Let's hope today goes down in history as the low point of our national debate on jobs, and that it's all uphill from here. With job creation flat-lining, tens of millions of Americans sidelined, President Obama's proposals getting panned before they are announced, and the jobs speech scheduling flap dominating...

In Part 1 of this blog, I overviewed an important new Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) report on deficit reduction, and pointed out the significance of it leading with a one-year payroll tax holiday for employers and employees to encourage job growth and stimulate the economy. I...

Add Pete Domenici, Alice Rivlin and their colleages at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) Deficit Reduction Task Force to the growing list of eminences in both parties who support cutting payroll taxes to stimulate the economy and jobs. Unlike last week's preliminary proposal from...

In Part 1 of this blog I argued that despite the defeat of the latest jobs bill in the Senate, seen in historical context, support for the once-taboo idea of cutting payroll taxes is actually steadily growing, and that we're likely to see more, and more ambitious, such...

The latest jobs bill -- probably the last attempt of the 111th Congress to stimulate job growth before it adjourns -- died in the Senate yesterday. Four Democrats plus Joe Lieberman joined 40 Republicans to filibuster the measure, which would have given a two-year payroll tax holiday to employers who...

It's currently unclear whether President Obama's lobbying to get a new jobs bill through the Senate will prove successful. But assuming it does, and even if we accept the Administration's dubious assertions that its policies can generate enough jobs to restore pre-downturn employment levels by the end of 2012 (see...

The May jobs report illustrates the mismatch between the magnitude of our unemployment problem and the incremental policy levers Washington is pulling to respond to it.

In recent months we have had a nice break from the grim relativity of less catastrophic job losses, but it's...

I'm no economist, though I've worked with plenty of them.  As a public interest and public policy PR consultant, the economic indicators I notice most are perceptual and rhetorical:  things like the steady uptick in comparisons to the Great Depression, and the new CNN/Opinion research poll that says concern over unemployment...