Don't Quit Your Day Job…

Sorry it took a while to pick this one up, but here’s an interesting bit of data for your consumption: ‘Middle Educated’ workers, or those who list some college or degrees less than a bachelor’s degree, were unemployed at a higher rate in September than ever before in the 20-year history of the statistic. Yes, even more than last year when the overall unemployment rate was even higher.

Yes, the headline is true. As of two days ago, the (“Great”?) recession was declared over by the US National Bureau of Economic Research. The Bureau looks at lagging indicators of recessions, and therefore declared the end of the recession to be June 2009. With a start of December 2007, the recession lasted 18 months, becoming the longest recession of the post-World War II era. And yes, if the economy does decline into recession again, it will be considered a ‘double dip’ recession, the likes of which haven’t been seen since (according to NBER records, that is) the early 1980s!

Close your eyes or do whatever it is you do when you meditate… ponder the following question, “At what salary would you be content?” Okay, end the meditation. Were you thinking $75,000 annually? That’s the number that an analysis of 2008-2009 Gallup poll data by the economists Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman came up with. So, what does that mean?

The official U-3 unemployment rate is now 9.6%, up a tick from the 9.5% we saw last report. However, private employers added 67,000 jobs in August, while July’s numbers were revised upwards to 107,000 private sector positions and June numbers were also adjusted to 61,000.

When we think about the study of economics, we usually think of the mathematical models we were taught in high school and college. The entire corpus of economic studies has been founded on the notion of people as predictable, “rational” actors. Neuroeconomics, a relatively new field that is acquiring more and more intellectual currency, closely studies human behavior and its influences, based largely on stunning advances made in neuroscience over the past few years. (Post by Lauren Bailey)

Amid all of the talk about unemployment duration and the unemployment rate is a little known ratio, touched upon in this Wall Street Journal editorial. You’re curious, however – because the unemployment rate calculation has been messed around with quite a bit, how does it line up with the ratio? Lucky for you, I’ve got a graph here.

The incidence of a tax (who truly pays for it) is very significant in welfare analysis. Cameron Daniels analyzes this concept using the real life example of gas prices.

I recently posted on the ‘Bush Tax Cuts’, however, as Dr. Mark Perry points out, another way of looking at the Bush tax law is the ‘Bush tax hike’! Compared to the top marginal rate under Bush I and Reagan, the Bush II tax ‘cuts’ had a higher marginal tax rate on the highest bracket. In fact, as one of Dr. Perry’s commentators points out, the 2011 retirement of the Bush tax law could be considered another ‘Bush Tax Hike’ – as President Bush was the one who put an expiration date on the law.

How about this title in the Wall Street Journal? “Credit Cards Take From Poor, Give to the Rich” is the name, in reference to a Boston Federal Reserve Bank report on credit card reward programs. The paper says just that: credit card rewards programs and merchant fees for credit card usage are increasing the overall cost of goods for check and cash customers.

Here’s another quick, fun entry for you… Bloomberg Business has helpfully aggregated PayScale.com data in order to show you which schools have the highest return on investment. The list is sortable by name, rank, 30 year investment return, and other categories.