBO estimating unemployment will not fall below 7.5% until 2015. “That would make six years above 7.5 percent — the longest stretch of high joblessness in 70 years.” The U.S. economy was always distinguished by job creation. What’s changed? “To overgeneralize slightly: We have gone from being an expansive, risk-taking society to a skittish, risk-averse one.” Rather than buying today, everybody is waiting until tomorrow. “Pessimism produces a sluggish economy; a sluggish economy produces pessimism. That’s the main explanation of poor job creation.”
Tags: CBO, Economy, Job creation, Joblessness, Risk-averse, Risk-taking, U.S., Unemployment
Chicago Tribune (December 14)
“The Fed helped the nation through a crisis. Now it could be creating risk.” The Fed has indicated it will maintain near-zero interest rates until the unemployment falls below 6.5% or inflation rises above 2.5%. This monetary policy was championed by Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, an inflation dove and policy activist, but the policy is misguided. “At this stage of the recovery, the biggest drags on the employment market have little to do with credit availability and interest rates — factors where the Fed does have influence — and much to do with the failures of elected politicians to fix spending and tax policies…. The central bank just isn’t all-powerful…. The Fed risks becoming a source of the problems it has done so much in recent years to help resolve.”
Tags: Evans, Inflation, Monetary policy, Risk, Spending, Tax, Unemployment
Washington Post (November 8)
“It’s still about jobs. What will determine the core success of President Obama’s second term is progress — or the lack thereof — in reducing long-term unemployment. We know this from exit polls, which ranked the economy as the top issue (selected by about 60 percent of voters) and, more important, from common sense.”
USA Today (October 15)
When the U.S. unemployment rate fell from 8.1% to 7.8%, some alleged conspiracy. Former GE CEO Jack Welch suggested the numbers had been manipulated to improve Obama’s reelection odds. These suggestions are frankly “a little nuts.” Eventually Welch “admitted he had no evidence that anyone was manipulating the jobs numbers, or that the respected numbers crunchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other agencies were engaged in a plot that would be cause for terminating their professional careers.” Calculating the unemployment rate is not an exact science. The initial numbers often go up and down more than expected, but they get subsequently revised twice. Welch’s suggestion is among the “dumbest and most irresponsible things said by people who ought to know better.”
Tags: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Conspiracy, Dumb, GE, Jack Welch, U.S., Unemployment
New York Times (September 16)
“On the most basic level, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is responsible for saving and creating 2.5 million jobs. The majority of economists agree that it helped the economy grow by as much as 3.8 percent, and kept the unemployment rate from reaching 12 percent.”
Bloomberg (July 16)
“For the first time in recent history, the average Canadian is richer than the average American…. The net worth of the average Canadian household in 2011 was $363,202, while the average American household’s net worth was $319,970.” Canadians are also enjoy a lower unemployment rate at 7.2% versus 8.2% for the U.S. Canadians are benefiting from the Alberta tar sands, which now ranks as the world’s third largest oil reserves.
Tags: Canadian, Net worth, Tar sands, U.S., Unemployment
The Economist (July 14)
With unemployment over 8% and full year growth expected to now come in at less than 2%, the U.S. economy still looks weak. The Economist notes, however, the ”comeback kid” is making progress. “America’s economy is certainly in a tender state. But the pessimism of the presidential slanging-match misses something vital. Led by its inventive private sector, the economy is remaking itself …. Old weaknesses are being remedied and new strengths discovered, with an agility that has much to teach stagnant Europe and dirigiste Asia.”
Tags: Asia, Comeback kid, Economy, Europe, Growth, U.S., Unemployment
