Here's my own suggested playlist to take this economic sad song and try to make it just a little bit better.
Jared Bernstein | Posted 06.01.2012
I see a lot of the wire reports on the lousy jobs release focusing on Europe, China, and other external factors to explain why employment growth once again appears to have decelerated. Sure, European instability and a slower growing China are part of the problem. But they are not at its core. For that, we've simply got to look in the mirror. We as a nation failed to take out recovery insurance in the form of temporary stimulative fiscal policy against precisely the situation we now face. And the thing that blocked us was and is political gridlock. When politicians come to Washington not to solve our immediate pressing problems, not to compromise, but to promote, above the public interest, a narrow political agenda, then I'm afraid we shouldn't be surprised at our inability to self-correct.
Jared Bernstein | Posted 05.31.2012
With the Friday jobs report, you want to think about the nexus of jobs and policy in the longer term, which in this case asks, "what did the administration do to offset the massive contraction in labor demand, aka the Great Recession?" The answers to that are the Recovery Act, financial and auto rescues, unemployment insurance extensions, payroll tax cuts, and more. Those measures demonstrably pulled the recovery, tepid as it is, forward, saved and created millions of jobs, and hastened the turnaround in net jobs growth. You might also want to note that Republicans have generally tried to block all of the above, and since 2010, have successfully blocked efforts like the American Jobs Act to do more to help offset the residual drag from the downturn. In that regard, their fingerprints are the most prominent ones on the current slog.
Youth Radio -- Youth Media International | Posted 05.31.2012
By Nishat Kurwa Photo Credit: Youth Radio People looking for work are turning to apps like TaskRabbit and Gigwalk to make some money. This story ori...
The Huffington Post | Bonnie Kavoussi | Posted 05.09.2012
Are you a recent college graduate and still looking for full-time work? Then please tell us your story. We're looking to interview a graduate of th...
Robert Reich | Posted 05.04.2012
The latest jobs report is bad news for millions of Americans, and it's bad news for Obama and the Democrats. No set of policies between now and Election Day are likely to boost the economy.
Linda Rosen | Posted 05.03.2012
We must give America's youth a solid foundation in STEM and insight into their rich postsecondary and career options. The demand for STEM skills extends well beyond STEM-specific jobs.
Marian Wright Edelman | Posted 04.27.2012
The House Budget Committee's latest draconian budget proposes even deeper cuts in the safety net while refusing to ask the rich and powerful to contribute their fair share. Indeed, it would give them more tax breaks at the expense of poor struggling families desperately trying to get back on their feet.
The Huffington Post | Jeffrey Young | Posted 04.25.2012
Jobs are the number-one source of health insurance coverage for Americans, but fewer employers are offering health benefits to their workers and more ...
Posted 04.10.2012
The costs of medical attention can be exorbitant for a low-income family or an unemployed person -- even if the needs are the same. That's why Stan...
New York Times | Posted 04.09.2012
With the economy slowly reviving, an executive from Atlas Van Lines recently visited Louisville, Ky., with good news: the company wanted to hire more ...
Jared Bernstein | Posted 04.06.2012
Payrolls surprised to the downside in March as employers added only 120,000 jobs on net, well below the almost 250,000 average monthly gains of the past three months and the smallest net gain since last October.
Leah Busque | Posted 05.28.2012
The term "nine-to-five" has long symbolized a kind of drudgery that sucks up our lives and eclipses our identities, but it wasn't until the Great Recession that the pejorative phrase was crowned with an entirely new distinction: old-fashioned.
Marian Wright Edelman | Posted 05.26.2012
Most young men and women today want to work hard, but for those under 25 years old, work has often been impossible to find.
The Huffington Post | Harry Bradford | Posted 03.22.2012
Despite the economic hardship that the Great Recession has caused millions of Americans, belief in the American Dream is still alive and well, even fo...
Sara Kenigsberg | Posted 04.11.2012
On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department announced the economy added 277,000 workers in February and that the unemployment rate held steady at 8.3 percent...
The Huffington Post | Bonnie Kavoussi | Posted 03.08.2012
If you are unemployed, you may be able to get away with not paying taxes...for now. The IRS announced on Wednesday that people who have been unempl...
Jared Bernstein | Posted 04.18.2012
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently published their latest employment projections, for 2010-20, and there's one message so far that stands out: not everyone has to be a rocket scientist.
Del Phillips | Posted 04.16.2012
We have applied to the online ads, attended the networking events, used social media and crafted multiple iterations of our resume based on each new blogger's opinion. There are even those of us attempting to gain additional skills. We're eager and ready to get back to work.
HuffingtonPost.com | Arthur Delaney | Posted 02.10.2012
WASHINGTON -- Republicans in the U.S. Senate want the long-term unemployed to volunteer for 20 hours a week in order to receive unemployment insurance...
Thom Hartmann | Posted 04.10.2012
This is quickly becoming a lost generation of Americans -- which might explain why there's an Occupy Wall Street movement out there.
HuffingtonPost.com | Arthur Delaney | Posted 02.06.2012
Nearly 30,000 people enduring long-term joblessness in Michigan are set to lose their unemployment insurance as a federal program that provides the fi...
Robert Reich | Posted 04.04.2012
The most significant aspect of January's jobs report is political. The fact that America's labor market continues to improve is good news for the White House. But as a practical matter the improvement is less significant for the American work force.
HuffingtonPost.com | Bonnie Kavoussi | Posted 02.02.2012
College graduates and advanced degree holders, once they are unemployed, are as vulnerable as high school dropouts to long-term joblessness, a new stu...
HuffingtonPost.com | Amanda Terkel | Posted 01.28.2012
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Rhetoric about jobs is everywhere during this campaign season. To emphasize how much they want to create jobs and how valuable s...
David Wild | Posted 06.01.2012