News
National Journal | 40 Years of Unemployment Rates in One GIF
A new GIF from online brokerage firm Movoto Real Estate reveals the ebb and flow of unemployment in each state in the last 40 years. The lighter the shade, the lower the unemployment rate.
National Journal | The Job Training Program That Actually Works
When Tracie Roberts was laid off from her job at Target in 2009, she walked around the Mall of America every day for five weeks looking for work. Roberts, who's tall and soft-spoken, had worked at the Minneapolis store for 13 years as a team leader—sort of like a floor manager. She was told she was overqualified to work as a cashier. And yet without a four-year degree, she couldn't get a job in retail management. She was in her mid-40s, and she was stuck.
Econ Comments & Analysis
WSJ | WSJ Survey: Economists Optimistic Stage Is Set for Pickup in Wage Growth
Economists are increasingly looking for wage growth to pick up in coming months, a long-awaited development that would put more money in the pockets of consumers and could spur accelerated growth in the broader economy.
Businessweek | Here's Why the Student Loan Market Is Completely Insane
President Obama made news this week by expanding a student loan program to broaden the eligibility of borrowers and proposing to limit monthly payments to 10 percent of a student borrower’s income. On the margin, such moves might help. But the administration’s efforts don’t address a more fundamental problem: These loans aren’t calibrated for risk. In other words, students from Harvard and less-prestigious regional colleges are thrown in the same bucket, despite quite different risk profiles.
Heritage Foundation | Job-Training Reform: Finding Out What Works
Last month, congressional negotiators reached a bipartisan deal to reauthorize Department of Labor (DOL) job-training programs. Overall, the compromised legislation, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), continues the funding of federal job-training programs that have a long history of failure based upon the results of large-scale experimental evaluations.
