Introduction: Building a More Resilient US Economy
The post-pandemic US economy features a strong labor market but also persistent inflation, rising levels of debt, and acute educational challenges. These issues are compounded by ongoing, systemic difficulties: domestic and global, economic and political. This policy volume considers these topics and others, with a thematic focus on building a more resilient US economy. The ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Jason Furman
JASON FURMAN is the Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy jointly at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He is also nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Furman engages in public policy through research, writing and teaching in a wide range of areas ...
Matthew J. Slaughter
MATTHEW J. SLAUGHTER is the Paul Danos Dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where in addition he is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a research associate ...
Michael R. Strain
MICHAEL R. STRAIN is Director of Economic Policy Studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. An economist, Dr. Strain’s research and writing is in a wide range of areas, including labor markets, public finance, social policy, and macroeconomics. He has published over 40 articles in academic and policy ...