Category: Labor and Workforce
-
Does More Education Really Equal Greater Economic Output?
by James A. Bacon Identify the person who said this quote: “In Virginia, one of the key goals of Governor Bob McDonnell’s Top Jobs higher education legislation is to increase the number of degrees earned by Virginians by 100,000 over the next 15 years. Why? Because more education equals greater economic output and better quality…
-
Leveraging Dollars with Data
A data warehousing project coming online in late 2012 will help Virginia lawmakers forge education policy based upon hard data instead of anecdote and ideology.
-
The Wonk Salon, October 6, 2011
Non-Precinct Voting on the Rise Baker Institute Non-precinct voting (either early in person or by mail) has been on the rise over the past 15 years and could become a majority of all voting as Americans place a greater emphasis on convenience. Hunger Costs America $168 Billion a Year Center for American Progress Add up…
-
Virginia: A Beacon of Job Opportunity for African Americans?
Even before the recession, many Midwestern African-American communities were in distress, writes Algernon Austin with the Economic Policy Institute in “High Black Unemployment Widespread across Nation’s Metropolitan Areas.” Black unemployment was especially high in rust belt cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee. By contrast, he notes, blacks fared relatively well in Sun Belt metro areas…
-
Where Are the Jobs Going to Come From?
By Peter Galuszka The conservative dogma machine continues to whine on in full gear. There’s Texas Gov. Rick Perry talking about it and Mitt Romney, sort of. Our own esteemed James A. Bacon Jr. is on Norm Leahy’s right-wing radio citing it chapter and verse. What is it? The government should not be in the…
-
The Wonk Salon, September 12, 2011
How Hospitals Cross-Subsidize Medical Services National Bureau of Economic Research When hospitals face competition in their profitable medical services, surprise, surprise, profits erode and they respond by curtailing subsidizes of less profitable medical service lines. Why Emergency Rooms Are Closing Rand Corporation Between 1990 and 2009, the number of emergency rooms in the United States…
-
Xu Bing’s Tobacco Show
By Peter Galuszka The history of Virginia is intertwined very tightly with that of tobacco. The Golden Leaf boosted the two colonies from their earliest days. One of the first acts of the new colonial legislature in the Old Dominion was establishing price supports for tobacco, which was used a currency and was the state’s…
-
The Over-Regulation Hoax
By Peter Galuszka “They’re coming out with multiple, onerous regulations,” says Mike Bucci, a small business owner in Richmond, according to a visual runby Chief Baconaut James A. Bacon Jr., as part of a blog posting titled”Paperwork, Solar Panels, and Job Creation.” Mr. Bucci complains that his small business, which comes up with business solutions,…
-
Killing Virginia’s Golden Goose
By Peter Galuszka Will Virginia end up killing the goose that has laid its golden egg? With apologies to Aesop, it is the most pressing economic question the Old Dominion faces. The golden egg, of course, is the federal government whose jobs continually prop up the state work rolls and help the flow of state…
-
IG of the Day: Virginia’s “Other” Debt
Every politically sentient Virginian knows that the state Constitution prohibits the state from borrowing money to cover operating expenses of government. Everyone knows that the General Assembly snuck around that restriction by under-funding payments to the Virginia Retirement System, effectively borrowing from the state employees’ pension. Less widely known is that the state, or, more…
-
Occupational Licensing and the Earnings Gap
by James A. Bacon Many reasons are proffered for the increasing earnings gap in the United States, running the gamut from globalization and automation to the breakdown of the family and the failures of the education system. Here’s another contributor to throw into the pot: the steady rise of occupational licensing. Think of occupational licensing…