Dreaming of Full Employment
Some people like to dream about Christmas when it’s August; I like to think about full employment when we’re stuck in the slog we’re in. As I’ve mentioned, some colleagues and I are updating some earlier work of the benefits of full employment and I just wanted to post this little figure to remind us [...]
Raising the Minimum Wage: The Debate Begins…Again
If you, like me, are a veteran of this minimum wage scrum that’s getting underway, you’ve likely heard the arguments before. But for you newbees out there–or vets who need an update—here ‘tis: Claim: Instead of helping low-wage workers, an increase in the minimum wage will cause them to lose their jobs. Certainly that’s the prediction [...]
POTUS Proposes an Increase in the Minimum Wage!
It’s a great idea, one I’ve espoused on these very pages. The President suggested raising the federal minimum from its current level of $7.25 up to $9 by 2015 and then index it to inflation. An increase of that magnitude would directly lift the wages of 15 million low-wage workers, according to the WH. Clearly, [...]
College is Not Inoculation
Just working up some numbers for testimony next week on education and jobs and wanted to share this graph of real weekly earnings for full-time workers with a bachelor’s degree, 25 and up. I think there’s a strain of debate on these issues that argues once someone has a college degree, they’re immune from the [...]
Live in OR!
Headed out to Oregon to give talks in Eugene on Monday and Portland on Tuesday. Info here in case you’re out there. And thanks in advance to the great Oregon Center for Public Policy for planning a major Northwestern wonkout. I’m planning to talk about inequality, growth, jobs, and incomes–what’s broke and how to fix [...]
A Quick Data Note, Following Up On Unions and Job Growth
In my earlier post on shrinking union density, I noted the following: “…you don’t see systematic differences in job creation favoring, for example, countries or states with low versus high unionization rates.” Here’s a simple look at what I mean. The theory among many who disparage unions is that they distort the labor market, creating [...]
Unions in America: 2012 Data
Even as the labor market expanded in 2012, union membership fell again, both in the private and public sectors, according to data released this morning by the BLS. –Among all workers, 11.3%, or 14.4 million were union members in 2012, compared to 11.8% (14.8 million) in 2011. –The share of union members in the public [...]
The Inequality Staircase
I posted a piece yesterday about the factors behind the growth of wage inequality. Well, today we find the BLS releasing some relevant data on the issue. The figure below shows the annual growth rates of weekly earnings of full-time workers by various wage percentiles. Two things to note: the staircase function characteristic of inequality [...]
The Medieval Plague and Full Employment
Over a year ago, in the midst of reading the great Ken Follett historical novel, World Without End, I was struck by some similarities between their conflicts and our own, and I wrote a post about it: [The book] got me thinking about today’s intellectual climate. Obviously, I’m being a bit hyperbolic (not to mention [...]
More on Social Security, Private Pensions, and Retirement Preparedness
Recall this post on how the loss of defined benefit pensions underscores the need to protect our national public defined-benefit pension program: Social Security. Fellow blogger Kevin Drum responds to the post with this interesting look at income trends of older relative to younger households showing the older cohort to be doing much better in [...]
Okun, Unemployment, and Wages
I just finished reading a great little paper on Okun’s rule about the relationship between output gaps and the unemployment rate (I’d say it’s uniquely readable for this sort of thing, btw). Fifty years ago, when economists were a lot more likely to be driven by what the data actually did as opposed to what [...]
When You’re Trying to Decide if We Need to Renew the Payroll Tax Break, Picture This
It’s just a slide…in both senses of the word…of the real earnings—pretax, which is important—of middle-wage workers: blue collar workers in manufacturing and non-managers in services, adjusted for inflation. And it’s not inflation holding back these wage rates—it’s the weak economy. This series starts in 1964, and in nominal terms, it’s never grown more slowly [...]
President to Speak Tomorrow on Cliff…(you know what I mean)
As per CNN: The 1:05 p.m. ET statement…will serve as an opportunity to address some of the big issues that Washington will tackle in the next few months – including staving off the so-called fiscal cliff… …the White House Thursday said the statement would address “the action we need to take to keep our economy [...]
Unemployment Doesn’t Just Hurt the Unemployed
Every once and a while I hear someone say, “wait a sec, if the unemployment rate is 7.8% then 92.2% of labor force is working…that doesn’t sound so bad at all.” That’s wrong simply in the sense that 7.8% is still an elevated unemployment rate (suppose the rate were 15%–would you feel better if someone [...]
Um…About that Redistribution Thingie…
Update: Nice WaPo editorial on this: “To tax is to redistribute. To govern is to redistribute. Benefits from government spending flow in different amounts to different individuals and different states.” Lots a words flying around about who is and isn’t a “European-style-five-year-planning-redistributionist.” Let’s look at some facts. First, from some work by my CBPP [...]
What’s Middle Class?
Both Gov Romney and President Obama often describe, at least implicitly, the middle class as households with incomes below $250,000 (or $200,000 for individuals). OK. But just so we’re all on the same page here, the Census data that just came out show that the median HH income—the amount at the 50th %’ile—was about $50K [...]
Policy Matters! Today’s Income, Poverty, and Insurance Coverage Data
According to new Census Bureau data released today, poverty rates as officially measured did not rise as expected last year and more people were covered by health insurance. Middle class incomes fell significantly, however, and inequality increased. Basically, the message here is policy matters. Where policy addressed a market failure—rising shares of the uninsured; poor [...]
Does Your First Derivative Have the Same Sign As It Did Four Years Ago?!
Crunching on other matters all day and didn’t get have a chance to get into this question that’s dominating the campaign news as to whether you’re better off than you were four years ago. Many useful things to read: here, here, and here. I’ll leave the politics to others. Let me just say a few [...]
Why Full Employment Should be on the NYT’s List of Reasons for the Income Slump
A few days ago I posted this response the NYT’s list of reasons for the income slump. One of my main points was that full employment—i.e., its absence—is a major factor behind sagging incomes and high poverty rates, and as such it should have a prominent place of the NYT’s list. David Leonhardt, one of [...]
Should Income Analysts Adjust for Family Size?
This sounds, and is, a bit weedy/wonky, but it’s a point that needs to be taken more seriously among economists, journalists, and policymakers who focus on trends in family income: it’s not necessarily correct to adjust incomes for family size, because family size is endogenous to economic conditions. Let me explain that cryptic insight. I [...]
What the Heck Happened to the Middle Class?
Holding forth on this very important question over at MSNBC’s Lean Forward site. Companion piece to this.
A New Report on the Middle Class
The Pew Research Center just released a report worth a close look, called “The Lost Decade of the Middle Class.” (FTR, I wrote this a year ago…I await royalties.) The title comes from the observation that real median income or the more comprehensive measure of net worth were lower at the end of the last [...]
Jared Bernstein’s areas of expertise include federal and state economic and fiscal policies, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, international comparisons, and the analysis of financial and housing markets.
