South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Quote Of The Day: Dean Baker Edition

Dean Baker is short and to the point …

Inequality is not something that just happened. Inequality was engineered by the folks who have power.

Around The Dial – August 20, 2012

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

• Martin Wolf finds Paul Ryan’s policy ideas “not credible.”
• Off the Charts weighs the costs and benefits of tax cuts for capital gains.
• The Atlantic notes that “long-term unemployment is much worse than you think.”
• Robert Skidelsky explains the economics of Olympic success.
• The New York Times discusses the resurgence of tropical diseases in the Deep South.

Penalizing Honesty

The first in a series of articles in The News & Observer explains the problem of employee misclassification in North Carolina and the consequences for law-abiding businesses.

The state’s leaders have imposed requirements on business owners through the years, requiring them to buy workers’ comp insurance, pay taxes and unemployment insurance, and maintain a safe workplace. But state regulators work in the silos of their own agencies, rarely sharing information that would enable investigators to detect businesses determined to cheat.
…
As a result, those who play by the rules say they struggle to stay afloat while competitors who break the law profit. And their workers are left vulnerable, facing untreated injuries if they are hurt on the job and financial hardship if they get laid off.

The Politics And Policy Of Poverty

A cover story in this week’s issue of The New York Times Magazine discusses the anti-poverty policies pursued by the Obama administration.

And so in 2009 and 2010, the Obama administration put a tremendous amount of money, very quickly, into the hands of low-income Americans. As part of the Recovery Act, the administration extended the eligibility rules for existing programs like food stamps and unemployment insurance, and the combination of the collapsing economy and the more generous rules meant the programs grew quickly….
…
And while it is true that the Census Bureau’s official poverty figures have grown steadily worse under Obama, rising to 15.1 percent of Americans under the poverty line in 2010 from 13.2 percent in 2008, those dismal numbers come with a significant caveat. When government statisticians calculate the poverty rate, they include only cash income. And over the last two decades, and especially during the Obama administration, the way the federal government gives aid to poor people has shifted away from cash transfers toward noncash transfers — food stamps, Medicaid subsidies, housing vouchers — none of which are included in a family’s income for the purposes of poverty statistics. If you do count food stamps and other noncash aid, the poverty rate has, according to some calculations, not gone up much at all during the Obama administration, during the worst economic crisis in 70 years. That is a remarkable accomplishment….

Around The Dial – August 17, 2012

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

• Alec MacGillis despairs over “post-truth” politics.
• James Kwak marvels at the cramped debate over the size of government.
• The Greensboro News & Record reports on the growth in temp work.
• Working Economics explains how to make the tax code work for the middle class.