May 18th, 2017 Grab bag of top stories and the reading list

Urban League releases the state of Black America

SOBA

The report contains comparison with Whites and Hispanics.  The wealth gap is always shocking, but it just measure continued widespread discrimination in the housing market along with residential segregation.

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One of our favorite editorials of all time.  The Dalai Lama discusses the fear of being unneeded.  This is the first time we are say must read.

Dalai Lama: The fear of being unneeded

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Corporations pay 21.2% effective tax rate

The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy has a detailed report on the effective corporate tax rate being 21.2%

Highlights include GE, International Paper and PG&E paid NO taxes over the 8-year study period. And 25 of the most profitable companies used tax breaks of $277 Billion (about half of all corporate tax breaks).

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By the way, we love ITEP. They are the number one resource in tax policy.  If you know economic and follow politics then ITEP covers the place where the two meet: Tax Policy.  For the past 40 years our tax policy has largely been shaped by corporations and their lobbyists.  Now as the economy has cratered for the middle class; we are all asking why? ITEP has part of the answer: poor tax policy.

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Apple has a new web site touting it's job creation in the US. Apparently in response to the Trump pressure.

Apple's PR job page is here.

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Before Piketty, there was Tony Atkinson, who worked long and hard in inequality.

15 Proposals to Reduce Inequality

Unfortunately, most of the proposals require government action, which is better suited for Europe and the United States.

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The Pew Research Trust article on the declining middle class. This is one of the seminal articles on the decline of the middle class in the US.  The article is constantly referenced in economic ciricles

Pew Research Middle Class

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The single best reference on immigration. We use the report all the time !!!

National Academies of Science -- Report on Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration

Rarely does one report settle an economic debate.  This report does; and on controversial topic. The report is hefty at over 500 pages.  It has tons of research and data. And the report passes the common sense test with flying colors.

Basically, the winners in the immigration process are immigrants themselves, corporations and people who employ immigrants.  The losers are competitors of immigrants: non-recent immigrants, Blacks, Hispanics and poor people along with state and local government who provide benefits. Over the very long term immigration has a net positive benefit.

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Companies have defunded their training programs leading to high unemployment among older workers.

You can read the story in Quartz: Secret surge of white collar unemployment

The US is notorious for lack of active labor market polices(ALMP). We are close to last among the OCED.

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Another labor share of GDP is crap article. We do like Bloomberg.

Bloomberg falling labor share

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Still reading Peter Temin's book on inequality.  He, at least, bring race into the picture.

Atlantic article