July jobs report: booming jobs market, and a surge in participation continues to depress wage growth HEADLINES: +157,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate down -0.1% from 4.0% to 3.9% U6 underemployment rate down -0.3% from 7.8% to 7.5% (new expansion low) Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and […]
By Steve Roth (originally published at Evonomics) Four Definitions of Money. All Correct Money makes the world go round. That may well be true, but money certainly makes the economics world go round. It’s the discipline’s special purview, the numeric linchpin that gives economics its dominant role and voice in our affairs. It’s what makes economics seem […]
Mush versus Mush on Climate Change The very long New York Times piece on climate change politics in the 1980s by Nathaniel Rich has attracted a lot of critical commentary—justifiably. To say that the failure to achieve a political response was due to human nature, a genetic defect that prevents our species from planning ahead, is just […]
Via Truthout: In every community, there are nonprofit charities that serve real needs: local food pantries, programs addressing the opioid crisis, the Red Cross chapters that come to our aid after a storm. Charities provide vital services to the people and places they serve. These organizations lean heavily on volunteers, fundraisers, and donors. And most […]
Click this link. Data For Progress decided to ask people about policy proposals which very serious centrists consider way too far left for America. American voters respond differently. As should already be clear from existing polls (click and search for “fair”), there is strong support for egalitarian populist redistributive public policy. At Data For Progress, […]
run75441: Student Loan Justice Organization has started a letter/email campaign to Senator Elizabeth Warren via one of her aides Joshua Delaney. I have read Senator Warren on numerous occasions and she has been forthright in her proposals and opposition to the Financial and Banking industry taking advantage of the Middle Class. For whatever reason, Senator […]
Germany Organizing Anti-Trump Coalition Mark Thoma th other day links to a story in Der Spiegel about a visit to Japan by new German Foreign Minister, Heike Maas. He met with PM Shinzo Abe, and apparently the two of them agreed on the need for creating a network of like-minded nations that wish to maintain […]
Rigging the student loan system Americans today hold $1.5 trillion in student debt, and recent research reveals that the effects of this outsized and growing debt are much more devastating than previously thought, particularly for communities of color. From bankruptcy protections and lower interest rates and fees to safeguards from fraudulent educational programs and even fullstudent debt cancellation, economic […]
The Soybean Boom Via TalkingPointsMemo AP notes: Private forecasters cautioned that the April-June pace is unsustainable because, they say, it stems from temporary factors, including a rush by exporters of soybeans and other products to get their shipments out before retaliatory tariffs took effect. They predicted the rest of the year is likely to see solid, but […]
Economic Policy Institute answers two laymen questions on wage stagnation: Why is wage growth so slow? It’s not because low-wage jobs are being added disproportionately: One explanation worth looking into is whether today’s low wage growth is due to a composition effect—i.e. low-wage jobs being added faster than middle- and/or high-wage jobs and, as a […]