Global Investors Are Telling Donald Trump His Deficits and National…
Washington is unnerved these days about budget deficits and the national debt. Deficit angst comes along periodically, often as a pretext for cutting social spending. This time, however, there’s genuine cause for alarm. Outsized deficits are par for the course when the economy is in recession or reeling from a shock like the pandemic or the financial collapse; most of… Continue reading
Inflation Reality Check: Don‘t Blame Wages and Salaries
Yes, economics can be complicated, and economic reporters work under tight deadlines. That’s no excuse for the media meme that blames rising wages for much of today’s inflation. The Wall Street Journal summed up this erroneous view in a recent headline, “Rapid Wage Growth Keeps Pressure on inflation.” The Journal’s self-serving take is refuted by the data and rejected by…Continue reading
The Decline and Possible Resurrection of Radical Gerrymandering
Given Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election, it’s unsurprising that a recent survey by the National Opinion Research Center found that 52 percent of Americans believe that our democracy is in serious trouble. Their skepticism includes congressional gerrymandering—when the party controlling the state legislature draws the state’s congressional and state legislative districts in ways that give them…Continue reading
The Economy Is Doing Fine, for the Time Being
Republican charges of a “Biden recession” during the midterm campaign failed to ignite a red wave, and the latest release of data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) explains why. In the third quarter, the economy grew 2.9 percent after inflation. That strong growth is revised from the BEA’s 2.6 percent estimate released just before the midterm election, and…Continue reading
C’mon, Democrats, Tout Your Economic Record: It’s a Very Good…
Drawing on the fact-free politics of Donald Trump, Republicans are selling the meme that Americans are much worse off economically and financially under President Joe Biden and the Democrats. That is demonstrably untrue. Yet, the Democrats’ main response has been to mumble an apology for the inflation they didn’t cause and try and change the subject. That approach won’t work,…Continue reading
Who Was Hired and Who Was Fired during the Pandemic
COVID-19 unleashed an earthquake in American labor markets—and its aftershocks are still with us. In March-May 2020, 20.3 million people abruptly lost their jobs; only half as many were hired over the following seven months. But businesses hired workers at turbocharged rates in 2021 and 2022. By May and June of this year, employment had fully recovered from the pandemic.…Continue reading
Yes, Americans Are Better Off Under Biden
Ronald Reagan closed his presidential debate with Jimmy Carter in October 1980 urging Americans to ask if they were better off than they were four years ago. Of course, Reagan, like a sharp prosecutor, knew the answer before he asked the question. Inflation and unemployment were soaring. Perhaps the reason why Republicans aren’t posing that question today is that they…Continue reading
Hey, Folks, We’re Not in a Recession
Rules of thumb are often misleading. Biden administration critics have seized on an axiom that two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth signal a recession, one not followed by any economist I know. Thankfully, the official arbiter of whether and when a recession has begun, the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, applies more nuanced…Continue reading
The Case for Bill Clinton’s Economic Record
How do you argue with success? One answer is, become a Democrat. Joe Biden learned this lesson recently when many in his party dismissed the 5.7 percent economic growth and 6.2 million new jobs created in his first year and instead complained about his inability to corral Joe Machin to support Build Back Better. A more far-reaching instance is the…Continue reading