CBO has developed preliminary projections of key economic variables through the end of calendar year 2021, based on information about the economy that was available through yesterday and including the effects of an economic boost from legislation recently enacted in response to the pandemic. In addition, CBO has developed a preliminary assessment of federal budget … Continue reading
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) have announced a bipartisan compromise agreement (Reed-Heller Agreement to Restore Emergency Unemployment Insurance) to restore federal jobless benefits which expired on December 28, 2013. The legislation would provide for a 5 month extension of federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) which expired on December 28th. The more … Continue reading
Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen in Senate testimony subtly slapped the White House, which criticized a recent Congressional Budget Office report on the minimum wage, saying it didn’t represent a consensus among economists. The CBO report said raising the minimum wage would lift 900,000 people out of poverty, but would also lead to the elimination … Continue reading
The deep recession that began in December 2007, when the economy began to contract, and ended in June 2009, when the economy began to expand again, has had a lasting effect on the labor market. More than four and a half years after the end of the recession, employment has risen sluggishly—much more slowly than … Continue reading
A number of economists from the White House and beyond have criticized a CBO report on the effects of potentially boosting the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. But CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf isn’t backing off. Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf defended a controversial report on the minimum wage Wednesday, amplifying a debate that … Continue reading
Increasing the minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. Most of them would receive higher pay that would increase their family’s income, and some of those families would see their income rise above the federal poverty threshold. But some jobs for low-wage workers would probably be eliminated, the income of most workers … Continue reading
Last week, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office issued its analysis of Obamacare — the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act — finding that under the act, about 2.5 million workers would leave the workforce by 2024 as a result of the act’s provisions. Republicans immediately seized on the CBO finding, claiming the report proved that … Continue reading
In assessing the slow recovery of the labor market, CBO estimates the following: Of the roughly 2 percentage-point net increase in the rate of unemployment between the end of 2007 and the end of 2013, about 1 percentage point was the result of cyclical weakness in the demand for goods and services, and about 1 … Continue reading
The Congressional Budget Office has completed an estimate of the budgetary effects of H.R. 3546, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2013 Continue reading
Spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is growing and will continue to climb in the long-term Continue reading
Canceling the automatic spending reductions effective August 1 would increase outlays relative to those under current law by $14 billion in fiscal year 2013 and by $90 billion in fiscal year 2014 finds CBO Continue reading
Benefits provided through the unemployment insurance system—a partnership between the federal government and state governments—tend to fluctuate automatically with the unemployment rate. In addition, in times of high unemployment, federal lawmakers often supplement regular and extended unemployment benefits with temporary programs. Since 2008, during and after the most recent recession, temporary programs have significantly expanded … Continue reading
Substantial changes to tax and spending policies are scheduled to take effect in January 2013, significantly reducing the federal budget deficit. According to CBO’s projections, if all of that fiscal tightening occurs, real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) will drop by 0.5 percent in 2013 (as measured by the change from the fourth quarter of … Continue reading
The rate of unemployment in the United States has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, making the past three years the longest stretch of high unemployment in this country since the Great Depression. CBO projects that the unemployment rate will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The share of unemployed people who have been looking … Continue reading