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In RealTime posts, PIIE senior staff and colleagues discuss the fast-moving economic news, financial developments, and public policy choices confronting the United States and the world.
The Washington branch of Occupy Wall Street has moved in recent days to block the structurally deficient Key Bridge, arguing that rebuilding bridges is the right way to create jobs for hundreds of thousands of unemployed construction workers. The Tea Party violently objects to deficit spending and higher taxes. These political poles should unite on [...]
US policymakers are running out of options to solve our massive unemployment problem and get the economy growing again. The Administration’s jobs bill faces resistance in Congress. The best option that can be implemented without a vote of Congress is to work through the market that started this mess in the first place—housing. The Administration [...]
Addressing a rally at the obsolete Brent Spruce Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio, President Obama recently challenged Republican leaders to pass his American Jobs Act: “Mr. Boehner, Mr. McConnell, help us rebuild this bridge. Help us rebuild America. … Pass this bill.” Good political theater, perhaps, but not effective economics. Neither House Speaker John Boehner [...]
After nine months of being used as a pawn in a partisan battle, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)—a small program that provides job search assistance and training to workers, firms, farmers, and fishermen hurt by globalization—is scheduled for a vote this week in the Senate. Hundreds of thousands of workers have been denied assistance since the [...]
As Americans observe Labor Day, and the latest numbers released by the US government show disappointing job growth, the US labor market faces several major problems: First, although private employment has been increasing, it remains below what it was at the outset of the Great Recession. Total private employment has increased by 1.7 million (or [...]
The second half of 2011 opened with a boatload of bad economic news: rolling sovereign debt crises in Europe, a downgrade in the US credit rating, a sputtering economy, little growth in jobs, weak housing prices, and a plunging stock market. Can President Obama turn this picture around in time for the 2012 campaign? In [...]
A rancorous debate is taking place over whether to link reauthorization and reform of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)—which provides assistance to workers, farmers, fishermen, and firms adversely affected by increased import competition and offshore shifts in production—to other legislation moving through Congress. Given TAA’s small size, the issue isn’t whether to link it or not, [...]
I Introduction As the impact of the Great Recession gradually recedes on both sides of the Atlantic, political and economic attention will invariably shift toward prospects for renewed job creation. This paper will show how, in contrast to the outcome of earlier recessions, European labor markets have weathered the effects of the Great Recession noticeably better [...]
World leaders are calling for Hosni Mubarak to either resign or to institute “political and economic” reform that will meet the demands of the demonstrators. Such calls show a large degree of ignorance about the needed economic reforms and the fact that increasing political participation may pose obstacles to reforms. While the maintenance of deeply [...]
Whoever emerges on top of the unfolding political crisis in Egypt, there is little doubt that the country is in need of fresh economic policies as well as fresh leadership. One year ago, we argued in Reengaging Egypt: Options for US-Egypt Economic Relations that the United States should pursue programs that help Egypt "create a better [...]