Economic News Roundup
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has released a lot of important research about the economy in the past few weeks. Here's a look at some of the key pieces it uncovered about the U.S. economy.
GDP Shows the Economy Is Growing too Slowly to Improve Employment : The economy is growing too slowly to reliably improve job numbers and the main problem is that demand is weak, a problem made worse by austerity measures such as the sequester.
GDP Data Show U.S. Economy Is Far from Healed from the Great Recession : While the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis revised its method for calculating the GDP, the clear message from the latest numbers is that the economy hasn't fully recovered from the Great Recession, particularly in the labor, product and capital markets.
SNAP Kept More Than 2 Million Children Out of Poverty : The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program kept 2.9% of the country's children out of poverty in 2011. Refundable tax credits kept another 6.3% of children out of poverty.
Six Trends in the Jobs Numbers That Are Due to Weak Hiring : 1. Unemployment is higher than normal in all demographic categories. 2. Labor force participation is down. 3. Underemployment is also high. 4. Long-term unemployment is up. 5. Wage growth is depressed. 6. Job growth is highest in low-wage industries.
New Data Show Grim Picture of Job Opportunities in the Labor Market : The percentage of total jobs that are new hires, a measure that shows how healthy the economy is by showing how many people are finding newer and better jobs, is disproportionately low and got worse in recent months.
Repealing Sequestration Would Create 900,000 New Jobs in a Year : The Congressional Budget Office estimates that ending the sequester would create not only 900,000 new jobs, it would increase the level of real GDP by $113 billion, or 0.7%.
Social Security Is the Only Reason Most Americans Can Afford to Retire : Social Security is the most reliable and equitable system of retirement savings. The movement from pensions to individual savings for retirement increases inequality that can only be offset by Social Security in the current political climate.
