Low unemployment is not economic well being
Three New York Times articles lay out the new reality that having a low unemployment rate does not mean that American households are doing well economically. In fact today’s reality is that increasingly the two are disconnected. Lots of people working and struggling to make ends meet. As we wrote in our state economic policy […]
Michigan has had a good eight years, Minnesota has been better
Over the last eight years Michigan has experienced a strong recovery from the Great Recession. The headline being 500,000 new jobs. Good news indeed for a state that lost jobs every year during the previous decade. As well as Michiganders have done the past eight years, Minnesotans have done better. Michigan’s employment growth has been […]
Candidate question: How are you going to pay for it?
Terrific column by editorial page editor of The Detroit News Nolan Finley entitled Where’s the damn money?. Finley writes: Pithy slogans won’t fill a single pothole. Nor will shirking from the reality that the state’s decades-long neglect of its infrastructure can only be fixed through either steep spending cuts elsewhere or significant tax increases. Keep that […]
Not much of a job ladder for low-wage workers
Really interesting research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on low-wage workers moving up to better-paying jobs. (You can find the research here and a summary article on the research here.) The report’s core findings: Using data covering the expansion following the Great Recession (2011-17) and focusing on short-term labor market transitions, we […]
The 99 percent in Michigan and Minnesota
Important new report from the Economic Policy Institute on the continuing pulling away of the top one percent from the bottom 99 percent. The big picture story is as EPI writes: Examining the growth of income over the past century, we find growth was broadly shared from 1945 to 1973 and highly unequal from 1973 to […]
Questions we all should be asking 2018 candidates
Over the last year, I’ve been traveling Michigan and speaking to groups about the need for a new economic agenda for our state, one that puts a good-paying career for all front and center. Such an agenda reflects understanding that in good times and bad far too many Michigan households are experiencing declining or stagnant […]
Minnesotans doing better than Wisconsinites
Important report from the Economic Policy Institute comparing the economic progress Minnesota and Wisconsin have made since the 2010 election. EPI describes the economic paths the two states have taken this way: Governor Walker and the Wisconsin state legislature have pursued a highly conservative agenda centered on cutting taxes, shrinking government, and weakening unions. In […]
Full employment and too many low wage jobs
The Atlantic recently explored what the American economy might look like with full employment. Using today’s metro Des Moines as the example. It’s a region with very low unemployment and a high employment to population ratio. What is happening in Des Moines is reaffirmation that full employment matters. It tilts the balance of power towards […]
Those with a four-year degree most satisfied with their education decisions
The Federal Reserve recently published their Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2017. It reports on the results of a survey of American’s assessments of their economic well-being. The report is worth reading. It’s a great overview of how well American households are doing economically today. The report finds that 42 percent of American […]
Another technologist moves away from recommending STEM
Vivek Wadhwa is a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School and Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering at Silicon Valley. He researches exponentially advancing technologies that are soon going to change our world. And yet he has moved away from recommending STEM as the path to successful careers. In a Washington Post column entitled Why the […]