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May Jobs Report for the U.S.: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

THE national jobs report for May was released yesterday by the BLS, which has given pundits, economists, and others plenty of time to sift through the data and generate a discussion.  First, the usual caveats.  The jobs report is comprised of two monthly surveys and subject to subsequent revisions.  This means the data is both […]

Education as Economic Policy

ELIOT Cutler rolled out his plan to increase funding and overhaul the state’s education system as a means to promote economic growth.  As reported by the PPH: “States that are doing well economically are almost always the states that consistently have made investments in education, from early childhood through elementary and high school, to post […]

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 […]

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.  […]