Monthly Archives: May 2014

Cushing Overstates Effectiveness of Right to Work and Tax Incentives

IN an op-ed piece published today, Sen. Andre Cushing overstates the effectiveness of right to work legislation and tax incentives in generating economic growth and employment.  He writes: The bill’s goal: provide a number of proven incentives to entice large companies as other states have done. Among them: • Eligibility for corporate income tax credits, […]

Friday Chart(s): Economy contracts, slow growth persists. Does it matter?

THE Bureau of Economic Analysis released its second estimate of economic growth in the U.S. for the first quarter, revealing that GDP was down 1%.  This latest release comports with the anemic economic recovery as well as the decade and a half of tepid economic growth: And of course, most of the responses both to […]

Student Loan Debt and Business Start-ups

ON his blog, Darren Fishell has a very interesting preliminary study from Penn State and the Philly Fed regarding the negative correlation between student loan debt and small business start-ups.  He writes: The study found that in counties where student debt increased its share of the total consumer debt — mortgages, credit cards, car loans — the […]

The Maine Labor Market, Say’s Law, and the Lump of Labor Fallacy Fallacy

JOHN Buell’s op-ed published in the BDN last week highlighted the effectiveness of work sharing in Germany to suppress unemployment amid slow economic growth.  Likewise, as Paul Krugman recently noted, France has also been able to buoy it’s labor market, but does not note that the country has done this through similar practices as the Germans. The reason […]

Friday Chart(s): The Driver of the College Wage Premium

IT is pretty much expected that soon to be graduating high school seniors will be on their way to college in the fall.  Most suggest that this is the desired path to higher incomes and more desirable jobs than their non-degree holder counterparts.  The gap in pay between those with a degree and those without […]

Maine’s Labor Market is not Suffering from Structural Problems . . . Yet

According to many policymakers, pundits, and others, Maine’s labor market faces twin structural problems.  First there is the skills gap, where the skills demanded by firms cannot be supplied by the current work force.  While both jobs and workers are available, the problem is the workers do not have the requisite skills for those jobs.  […]

[Updated] Friday Chart: Employment Growth by Governor

THE below graph is an index of employment growth for Maine’s current and previous four governors through their first 39 months in office. (click image to enlarge)  ****In response to some comments I read on Friday, here is a graph indexing employment growth by governor through their first 39 months in office (I haven’t had […]