The Beveridge Curve (BC) is a favorite tool of labor economists showing the inverse relationship between job openings and unemployment. It’s thus a kind of index of strength of labor demand: when the job market is tight, there’s low unemployment and more unfilled openings/job vacancies, and vice versa.
“I’ve been asking CEOs to give more long-term unemployed workers a fair shot at that new job and new chance to support their families,” President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address. “This week, many will come to the White House to make that commitment real.”
On Sunday Henry Paulson, the former Treasury secretary and a lifelong Republican, had an op-ed article about climate policy in The New York Times. In the article, he declared that man-made climate change is “the challenge of our time,” and called for a national tax on carbon emissions to encourage conservation and the adoption of green technologies. Considering the prevalence of climate denial within today’s G.O.P., and the absolute opposition to any kind of tax increase, this was a brave stand to take. But not nearly brave enough. Emissions taxes are the Economics 101 solution to pollution problems; every economist I know would start cheering wildly if Congress voted in a clean, across-the-board carbon tax. But that isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. A carbon tax may be the best thing we could do, but we won’t actually do it. Continue reading Paul Krugman: The Big Green Test – NYTimes→
Mark, 22 and unemployed, sleeps late in the morning.
His roommate has to get up for work, but Mark has nowhere to be. He rolls out of bed at 11 a.m. He checks his email — still no response to his last round of resumes — and heads out for a run. When he gets home, he spends 45 minutes filling out job applications, then plops down in front of the television for a couple hours before cleaning up the house — he’s taken on more chores since his roommate is cutting him a break on the rent. In the evening, his buddies are catching a game at the local bar, but Mark has class at the local community college, where he’s working toward a certificate in HVAC repair.
That deep divide between those with jobs and those without them reveals itself not just in well-known statistics on hiring and income but in the day-to-day details of how people live their lives. The unemployed have higher rates of depression, obesity and suicide. In interviews, they frequently report that the social and emotional impacts of joblessness — isolation from friends, the loss of a daily routine, feelings of uselessness — can be as hard as the financial toll. Many say it’s hard just to get out of bed in the morning. Continue reading @FiveThirtyEight: It’s Hard to Get Off the Couch When You’re #Unemployed→
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