Daily Policy Digest
Economic Issues
| Optimism in an Era of Growing Inequality and Economic Difficulty Despite a prolonged recession, levels of optimism about better times one year ahead are comparable to what they have been over the past two decades... |
| The Federal Reserve's Unsound Policies From 1914 until 2007 the Fed's balance sheet grew to $900 billion; since 2007 the balance sheet has exploded to $3.2 trillion and is growing $80 billion per month... |
| Regulations Reduce Community Bank Lending Regulations intended to keep another financial crisis from occurring are penalizing local community banks whose business models are not a threat to the financial system... |
| Funeral Industry Anticompetitive Because there are no repeat customers in the funeral industry and no shortage of customers, there are few competitive forces that would drive prices down... |
| Dental Industry Insiders Thwart Competition from Teeth-Whitening Entrepreneurs At least 30 states have attempted to shut down teeth-whitening businesses, and far more often than not, dental-industry interests, not consumers, drove these actions... |
| Zoning Kills Affordable Housing Local residents employ zoning laws that mandate minimum lot sizes and keep entire towns out of reach for all but the wealthy... |
| Manufacturing Sector: Key to Economic Recovery Since 2011, the manufacturing jobless rate has stayed below the national rate -- in April, the jobless rate was 6.4 percent, a full 1 percent lower than the national average... |
| Why Were Young People Hit Harder by the Recession? The big drop in home prices between 2007 and 2010 meant a 59 percent loss in home equity for people under age 35, compared with just 26 percent for people generally... |
| Supporting Small Business Is the Way to Economic Recovery Over the long run, small businesses account for approximately 66 percent of all net new job creation... |
| How We Underestimate Long-Term Unemployment In 2007, the average unemployed person who dropped out of the labor force looked for a job for nine weeks; by 2011, that figure had risen to over 21 weeks... |
