Three Things to Love (and a Few More to Hate) About Obama’s Jobs Plan
President Obama created big expectations last week for the speech where he announced his new jobs plan. Remarkably, his rhetoric came close to fulfilling them. But what about the actual plan he sent to Congress on Monday? If it were to be enacted in its current form (which it won’t), would it have a shot at turning around the economy? As it turns out, there are definitely some things to like in Obama’s roadmap, even while there are some very big warning signs as well. READ MORE >>
Let’s Not Draw Broad Conclusions From the Stock Market Turmoil
This article is a contribution to 'Is There Anything That Can Be Done? A TNR Symposium On The Economy.' Click here to read other contributions to the series. READ MORE >>
The Latest Jobs Report Is All Bad News
The Labor Department reported that the economy created 117,000 jobs in July and revised the prior months’ growth slightly to bring the average over the last three months to 72,000 jobs per month. This rate of job growth is below the 90,000 a month needed to keep pace with the growth of the labor force. Consistent with this fact, the employment to population ratio (EPOP) fell slightly to 58.1 percent, tying its previous low for the downturn. While the unemployment rate edged down to 9.1 percent, this was entirely attributable to people leaving the labor force. READ MORE >>
A Fix for the Debt Ceiling That No One Is Talking About
Disaster Not Averted
Deep-Six the Deficit Commission Report
For more coverage of the debt commission report, read Jonathan Chait and Jonathan Cohn. READ MORE >>
No Hire Power
The latest unemployment statistics show a much worse story than had been previously accepted. The Obama administration is now projecting that the unemployment rate will average 10 percent this year, 9 percent in 2011, and more than 8 percent in 2012. It is not projected to get back to a more normal rate until 2016. READ MORE >>
