Jared Bernstein

This may seem like a weird time for progressives to feel optimistic, but a confluence of recent events suggests the faintest breeze of hope in the air. Granted, the winds of corruption and shortsightedness still dominate. More so than at any time in recent memory, high-level officials are indistinguishable from right-wing lobbyists, gutting government’s ability […]

An economist’s view of the world generally boils down to “every silver lining has a cloud.” Our reputation as dismal scientists, fair or not, makes us especially grateful when we find something to be optimistic about. In that vein, there’s one development over the past decade that makes even us feel brighter about the future: […]

It’s tax day, and the mind drifts to interdependent utility functions. Back in grad school at Columbia, we slogged through microeconomics, learning how individuals sought to “maximize utility,” which roughly translates into becoming as fulfilled as possible, given various constraints. The optimal economy, we learned, was one in which economic agents, or “people,” sought to […]

Just in case you missed it, the central economic problem of our time was revealed on January 28 at 8:30 a.m. On that chilly morning, the government released two reports that, taken together, capture a critical imbalance embedded in our economy. We learned that the nation’s gross domestic product, our most comprehensive measure of economic […]

Don’t despair, progressives. I bring a message of hope, and it comes from those renowned laboratories of democracy: the states. I just returned from the annual meeting of the Economic Analysis and Research Network, or EARN, as we call it around here. EARN is a collaboration of progressive state-level organizations engaged in research and advocacy, […]

There are many lessons to be learned from the 2004 election, but one that the conservative pundits are sure to glean is that “It’s not the economy, stupid.” That’s what that other George W. (i.e., Will, on ABC’s This Week) said a few weeks before the election. “That’s what we’ve learned. … the American economy […]

When I was a kid we had this crazy dog that used to chase cars for all he was worth. My father used to yell after him, “What the heck you gonna do with it if you catch it?!?” Given much of the recent economic news, one might say the same thing to John Kerry […]

A few months ago, the Federal Reserve made it clear that, given that the recovery was more or less on track, it was going to start raising interest rates off their 46-year low. It did so at its most prior meeting in June, raising the federal funds rate — the interest rate banks charge each […]