South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Mapping Health Care Reform Dollars

The Kaiser Family Foundation maps where the federal funds provided so far to implement the Affordable Care Act have gone.

Around The Dial – April 16, 2012

Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:

• Naked Capitalism notes the growth of income inequality.
• Kevin Drum points out games with employment statistics.
• Policy Shop explains the problems of the corporate tax.
• The Brookings Institution asks how progressive the tax code is.
• Working Economics mulls the impact of a minimum wage hike.

Tax Day Humor

In honor of tax day, below are some perennially sage tax policy ideas courtesy of Monty Python. (Foreigners living abroad likely will disagree.)

Job Openings In February 2012

From the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of the February version of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) …

Though the February JOLTS report generally moved in the right direction, data on hires, quits, and layoffs shows that most of the levels are still very weak. One exception to that is layoffs:  After increasing dramatically from the start of the Great Recession through the spring of 2009, layoffs began to drop quickly and have actually been at pre-recession levels since the fall of 2010. However, hiring remains very depressed, currently 15.5 percent below its 2007 average. And given that hiring is so low, it is unsurprising that the number of voluntary quits … is also currently very depressed, now 27.6 percent below its 2007 average.

Around The Dial – April 13, 2012

Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:

• The New York Times reports on efforts to raise the minimum wage.
• The Times also reports on the impact of the Food Stamp Program.
• Simon Johnson explains how “the banks endangered Medicare.”
• Off the Charts graphs how much in taxes low-income households pay.
• Martin Wolf worries about the Bundesbank.