2016 Economic Report of the President

The 2016 Economic report of the President and the council of economic Advisers was released on Monday, February 22nd, 2016.

Each year the president releases his view of the economy called the economic report of the president. It just an all around top notch piece of macroeconomic work.

There is good coverage of inequality in the economy and support for early childhood education.

For me the biggest thing I learned was how cruel the republican fiscal cuts were during the recession. They cut spending about 5% during the height of the recession at the federal and state level.

2016 Economic Report of the President 

You can view past reports here

Past Economic Reports

White workers have 5 times the retirement savings as Black workers

The Economic Policy Institute has analyzed retirement savings data and concluded that Black workers retirements savings are one fifth of White savings.

White workers have 5 times the retirement savings of Black Workers

Reparations for US Slavery

The case for reparations for slavery in the US has become a news item in the US presidential campaign.  Bernie Sanders said he does not believe in reparations and squelched any discussion as "divisive" in an interview with Fusion.net.  The news generated headlines.

Reparations is clearly a Black economic issue, so we though we would look close at some of the popular articles on reparations. All articles are neutral or pro-reparations and all agree actual reparations are impossible. Most articles support studying the issue.

The Evil Black Economist supports a comprehensive study of the economic damage slavery, segregation and jim-crow discrimination did to Black people in the US between 1800 and 1960.

To start, here is nice summary of the issue in a one page format: Reparations for Slavery by Constitution Rights Center

One of the most comprehensive cases made for reparations is the article by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  He has almost single-handedly put the issue into the political discourse.  Everyone should read his article.

The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic

Reparations are Owed by Jamelle Bouie in Slate

US Slaves worth more than all industrial capital by Mathew Yglesais in Slate who quote the most interesting chart from Piketty and Zucman's paper on Capital including the value of US slaves.

A bill to study reparations has been introduced in every session since 1989 by Representative John Conyers of MIchigan.

Jamaica calls on UK to pay reparations by Rowena Mason in The Guardian

William A Darity of Duke university wrote a paper in 2008 called 40 Acres and a Mule in the 21st Century which looks at some of the issue involved.  The paper summarizes the estimated monetary damages. It also disucsses the lack of popular support.


and of course

Dave Chapelle on Reparations

The Center on Education and the Workforce released a report showing the Blacks tend to choose low paying college majors.  African Americans are over represented in the social service majors such as  and under represented in science and technology majors

African American college majors and earnings.

Harberger Triangle: Deadweight Loss

We had to to go back to our basic Econ 101 supply and demand graphs to better understand how taxes and subsidies can cause market inefficiencies. Here is a basic model in excel.

Excel File

There are lots of resources on the web for Harberger Triangles.

Here is one of them

NBER paper on Harberger Triangles

Quick Graph: Monthly Year-to-Year changes in Hourly and Monthly wages

Wage growth finally beat inflation for the first time since the start of recession

Wages are finally picking up.  A comparison of wage from month to prior year month show a growth rate of about 2% for the past year.  It also well above inflation which is close to zero.  By this measure, the recession may finally be over.

Version 2

A closer look at Black Labor Force Participation from 1972 to 2015

We are going to look at the Labor Force Participation (LFP) rates for Black workers. Historically (slavery does not count) Blacks have had higher participation rates than whites until the 1970s. Now, in 2015 the difference between the Black and White rate is about 1%.  It has not been this small since 1974. 

One of the reason Blacks had a higher LFP rate than whites was the large number of Black women who worked while White women did not.  This changed during the 1970 and 1980 as some discrimination barriers against women were reduced and women, especially white women joined the labor force. 

It has continued to Black women have also benefited from reduced discrimination and stable jobs. Women have benefited from job in education and healthcare that offer good benefits and security as compared to jobs held by men. 

In fact the 2007-2009 recession was called a "Man-cession" since men fared far worse during the down turn.

Finally, during the recession, many older workers who could afford to, retired. 

Below is a chart of Labor Force Participation Rates for Blacks and Whites since 1972.

This chart shows the changes in population versus labor force participation for different groups. For example, during the time period from 1972 to 2015, the population of White Men increased by 60% but only 40% additional White males considered themselves participating in the labor market in the US.

The numbers are still huge: the civilian non-institutional population grew by an additional 36.5 million white men and the labor force by 19.2 million but the growth in the overall participation rate is slower than the growth in the population rate

For Black and White women the trend is positive.  Women joined the labor at a faster rate than their population grew. 

Black men's LFP grew at more than 90% but below the 120% rate of population increase and the 160% LFP increase for Black women. Ideally one would have expected to see higher growth in the participation rates during the time period however almost every

Black men are plagued by the worst economic evils of our society: poor educational opportunities, incarceration, increased competition from immigrant labor, reduced discrimination against women, foreign competition, and geographic isolation. Still a 90% increase is very good.

Overall, the US national Labor Force Participation has been dropping steeply since the recession of 2007(peak is January 2000). 

The gap between Black LFP and White LFP is about 1.1%, a historically low figure.  It has been as high as 3.5% during the recent recession.

During the prime working years(25 to 54), Black labor force participation remains high: about 80%.

Female LFP has risen steadily since 1972. Black women's participation rate remains higher than Whites.This may be due to the different economic circumstances such as general wealth differences, future economic prospects, family situation or better retirement plans,  It may also be due to cultural characteristics such as the expectation that Black women work.

Black Women have worked at rates as high as 5.5% more than White women. Between 1990 and 1995 the participation rates for Back and White women were about the same. Now Black women participate about 4% more than White women.

New York Times on H-1B Visa abuse

The New York Time has been slowly awakening to the abuse of the H-1B visa program.  Here is a recent story on Big outsourcing companies abuse of the H-1B lottery system.

The H-1B program along with outsourcing is used by US companies to reduce the cost of IT support by employing lower cost foreign labor. It has had a major effect on IT wages and employment prospects for US workers.

Buying Black for one year: Maggie Anderson

Maggie Anderson's book "Our Black Year" got coverage in the New York Times as a possible method of Black Economic Empowerment.

An article NY Times describes the "brutal" modern workplace at Amazon

Quality of Life Warning

We have all heard the stories and anecdotes about Amazon over the years.  We have read news reports about conditions at it's warehouses. We have seen Jeff Bezos ignore profits and Wall Street. And we have seen the powerhouse Amazon Web Services has become.

Now the New York Times has a detailed piece on what it's like to actually work at Amazon, which is described here. Quality of Life Warning