IN BRIEF: Pandemic-Era Student Learning Loss and the Policy Response
BRIEFLY The COVID-19 pandemic created not only a public health emergency but a youth education crisis as well. Decades of progress in math and reading among America’s students were wiped away in two years. The federal government passed three rounds of funding to help school districts mitigate the disruptions of the pandemic, but that aid ...
Aspen Economic Strategy Group Welcomes Five New Members
WASHINGTON, DC, JANUARY 22, 2024 – The Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG) today announced five new members have joined the sixty-five-member, bipartisan group of distinguished leaders and thinkers who share the goal of promoting evidence-based solutions to significant challenges confronting the American economy. Established in 2017 and co-chaired by former U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury ...
March 2024 Jobs Report: Three Things to Know
The BLS estimated that the US economy added 275,000 jobs in February, with the unemployment rate ticking up from 3.7% to 3.9%. Three things stood beneath the headlines of this report. Revisions Take Some Heat of the Economy While the top-line number today beat the consensus market forecasts, the BLS also revised down their ...
The Small Role of Ivy League Schools in US Higher Education
The conversation about higher education admissions in the US is often dominated by developments at the eight Ivy League institutions. While there are good reasons to debate admissions at these elite schools (because, for instance, economists have found that their graduates hold a disproportionately large share of leadership positions in business and politics), this post ...
April 2024 Jobs Report: A Best-Case Scenario for the Fed?
The BLS estimated that the US economy added 303,000 jobs in February, with the unemployment rate ticking down from 3.9% to 3.8%. Below are three key takeaways from this report – and what it means for interest rates. 1. Job Growth Continues to Defy Expectations Overall nonfarm employment grew by 303,000 in March, blowing past ...
In Brief: The Recent Rise in US Labor Productivity
BRIEFLY US labor productivity has enjoyed a period of renewed growth over the past year, interrupting a nearly twenty-year decline: the 2.7 percent productivity growth in 2023 outpaces the 1.5 percent annual average since 2004, and it nearly matches the 2.9 percent pace seen during the country’s last productivity surge in the 1990s. While the ...
April 2024 Jobs Report: Steady-As-She-Goes Labor Market
The BLS estimated that the US economy added 175,000 jobs in February, with the unemployment rate ticking up from 3.7% to 3.9%. Three things stood out from this report. 1. Job Growth Ticks Down After Recent Strength After a string of stronger-than-expected employment gains, job growth cooled down this month. The 175,000 jobs added fell ...
Henry M. Paulson, Jr.
HANK PAULSON is the founder and chairman of the Paulson Institute, which aims to foster a US-China relationship that maintains global order in a rapidly evolving world. He is executive chairman of TPG Rise Climate, the climate investing platform of the global private equity firm TPG. Paulson is also the co-chair of the Aspen Economic ...
Erskine Bowles
ERSKINE B. BOWLES began his business career at Morgan Stanley and went on to found and lead Bowles, Hollowell, Conner, which became the preeminent investment bank focused on middle market mergers and acquisitions. He subsequently co-founded the middle market private equity firm Carousel Capital, served as a senior advisor for Credit Suisse First Boston, was ...