Daily Policy Digest
Economic Issues
| The Pathology of Privilege The continued dominance of the U.S. Postal Service is a vestige of monopoly power and government intervention to favor one firm over another... |
| Income Inequality in the United States In 1950, wages made up 95 percent of total compensation, while benefits comprised only 5 percent; by 2004, wages were only 81 percent, versus 19 percent for benefits... |
| The One Percenters' Fortress City In 1980, only 3 percent of Washington residents had incomes of $200,000 or more in today's dollars; this figure has since increased to 13 percent... |
| Student Debt Hits the Middle-Aged Since 2005, the number of Americans in their 50s with student loans has doubled to 4.6 million, and borrowers in their 60s and older more than tripled to 2.2 million... |
| A New Measure of Consumption Inequality For nearly all durable goods, the gap between high-income and low-income households has either narrowed significantly or remained the same... |
| Why Hairdressers Are Secure: Their Jobs Can't Be Exported While the nation as a whole saw the number of jobs decrease by 6 percent in 2007, there was a 2 percent increase in personal-service jobs... |
| Just Wait until It's Free Because consumers pay such a small portion of the total cost of subsidized goods in the form of the marginal cost, they are not encouraged to shop around... |
| The U.S. Housing Market: Metrics of Recovery and Links to Economic Growth Residential construction spending is up 6.2 percent from the beginning of the year, but still far below pre-housing crisis levels... |
| Disability Ranks Outpace New Jobs in Obama Recovery Since June 2009, the economy has created 2.6 million jobs while 3.1 million workers signed up for disability benefits... |
| Dodd-Frank: The Economic Case for Repeal The Dodd-Frank Act is still uncertain and ill-defined, making employers wary and resistant to risk cash savings on additional payroll expenditures... |
