Category Archives: Employment

No country for young (and undereducated, unemployable) men

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Published in The News Tribune, March 28, 2012

Over the last six months Washington’s unemployment rate has fallen from 9.3 to 8.2 percent.  That’s terrific news. The same is occurring in states across the nation as employers are now hiring at a record pace.

Yet as some pessimistic sage surely said, every silver cloud has its dark lining.

The problem with our labor market is one I’ve been highlighting this month:   too many citizens have inadequate job-market skills with few options for upgrading them, and receive too little support for navigating what for them is an unstable job market.

Continue reading →

State must not give up its role in affordable education”

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Published in The News Tribune, May 26, 2011

For the next few years at least, the Legislature’s power to set tuition at the state’s higher education institutions has come to an end.  By ceding this authority, the Legislature recognized that it couldn’t drastically cut higher education’s support on the one hand, while also prohibiting institutions from turning to students for the difference.

Now that this is resolved, lawmakers should turn to policies re-establishing an affordable system of higher education in Washington State.  Continue reading →

We need long term and short term debt strategies

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Published in The News Tribune, April 29, 2011

When it comes to the economy, it’s hard to know what we should be worried about these days. Not long ago, most everyone agreed that demand –to be precise, a lack of it — was the key concern.  To shore it up, the federal government embarked on a massive spending spree.  The Federal Reserve also enacted a policy of “quantitative easing”, with the hope that this too would help convince us to spend more.

Seemingly overnight, however, the watchword has somehow turned from “demand” to “debt”.   The TNT (4-19) trumpeted this new concern across its headlines recently, referring simultaneously to the growing federal debt as well as the large state debt.    Republicans and Democrats in Washington, DC are now sparring over whose debt-reducing package is better.  Continue reading →

In economic terms, raising taxes better than budget cuts”

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Published in The News Tribune, March 9, 2010

Peter Callaghan noted in his column (“Instead of guessing, we could ask our economist about tax increases”, 2/21/10) that elected officials in Olympia are throwing out dueling claims over the effect new state taxes will have on the economy.  He asks “Would it cripple a halting economic recovery? Would deeper budget cuts do the same?”

The truth is, neither cuts in public spending nor tax increases are ideal in a recession as both reduce demand for goods and services (and hence employment) in the economy. However unlike the federal government – which can rely on deficit spending during recessions – the state government must choose cuts, new taxes, or a combination of both.  Given this choice, deeper cuts in spending on investments to education, health care and infrastructure improvements would be the worst option. Continue reading →