Progressives need a fundamentally new approach to politics. They have been losing not just because conservatives have so much more money and power, but also because they have accepted the conservatives’ framing of political debates. They have accepted a framing where conservatives want market...

This paper makes the case for a third stimulus package to in the face of economic indicators signaling that the economy is in a deeper downturn than was expected based on previous projections. Specifically, the report calls for an employer tax-credit for extending health care coverage and...

The new economic projections from the Congressional Budget Office show the economy remaining well below its potential level of output until 2014. The projections show the unemployment rate averaging 10.2 percent in 2010 and gradually edging down to the long-term sustainable rate of 4.8 percent...

With Spain’s official unemployment rate at 26 percent, and the economy projected to contract by 1.3 percent this year, it is difficult to make the case for continued austerity that could push a barely growing economy back into recession. Yet the government is committed to further fiscal...

Some economic observers argue “structural unemployment” has increased in the wake of the Great Recession, but in this paper we find little support for either of two arguments that suggest that structural unemployment has been on the rise. The first argument focuses on the large increase in...

This paper considers the case for and against 'the treasury view' - the idea that in a downturn, government spending has no effect on economic activity or unemployment. The report covers three areas: the evidence for expansionary fiscal contraction – the idea that somehow cutting budget...

The unemployment rate is expected to average 10.2 percent for 2010, 9.1 percent for 2011, and 7.3 percent for 2012. With this in mind, this Issue Brief describes a job sharing tax credit, designed to provide a quick and substantial boost to the economy. It would use tax dollars to pay firms to...

This paper looks at the problem of state budget shortfalls during the recession and calculates the number of jobs that would be lost (nationally and by state) if states utilize pro-cyclical spending cuts in an attempt to balance their budgets. This is an update to an earlier paper from December...

In the current recession, millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Unemployment has increased nationwide to levels not witnessed since the 1980s. This issue brief tallies more than 110,000 jobs that have been shed from state and local governments in the last two years and breaks them down by...

This paper examines recent economic data, including the most recent data released the third week of August 2010, in an attempt to evaluate the Venezuelan economy's prospects in the foreseeable future. It finds that the Venezuelan economy, which went into recession in the first quarter of 2009...