When we think of economic downturns, we generally think of them as flat up or down. We are all familiar with terms like recession. That is what we are now very slowly getting out of. We know, from our parents and grandparents, what the utter devastation of a depression is. We know, from our most recent experience, the Great Recession, what that feels like. Some months back, a term was added to the economic conversation: secular stagnation. Though the concept isn’t a new one, it has recently been reintroduced. Continue reading Defining Secular Stagnation | Economics
Tag Archives: Income
Jared Bernstein: A deeper dive into the weeds of the CBO household income data
Jared Bernstein
November 25, 2014
Yesterday, I published a report by myself and Ben Spielberg analyzing the Congressional Budget Office’s comprehensive data series on household income. Here we dive a bit deeper into some of the weeds, expanding on some of our findings.
One motivation for our report was to correct the record of those who claim that the trend of increasing income inequality is significantly reduced when accounting for government taxes and transfers. In fact, as we show, between 1979 and 2011, inequality measured by the Gini coefficient rose 24% based solely on market outcomes and by 22% based on CBO’s comprehensive, post-tax and transfer income data.
Continue reading Jared Bernstein: A deeper dive into the weeds of the CBO household income data
What If We Had Measured #Poverty Differently for the Past 50 Years? | CityLab
The Census’ Supplemental Poverty Measure paints a different picture of the poor and the social safety net.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan announced defeat at the hands of the “war on poverty“—a war his predecessor Lyndon Johnson had waged since 1967. InThe Atlantic the year after, Nicholas Lemann explained why all anti-poverty programs need not be as “ill-fated” as the ones spearheaded over those decades.
Continue reading What If We Had Measured #Poverty Differently for the Past 50 Years? | CityLab
All The Wealth The Middle Class Accumulated After 1940 Is Gone
Here’s more proof the middle class is dying.
Continue reading All The Wealth The Middle Class Accumulated After 1940 Is Gone
The Importance of Extending Pro-work Supports in Key Anti-Poverty Programs | Jared Bernstein | On the Economy
By Jared Bernstein
October 9, 2014
If you will take a brief amble with me through some budget weeds, I assure you it will be in your interest.
Even people who pay some attention to such things don’t know that an important work-support for low-income families is scheduled to expire at the end of 2017. I’m talking about parts of the refundable portions of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) that were expanded in recent years. Without Congressional action, these improvements will go up in smoke at the end of 2017.
Obama Defends Economic Progress On His Watch Ahead Of Midterms
By NEDRA PICKLER and JIM KUHNHENN of the AP
EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — President Barack Obama acknowledged his pivotal role in the midterm political campaign Thursday, arguing that the November congressional elections are a referendum on his economic policies and blaming Republicans for blocking his efforts to boost wages and create more jobs. Continue reading Obama Defends Economic Progress On His Watch Ahead Of Midterms
Jared Bernstein: 2013 #poverty and #income results: Rising tide lifts a few boats, but the levee needs work
By Jared Bernstein
September 16th, 2014
They’re out and I’ve got an extensive analysis up at PostEverything. For here, some highlights.
–The poverty rate fell more than I expected last year–down half-a-percentage point from 15% in 2012 to 14.5% in 2013. It was fully driven by a sharp decline in child poverty rate, which fell almost two percentage points, from 21.8% to 19.9%, the largest one-year decline since 1966.
Jared Bernstein: Absent full employment or a bubble, middle class income and wealth will fall
By Jared Bernstein
September 15, 2014
Robert Samuelson covers some useful ground this morning, reviewing income and net worth trends from the recent Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial (it comes out every three years) survey of family income and wealth. I wanted to add a few points regarding timing of the trends he cites.
Jared Bernstein: A Quick Check-in on the Wage Front
We don’t yet have all the data I need to update my full-monty-wage-mash-up, but a few series to which I pay attention are now available for the first half of the year: median weekly earnings (MWE) of full-time workers and two flavors of average hourly earnings. What do they show?
Not much, in terms of wage pressures. MWE is a very noisy series–medians are a more volatile statistic then means–so in order to show underlying pace in nominal weekly earnings, I’ve smoothed the series (using an HP filter; both figures show year-over-year changes). Amidst the jumpiness, the deceleration is clear.
Continue reading Jared Bernstein: A Quick Check-in on the Wage Front
The economy is showing signs of improvement – The Washington Post
So why aren’t Democrats talking about it?
By Jaime Fuller
Today, President Obama will be in Denver, talking about improvements in the economic picture and his work toward making them happen. The unemployment rate is at 6.1 percent, and the United States has added 1.4 million new jobs since the beginning of 2014. Continue reading The economy is showing signs of improvement – The Washington Post