The federal government's reported figures for jobs "created or saved" by the "stimulus" bill (formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or "ARRA") are now known to be wrong. The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees these figures, apparently has decided not to correct them.
A scandal has erupted over the federal government's reporting of the number of jobs created or saved by the "stimulus" bill (formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009).
This scandal would have been avoided if the government had complied with the Information Quality Act.
In an editorial today, the Wall Street Journal raises concerns about Rep. Hilda Solis' commitment to enforcing information disclosure requirements that apply to unions. Solis has been announced as President-elect Obama's choice to be Secretary of Labor.
Paperwork burdens on the public (including businesses and unions) are governed by the Paperwork Reduction Act. The Office of Management and Budget is statutorily charged with reviewing these burdens before they are imposed to ensure that their "practical utiulity" (i.e., benefits) are commensurate with their "burdens" (i.e., costs).
"Practical utility" often depends on the perspective of the observer. The Journal editorial board says the information has high value to weed out union corruption; union representatives say the reporting requirement is unduly burdensome. Both views are likely colored by policy views concerning what information they believe ought to be publicly disclosed.
Meanwhile, there is a factual dispute concerning how burdensome it actually is for unions to fulfill these paperwork requirements. As it happens, the Paperwork Reduction Act provides potentially useful information on this subject.
New York Times reporter Denise Grady previews a research report due to be published in today's New England Journal of Medicine that says many hospitals do not respond quickly enough to cardiac arrest. Leslie Saxon, who wrote an accompanying editorial, delivered the money quote: “You’re better off having your arrest at Nordstrom, where I’m standing right now, because there are 15 people around me.” More...
Regulation is widely understood as a tax on the activity or person being regulated. Where these activities repair genuine market failures, benefits from regulation may result. If there are benefits from, say, automobile safety regulation, one would expect the beneficiaries to be persons who otherwise would have been killed or injured at the pre-regulatory safety level.
But what about the costs of regulation? Who bears them? More...
Today's Wall Street Journal includes an op-ed alleging a connection between H.R. 2 (the House minimum wage bill), institutionalized corruption within industry and government on American Samoa, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As we reported in an earlier post, it has been widely alleged that Pelosi ordered that H.R. 2 be altered to exempt American Samoa from the proposed increase in the federal minimum wage to benefit StarKist and Del Monte, firms that have significant interests in American Samoa but which are headquartered in Pelosi's district.
We also reported that the existence of this "Samoan tuna" exemption is not supported by the text of H.R. 2, nor is it supported by the text of any of the minimum wage bills proposed during the 109th Congress. Neutral Source can't comment authoritatively on Zimmerman's reporting of corruption and slave-trading in American Samoa. However, we can correct the record concerning what H.R. 2 says and doesn't say. More...
There are wide differences of opinion about what, if anything should be done about illegal immigration. There seem to be several camps. Both extremes are best known for how their opponents label them. Opponents of immigration are called "restrictionists," whereas those who support it are called advocates for "open borders." Most of the population has views in the middle, and capturing them is the public policy contest.
Two economic issues arise in debates about immigration policy. The first concerns whether enforcement of federal immigration laws reduces illegal immigration. The second concerns the extent to which immigrant labor is "needed" to "perform work that Americans won't do." A recent Page One Wall Street Journal story sheds light on both questions.
Enforcement does reduce employment among illegal immigrants.
Labor supply is price-elastic -- that is, higher wages do attract more citizens and legal residents to work, even at unpleasant jobs.
The Congressional Budget Office has released a study that purports to analyze the effects of raising the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour. The study, which was prepared in response to a request from Sen. Charles Grassley, compares the effects of the raise in the federal minimum wage on poor families with the alternative policy of raising the Earned Income Tax Credit.
If the policy objective is helping the working poor, the EITC is attractive because it is better targeted toward that purpose. CBO says 80% of minimum wage workers are not poor.
But the EITC has at least two significant political defects. First, it is a federal budget expenditure (which adds to the fiscal deficit) rather than an employer mandate (which to Congress is "free"). Second, under the new PAYGO rules established by the leadership of the 110th Congress, an increase in the EITC would require a compensating reduction in expenditures or a tax increase. An increase in the federal minimum wage requires neither.
In any case, a careful reading of the CBO report indicates that it is an unreliable guide to the effects of raising the federal minimum wage. It violates the objectivity standards of the federal Information Quality Act. CBO is exempt from these standards
Last fall we began series on the minimum wage because thew leadership of the 110th Congress has made raising it a high priority. In our initial post we provided some background on the statutory origins of the federal minimum wage. We followed up with figures from the bureau of Labor Statistics on how many workers were paid at or below the federal minimum, and some demographic characteristics about them.
Today the 110th Congress meets, and it appears that they will pass a minimum wage on January 10. To date, no legislative text has been made public so it's hard to analyze its likely effects. So we've gone back to the leading minimum wage bills authored by Democrat members in the 109th Congress, on the plausible assumption that one of these bills will be dusted off and presented for a vote in the House. (A Senate vote is less likely, as the majority leader cannot control debate and it isn't clear whether there are enough votes for passage.)
What are the likely effects of the leading minimum wage bill proposed in the 109th Congress?
The Democratic leadership of the new 110th Congress promises to increase the federal minimum wage. Today we begin a series that sorts out the economics of this labor market regulation. More...
