Daily Policy Digest
Economic Issues
| Can Money Buy Happiness After All? A 20 percent increase in income has the same effect on happiness for all people, meaning that it takes larger incremental increases at higher wages to improve the same amount of happiness as a lower-salaried person... |
| Ten Year Congressional Budget Outlook Predicts Slow Growth Provided current laws remain the same, the budget deficit is projected to shrink for a fourth year in a row in 2014 to an estimated $845 billion, which represents 5.3 percent of gross domestic product... |
| The Unchecked Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The statute that empowers the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is incredibly vague, leaving the staff of 1,000 with a $600 million budget to interpret its meaning without any defined or fixed standards... |
| China: A Capitalist Nation? While China's political structure may be communist, its economy is based firmly on capitalist principles... |
| Right-to-Work States Have Higher Incomes Right-to-work states have 4.1 percent higher per-capita personal incomes than non-right-to-work states... |
| The Fiscal Crisis: Lessons from Japan If Congress studies what led Japan to its stagnant economy, the United States can avoid policy blunders that will exacerbate its economic woes... |
| The Myth of the Stagnant Middle Class Americans are able to purchase more luxuries, as basic household spending has fallen from 44 percent of disposable income to 32 percent today... |
| Addressing the Skills Gap in Manufacturing U.S. manufacturing employment has increased by more than 500,000 positions over the last three years... |
| World Housing Affordability Varies Greatly Hong Kong, Vancouver, Sydney, San Jose, San Francisco and London were the least affordable housing markets of the 337 metropolitan markets analyzed in the 9th Annual Demographia Housing Affordability Survey, says Wendell Cox, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis... |
| How Economic Nationalism Bites Back The best way to encourage technological advancement and competition is by welcoming skilled immigrants and entrepreneurs to America... |
