UC Berkeley economist Brad DeLong provides excerpts from Christina Romer’s speech this week, her last as Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, in which she said:
The only surefire ways for policymakers to substantially increase aggregate demand in the short run are for the government to spend more and tax less. In my view, [...]
So, you’re asking, how do we pay for bridges and fire fighters and teachers and trains and health care for kids and sewers that don’t overflow all the time, without putting an unbearable tax burden on middle-class families or small businesses?
The answer is not hard and it’s been laid out a lot of times by [...]
As former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley used to say, “on account of the time factor”… some quick links on the August jobs report.
Meteor Blades at Daily Kos:
Two positive things can be said about today’s jobs report from the Labor Department. First, it was significantly better than the one for August 2009, and June and [...]
Anyone surprised by this news?
A new report concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies.
The report, from the Institute of Policy Studies, [...]
Working America’s Karen Nussbaum and Dan Heck were on Hardball last night, talking about what we’re hearing, our efforts to organize working people, and mobilizing jobless workers to vote.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
NPR:
For years, Americans have had their phone calls about credit card bills and broken cell phones handled by people in the Philippines or India. But American firms are starting to bring call centers back to the U.S. — and this time around, they are hiring more people to work in their own homes.
Ten years ago, [...]
From HuffPo:
Terminated workers are paying an average of $429 a month this year for individual HMO coverage, compared to $399 for the same coverage in 2009, according to a survey conducted by Aon Consulting. COBRA coverage for an entire family now costs an average of $1,251, up from $1,171 per month at this time last [...]
Harold Meyerson writes about Working America in the Washington Post:
In an April speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Trumka affirmed that “working people are right to be mad at what has happened to our economy and our country.” Our political leaders, he continued, need to validate that anger — and remedy its [...]
First-time payments of unemployment insurance to those filing new initial state claims topped 1.7 million in the two month period of June and July, according to data made available by the Department of Labor.
That data showed approved first payments by states to newly jobless workers were 812,222 in June and 898,968 in July, the two [...]
By Kimberly McMurray — Philadelphia
“We have to laugh about it, you know? Because if we didn’t, we would spend all of our time crying.” The truth is, this member meeting has been full of laughter, even as their stories break my heart. I am sitting with Angela and Carmen in Angela’s apartment in suburban Pennsylvania. [...]
From USA Today:
Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.
More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at [...]
Five years after Katrina, how are working people faring in New Orleans?
The Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, was supposed to help people keep their homes. Instead, it hurt people financially. Dave Dayen at Firedoglake has been covering this story in depth.
Matt Yglesias:
If you drive from Washington, DC to Brooklin, ME you [...]
BP: It’s not just the Gulf it’s been harming.
TEXAS CITY, Tex. — While the world was focused on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery here released huge amounts of toxic chemicals into the air that went unnoticed by residents until many saw their children come down with respiratory problems.
For [...]
If that’s the question you’ve been asking yourself, in one form or another, over the course of the past year or two, believe me you are not alone. Whenever the subject comes up people seem to respond with that instant sense of recognition and a one word accompaniment: “Right?”
By now it’s clear that a [...]
To roads being turned to gravel, senior year of high school being made optional, public bus systems being shut down and libraries being closed, add another effect of state and municipal budget crises: firehouse brownouts.
Fire departments that can’t keep all their units open at any one time are instituting “rolling brownouts,” in which today [...]
