Economy
USA Today recently published a story regarding their analysis (utilizing Bureau of Labor Statistics data) of the pay differential between similar jobs in the public and private sector. According to their study: Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according…
Back when I made my (thus far) erroneous prediction that Rhode Island’s unemployment rate would hit 14 or even 15%, I didn’t take into account the effects of discouraged workers. Doing so, the rate would actually be much higher than that. It is, without a doubt, a confounding variable, which is why I’m not so…
By now, you’ve likely decided whether or not you agree with the statement that the Obama administration’s approach to “stimulus” was meant not so much to stimulate growth in the private sector economy as to shore up the public sector and insulate government at all levels from the real effects of the recession. Whether the…
Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim Bunning’s hold-up of unfunded government spending has ended, and probably without the lesson learned, although coverage of the effects did point the way: Unemployment benefits will begin phasing out for thousands of out-of-work Rhode Islanders starting Monday, the result of Congress’ failure to pass a temporary benefits-extension bill late Thursday night.…
One must suspect that Ed Achorn is link-seeking when his column addresses both state-government dependents and the state of my youth, New Jersey: Ultimately, while the public-employee unions and other government-fed special interests keep fattening up, the middle class suffers from a loss of jobs and opportunity, and the poor suffer from a loss of…
We’ve been watching, almost since the start of the recession, as economists have insisted that recovery was just on the horizon. Why? Well, because it always is. If they could tell us what the engine would be, they’d be investors, not economists, and hey, nobody can predict the future. Now the darker view has expanded…
In order to interpret trends in mortgage payments, one must look at the overall movement, and I’m not sure the content of this article by Paul Edward Parker merits the the talk of recovery that the front-page headline initiates: In Rhode Island, the association reported that 11.09 percent of all mortgages were one or more…
In an article about the ways in which Democrats’ preferred policies hurt black Americans, Kevin Williamson emphasizes union racism and especially the minimum wage: THE first answer many economists will give to that question is: the minimum wage. Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate who spent much of his career showing how government programs reliably end…
A lot of people are pinning their hopes to the emergence of a “green economy,” but wishing won’t make it less of a fad: Although it offers general optimism about the green sector, the state plan does not say how large the industry could be in Rhode Island or how many jobs it could create.…
Owing to some legislation put forward by union-friendly state Senator John Tassoni (D, Smithfield, North Smithfield), I’ve been poking around state law related to unemployment insurance. Tassoni’s bill would remove the word “private” from the following paragraph related to the state’s workshare program: “Eligible employer” means any private employer who has had contributions credited to…