Menzie Chinn took to the blog Econbrowser last Thursday to accuse conservative economists in general – and The Heritage Foundation in particular – of being inconsistent, since we did not share his optimism about the benefits of the 2009 stimulus, but we’ve warned of the danger of the fiscal cliff. …
Would spending more money on unemployment benefits create jobs? The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) thinks so. According to a new CBO report, extending the current 73 weeks of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits would lead employers to create 300,000 new jobs. This seems highly implausible. Economists widely agree that UI causes …
The news that new Unemployment Insurance (UI) claims dropped sharply to 339,000 last week has raised eyebrows—and aroused suspicion the Department of Labor had massaged the numbers. In truth, there is both more and less to this story than meets the eye. The numbers are incomplete, but because of bureaucratic …
Vice President Biden and Representative Paul Ryan squared off last night for a spirited and intense 90-minute debate at Centre College in Danville, KY. Topics ranged from foreign to domestic, touching on serious issues that Heritage policy experts grapple with every day. While many commentators were critiquing style, a team …
Wednesday’s warning by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that the fiscal cliff is likely to push the economy back into recession should bring things sharply into focus for lawmakers. The CBO is correct that the fiscal cliff will lead to a recession, but its report contains faulty economic reasoning. The …
President Obama’s pick as chairman of the White House Council on Economic Advisors co-authored a paper that showed that extending unemployment benefits will likely exacerbate joblessness. The paper’s findings run counter to the president’s economic argument for an unemployment benefit extension, which is expected to be a major part of …
You might think that a White House press briefing would be the one place where it’s safe to ask the Obama Administration a question about its economic policy. Well, think again, especially if you’re questioning the underlying premise of the Administration’s economic philosophy. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal’s Laura …
There’s only one reason nearly 2 million American former workers are without unemployment benefits today: Senator Reid (D-NV) and his Democratic colleagues’ addiction to deficit spending. The Senate is expected to try to extend these benefits soon. There are arguments pro and con, but if the benefits are extended, then …
Last week in a legislative briefing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) stoked the unemployment insurance (UI) debate by stating that unemployment checks are the fastest way to create jobs. Let me say that unemployment insurance… is one of the biggest stimuluses (sic) to our economy. Economists will tell …
The economic effects of prolonged unemployment insurance (UI) have become a controversial topic recently. Conservatives have pointed to a raft of economic studies to demonstrate that, in addition to the benefits they provide, extended UI benefits also come with an economic cost – lengthening the amount of time that those …
