Daily Policy Digest
Economic Issues
| U.S. Manufacturing's Brave New World High-skilled manufacturing employment opportunities have increased up to 40 percent since 1980; however, 5 percent of open jobs could not be filled because companies could not find workers with the right skill set... |
| Why Americans Should Root for a Strong Chinese Economy Chinese firms invested $4.5 billion directly into the United States through mergers or the opening of new factories... |
| A Report on Corporate Governance and Shareholder Activism Shareholder-proposals do little to influence corporate behavior in a manner that improves share value... |
| The Collapse of Startups in Job Creation The number of jobs created by establishments less than one year old has decreased from 4.1 million in 1994 to 2.5 million in 2010... |
| The Economic Situation Overregulation of the economy is becoming a fixture in the everyday lives of many businesses... |
| Economic Freedom of the World: United States Not in Top 10 After increasing steadily during the period from 1980 to 2000, the economic freedom rating of the United States fell from 8.65 (out of 10) in 2000 to 8.21 in 2005 and 7.70 in 2010... |
| How Poor is "Poor"? More than 46 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population, were considered poor in 2011, an increase of 9.8 million people from 2006... |
| Economic Recovery: Lessons from the Post-World War II Period Despite a significant drop in government intervention, consumption rose by 22 percent between 1944 and 1947... |
| Household Income Sinks to 1995 Level The median annual household income has fallen for the fourth straight year to $50,054 in 2011; this is 8.9 percent lower than the peak of the median income, which was $54,932 in 1999... |
| More Americans Opting Out of Banking System More than 820,000 households opted out of banking from 2009 to 2011, about 8.2 percent of the population... |
