Steven Pearlstein Wants to be Shown the Money

(Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Average Income in 2006 Up $60,000 for Top 1 Percent of Households, Just $430 for Bottom 90 Percent") After a discussion about federal tax policy and income inequality, Steven Pearlstein strikes the right chord on where the discussion on inequality should be focused. As much as the distributional consequences of the tax code matter, there's still the nagging problem of pre-tax income inequality. Despite major advances in worker productivity over the past 40 years, workers have seen only a sliver of that economic gain.

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Annual Census Report on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage Released

You can read Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007 here. Good news for income, not so great news for poverty, and mixed news for health insurance coverage. Here are a few highlights copy and pasted from the report: Income:
  • Real median household income increased 1.3 percent between 2006 and 2007, from $49,568 to $50,233 the third annual increase in real median household income.

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Gearing up for New Census Poverty Data

Today has been a slow day in an already slow month in fiscal policy in Washington, DC, but the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) issued a very helpful report leading up to the release of poverty, income, and health insurance data from the U.S. Census Bureau next Tuesday. The report is a guide to what to look for in the Census release and how to assess whether economic growth is reaching low- and middle-income families. CBPP thinks these data could show some pretty unprecedented trends:

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Notes from the Economy: Unemployment Insurance Claims

The Department of Labor released its weekly unemployment insurance claims data this morning. Initial and continuing claims moved slightly downward, from 445,000 to 432,000 and from 3,379,000 to 3,362,000, respectively. The four-week moving average of initial claims, however, ticked up from 438,500 to 445,750.

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CHN Hosting Prep Webinar on Census Poverty Data Release

On Tuesday, August 19, the Coalition on Human Needs is once again hosting a webinar to help advocates and analysts prepare for the release of annual data from the Census Bureau about poverty, income, and health insurance in the U.S.

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Notes from the Economy: Prices, Earnings, Unemployment Claims

Notes from the Economy: Prices, Earnings, Unemployment Claims The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released data for inflation and real earnings this morning, while the Labor Department reported on unemployment insurance claims for the past week.

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Looking for Top Notch Interns!

The OMB Watch Fiscal Policy Program is looking for an intern for the fall of 2008. Yup, that's right. This is your chance to get in on the ground floor at one of the most dynamic nonprofit watchdog groups in Washington, DC. We're looking for energetic undergraduate or graduate students who have excellent writing, critical thinking, and communications skills, and who are dedicated to public policy and government accountability (see current intern Josh at right for example).

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Notes from the Economy: Jobless Claims

The Labor Department released its weekly unemployment insurance (UI) claims data this morning.
  • 455,000 workers filed first-time UI claims last week, a jump of 7,000 from the previous week. The number of claims last week had not been seen since March 2002.
  • The four-week average for new UI claims moved up to 419,500, a five-year high
  • The number of continuing claims rose to 3,311,000, also a five-year high
AP: Jobless claims hit highest point since March 2002

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Senators Suggest Making Tax Code Less Offensive

Writing in the New York Times, Stephanie Strom brings yet another instance of how corporations and their enabling political benefactors have clearly had their way with the tax code.

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Notes from the Economy: There's a Deeper Problem than Housing

Former Clinton Labor Secretary and current UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich really nails it on his blog today:

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