Don't Quit Your Day Job…

Sticky wages are more than a disgusting check you receive from your employer – employees are likely to not want to take a job for less money than one they worked previously. Sticky wages are one of the reasons that recessions can last a long time, sort of like the ‘Great Recession’ of the recent past. Even though the recession is officially over, high employment still exists, and a number of economic indicators still are at shaky levels. Anecdotally, there are many examples of people who took lower paying jobs in order to get back to work, however the official data shows that wages stayed flat or even rose, even throughout the recession.

Much has been made about the gender disparity that has persisted in income levels. I decided to delve into some of the finer points of the income distribution for men and women and found some interesting trends that exist when stratifying education levels.
Cameron Daniels looks at trends of highschool dropouts.

In early May 2007, a study gained publicity that claimed NBA referees altered their habits of calling fouls based on the racial makeup of the offending players. Maria Rainier helped write an article about discrimination in gender, I felt that it would be appropriate to continue the discussion with a look at racial bias.

No matter how you add it up, women have been the victims of workplace discrimination, settling for mere fractions of men’s pay, for centuries. They’ve been told that their experience levels and educations were inferior, that their families needed them at home, and that there were no long-term opportunities for female career progress. But here, in the year 2010, women have disproven those so-called facts and shattered the glass ceiling.
From earning just 59% of what men earned 40 years ago, women have started to reverse the gender gap: some earn up to 120% of the average man’s wage. Sure, there are specifics to address and the majority to consider, but it’s still an incredible feat for the number of years that have passed. (a guest post by Maria Rainier)

“So we have no choice but to make California far more efficient and effective than it is, by running this thing a little bit more like a business,” proclaimed Meg Whitman, in one of her ads during her failed run for the Governor of California. Of course, it’s tough to run your business when your employees are almost 37 million strong and own all of its shares. However, in a perfect world we have theories like ‘Benevolent Dictatorship’, which means that you readers can take a whack at it. It, of course, being balancing California’s massive $19 to $26 billion annual deficit.

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on inflation expectations in the market for treasury bonds ant T-Bills. However, with recent expansionary programs everywhere like, such as the program lovingly named Quantitative Easing 2.0. Let’s look at inflation expectations before, during rumors, and after the announcement (today…) buffered around the reports of US Fed Quantitative Easing.

Charitable contributions are an important part of the American political system and the American tax code. In this article, Cameron Daniels questions whether the tax exemption for charitable contributions is a good policy decision.

What did we learn? What surprised us? Well, the Republican wave was a real phenomenon, as we saw yesterday. CNN is projecting at this hour Republicans having 243 seats in the House of Representatives, vs. 192 Democratic seats (64 flips from Republican to Democratic). The Senate is too close to call in Alaska, Colorado, and Washington. Alaska’s Senator will caucus Republican whether Joe Miller or Lisa Murkowski wins. Assuming the Democratic Senate candidate in Washington or Colorado wins, Democrats will hold 52 seats in the Senate.

Live blogging for the midterm 2010 elections. Keep refreshing! 5-10 minute updates.

No, you haven’t found Atlantis (or even a good joke…), I’m talking about houses in which mortgage holders owe more money on the home than the debt they are paying in their mortgage(s). Enter this post from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. John Krainer and Stephen LeRoy have calculated the number of mortgages underwater in Q4 2000 and Q4 2009 and conveniently mapped it so you can visually assess the damage.