WASHINGTON — The betting is that the Federal Reserve won’t raise interest rates at the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, its key policymaking body. There are already complaints that the Fed, which cut short-term rates to near zero in late 2008, is waiting too long to reverse low rates. Last December, the Fed […]
Robert Samuelson
Posted inOp-Eds
Official child poverty rate inaccurate
WASHINGTON — America is on the mend. Witness the good news in the latest version of the nation’s “economic report card”: the Census Bureau’s annual estimates of the median household income and the poverty rate. Here are the crucial numbers. In 2015, median household income — the midpoint, with half of households above and half […]
advertisement
Posted inOp-Eds
Trump’s wall worth consideration
WASHINGTON — Just because Donald Trump isn’t qualified to be president — and just because much of his agenda is hateful and undesirable — doesn’t mean that everything he says is automatically wrong. Some of his ideas deserve consideration and enactment. One of these is building a wall across our southern border with Mexico. It […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Books haven’t gone the way of the dinosaurs
WASHINGTON — If you are like me, you regard the decline in book reading as another sign of the cultural rot that is eating away at the American character. Why read something as demanding as a book when you can spend all your time on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram? They’re easier and provide a quicker […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Workers regain lost bargaining power
WASHINGTON — Forget the “gig economy” — at least for now. On Labor Day 2016, we are in the midst of a historic transformation of the American job market. Popular attention focuses on Uber and similar internet-based networks that unite buyers and sellers. “TaskRabbit,” for example, creates a platform for people who need something done […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Ending poverty an impossible mission
WASHINGTON — Don’t expect a second War on Poverty, regardless of who wins the election. Picking up where Lyndon Johnson left off in the 1960s would seem a logical response to the campaign’s relentless criticism of economic inequality. But appearances are deceiving. Most proposals to reduce inequality — conspicuously from Hillary Clinton — are aimed […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Economy’s mixed signals confusing
WASHINGTON — Call it the Snooze Economy. Roughly two months before the presidential election, the economy has turned both boring and mystifying. It hardly impresses anyone, and yet this plodding performance is probably helping Hillary Clinton by minimizing bad economic news. More important: The lackluster expansion, if continued for a few more years, would represent […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Middle-wage occupations make a comeback
WASHINGTON — One of the economy’s bright spots is the job market — and it may be even brighter than it seems. Not only are there more jobs (1.3 million so far in 2016), but they may be better-paying, according to a new analysis by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Economic slowdown linked to aging
WASHINGTON — An aging America reduces the economy’s growth — big time. That’s the startling conclusion of a new academic study, and if it withstands scholarly scrutiny, it could transform our national political and economic debate. We’ve known for decades, of course, that the retirement of the huge baby-boom generation — coupled with low birthrates […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Economic downturn a global problem
WASHINGTON — A great mystery of our time — one that should frame the campaign debate — is why the economic recovery has been so sluggish. Consider this comparison. After the brutal recession of the early 1980s (peak unemployment: 10.8 percent), it took only 11 months for employment to regain its pre-recession level. By contrast, […]