The point is that influential people move in circles in which repeating the skills-gap story — or, better yet, writing about skill gaps in media outlets like Politico — is a badge of seriousness, an assertion of tribal identity. And the zombie shambles on. Unfortunately, the skills myth — like the myth of a looming … Continue reading
We’re not talking about the rise of a broad class of highly educated workers, we’re talking about a tiny elite Continue reading
There is, unfortunately, growing evidence that the tainting of the long-term unemployed is happening as we speak. One piece of evidence comes from the relationship between job openings and unemployment. Normally these two numbers move inversely: the more job openings, the fewer Americans out of work. And this traditional relationship remains true if we look … Continue reading
Both Dean Baker and Josh Bivens weigh in Robert Samuelson’s outburst at the New York Times for saying that the government can too create jobs. (He went so far as to call it “flat-earth” thinking). Sadly, Samuelson’s attitude is widely shared — even, at least rhetorically, by Barack Obama. So let me not focus on … Continue reading
A bit more methodology discussion. I’ve written quite a lot about sticky wages, aka downward nominal wage rigidity, which is one of those things that we can’t derive from first principles but is a glaringly obvious feature of the real world. But I keep running into comments along the lines of “Well, if you think … Continue reading
Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro — that grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union — could come apart at the seams. We’re not talking about a distant prospect, either. Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years. And the costs — both … Continue reading
Krugman: So now we’re in another depression, not as bad as the last one, but bad enough. And, once again, authoritative-sounding figures insist that our problems are “structural,” that they can’t be fixed quickly. We must focus on the long run, such people say, believing that they are being responsible. But the reality is that … Continue reading
Paul Krugman has a simple message for U.S. policymakers: Forget about the country’s huge budget deficit. It can be fixed over the next decade. Focus instead on the much more immediate problem of mass unemployment. “It’s not true we’re going over a cliff on fiscal problems,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist said in an interview with … Continue reading
Many pundits assert that the U.S. economy has big structural problems that will prevent any quick recovery. All the evidence, however, points to a simple lack of demand, which could and should be cured very quickly through a combination of fiscal and monetary stimulus. No, the real structural problem is in our political system, which … Continue reading
In Spain, the unemployment rate among workers under 25 is more than 50 percent. In Ireland almost a third of the young are unemployed. Here in America, youth unemployment is “only” 16.5 percent, which is still terrible – but things could be worse. And sure enough, many politicians are doing all they can to guarantee … Continue reading