Attractive regions will attract households with greater location choices. These households will inevitably be better educated and command a higher income. However, all things being equal, workers in these places will not require quite as high a wage to live in these places as they would to live in a less-desirable place.
Over the past few weeks, the research center in which I work published three studies evaluating the role of economic development programs in Indiana. The results held surprises and some not-so-surprising findings.
Over the next couple of weeks, I will be traveling to many of Indiana’s cities to explain my 2014 economic forecast. I will tell audiences that the national economy will perform poorly, and that we will not return to pre-recession employment numbers this year.
In 1940, vibrant cities had big factories, rail yards and lots of associated workers. In 2010, vibrant cities had lots of people in many occupations whose product is mostly consumed locally. This doesn’t mean there aren’t a few fantastic towns with factories, but it is the vibrant town that ultimately makes the difference.
I have written that the marriage amendment is a poor use of our legislators’ time, but I believe we should have an honest discussion about the matter.
At first blush, 200,000 new jobs noted in the latest jobs report would be welcomed news, as it is almost half the number of jobs we need each month to return labor markets to normalcy by the end of the decade. Alas, the Department of Labor publishes much more detailed data, and in that lurk dark shadows of a still-stagnant economy.
Veterans of our large wars have returned to remake the world. The more recent wars have been fought by a mix of regular and citizen soldiers, and so I believe will leave a lasting mark on our nation.
Much of the rhetoric about the costs and benefits of the minimum wage is pure bunk. Life as an adult minimum-wage worker is tough, but not because of salaries.
It is far too early to call the rollout of the Affordable Care Act a failure; most new programs have rocky starts. But this one has most of the signs of inevitable failure. If the situation doesn’t remedy itself quickly, the complete redo of the law will be hastened considerably.
The first slowdown seems to have been at least partially remedied by the Federal Reserve’s massive purchase of assets known as quantitative easing, the most recent of which was accompanied by a marked short-term improvement in the economy. That improvement seems to have run its course.
Voters’ expressing only anger and frustration over D.C. politics simply won’t do. It is intellectually lazy, cowardly and un-American to wish that everyone should settle their argument like this is a school playground.
No matter the result of last week’s budget debate, we are in need of a serious discussion about tax and spending policy.
Like most Americans, I am confused by the ACA. I don’t have a spare couple of months to read it in its entirety, but am certain there are things about it I will like and some I will detest. On balance, though, it is increasingly clear that it will require Herculean fixes.
With Janet Yellen as the clear front runner for Federal Reserve chairwoman, rampant speculation regarding her approach to monetary policy fills blogs and editorials.
My local paper recently published an opinion piece criticizing virtually all recent education reform efforts, including those by the Bush, Obama, Daniels and Pence administrations. The piece was naively rich with irony.
Indiana has many fine communities with good schools and great local amenities. High-earning households are eager to live in these communities, and businesses flock there to obtain access to those workers and consumers. Indiana also has many poor communities with weak schools and few amenities. Households and businesses flee such places.
The decline of the American labor movement is startling. In only 50 years, membership has dropped 80 percent. No mainstream American institution of note has dissipated at this pace before. Today, more Americans receive disability payments than belong to private-sector unions.
The attempt by the Department of Justice to block the merger of American Airlines and U.S. Airways offers a glimpse into one of the great public policy innovations of the past couple of centuries: American anti-trust law.
Higher education is undergoing a metamorphosis. Cost-saving measures such as online learning and the ubiquity of technology might seem to make today’s undergraduate experience vastly different from their forbears’. That is a mirage. The most essential elements of an education are unchanged.
A great debate under way regarding the successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke seems to come down to economists Lawrence Summers or Janet Yellen. The debate is full of interesting insight but it’s the immediate challenges of the Fed that matter more.
