News
CNN Money | Bye bye unemployment benefits
More than 200,000 long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment checks this week, when eight states roll off the federal extended benefits program.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Minyanville | Why Unemployment Ex-Government Cuts Are Just Silly
Justin Lahart over at the Wall Street Journal's "Real Time Economics" blog wrote a piece recently in which he looked at what unemployment would be if state and local governments didn't cut jobs as aggressively as they did. His conclusion was that unemployment would be a full percentage point lower, from 8.1% to 7.1%. I disagree with that assessment.
Blogs
Marginal Revolution | How much structural unemployment was there during the Great Depression?
By 1933, the appearance of a large, new, structural/hard-core element raised the natural level of unemployment from the 5 to 6 percent range to 12 to 15 percent. If a Keynesian stimulus had been tried and it had eliminated cyclical unemployment, the remaining unemployment still would have been io to 15 percent. Further fiscal or monetary stimuli would have resulted in inflation.
The American | Paul Krugman, wrong about structural unemployment
I believe that the process of creating employment is explained not by the theories of Keynes, but rather by the theories of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. … From the perspective of Smith and Ricardo, real jobs emerge in the context of patterns of sustainable specialization and trade.
WSJ | Fed’s Kocherlakota: Economy Closer to Max Employment Than Data Suggest
A top Federal Reserve official said Thursday he is paying close attention to inflation and that recent elevated readings signal that the economy is closer to maximum employment than labor-market reports alone might suggest.
