The Last of the Baby Boomers Are Turning 65, And…
Between now and 2030, nearly 30 million Americans born between 1959 and 1964 will turn 65, the tail end of the Baby Boom generation. As the largest cohort on record to reach retirement age, they are often called the “peak boomers.” In a new study supported by the Alliance for Lifetime Income, my co-author Luke Stuttgen and I found that… Continue reading
Trump and Senate Republicans Pose a Grave Risk to the…
The headline from last Thursday’s report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) on second quarter GDP was horrific: The economy contracted 9.5 percent from April through June. On an annual basis, GDP fell at an astounding rate of nearly 33 percent. Still, there’s another ominous aspect to the agency’s findings that has gone largely unnoted: The pandemic-driven collapse in…Continue reading
Trump is Wrong Again: U.S. Manufacturing is Not Recovering
The headline from the Commerce Department’s new report on the economy is that new shipments and new orders of durable goods by U.S .manufacturers increased at healthy rates in June – by 15 percent and 7 percent respectively. Larry Kudlow almost certainly will herald the numbers as proof that American manufacturing is back and good times are just around the…Continue reading
Investors are Doing Great in this Crisis, But What About…
Welcome to Crony Capitalism 2.0, brought to America by the Trump administration and the COVID-19 pandemic. Washington’s current approach to rescue the economy has made investors in stocks and bonds whole, even as incomes fall for most Americans. Now, only Congress can lessen that injustice—and the suffering of millions of people—and only by going big. Until the crisis ends, everyone…Continue reading
Trump’s Bungled Pandemic Response Has Badly Damaged Americans’ Incomes
Donald Trump may have normalized cognitive dissonance for many of his supporters and some young people. But wishing away the pandemic does not affect reality. The May data on personal incomes released last week by the Bureau of Economic Analysis) (BEA) is a serious wake-up call. The data show that our nearly singular failure to wrestle the pandemic to manageable…Continue reading
Is the May Unemployment Report a Case of Lying Statistics?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) surprised the markets and most economists Friday with an announcement that the unemployment rate fell from 14.7 percent in April to 13.3 percent in May. President Donald Trump had the temerity to boast that George Floyd, the unarmed black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, was “looking down from heaven” to…Continue reading
The Economy Will Not Cooperate with Trump’s Re-Election
It is not surprising that the Trump administration’s top economist promised this week that huge, historic gains in jobs and growth are coming in a few months. He is not alone. Even some Democratic economists think that economic growth and jobs could come roaring back before the November election. They are wrong. The truth is that the economy’s near-term path…Continue reading
The Official Unemployment Numbers Are Technically Fake News
April’s 14.7 percent unemployment rate, announced by the Labor Department last Friday, is awful by any standard. The official tally shows that unemployment increased by 15,938,000 people last month—to 23,078,000 overall—resulting in the highest jobless rate since the Great Depression. As depressing as that may be, it’s not the full story. The Labor Department also reported Friday that the number…Continue reading
How Much Trump Has Cost Americans in this Pandemic
Most of the economic carnage we see Americans suffer today is the result of measures that federal, state, and local governments have had to adopt to stem the spread of COVID-19—the social distancing, social isolation, and closing of borders and businesses. It follows that how great the damage is depends in important part on how quickly and effectively a country…Continue reading