The Impact of unemployment insurance on the economy and the labor market, and ideas for reforming the system.
Congressional leaders have agreed to maintain extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits while reducing maximum benefit duration to one-and-a-half years. Read More.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Congress wants to help the unemployed, but extending the duration of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits slightly harms the economy. Read More.
The labor market made some gains in March, although the 120,000 new jobs were well below expectations of 200,000-plus. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also announced that the unemployment rate ticked down another tenth to 8.2 from 8.3 percent, largely due to rounding. Even this modest improvement in the unemployment…
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that businesses and governments increased payrolls by 227,000 jobs in February and that the unemployment rate remained at 8.3 percent. The unemployment rate remained flat even as the labor market increased by 476,000 potential workers. Job creation was robust enough that the labor…
James Sherk discusses unemployment benefits on WNET. …
FYI: Heritage WebMemos are now called Issue Briefs. Congressional leaders have agreed to maintain extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits while reducing maximum benefit duration to one-and-a-half years. The legislation moves in the right direction, but in an improving labor market, Congress…
Testimony before The Joint Economic Committee United States Congress February…
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in January, the economy added 243,000 jobs—108,000 more than the consensus forecast of 135,000. As a result, the unemployment rate fell from 8.5 percent to 8.3 percent, the lowest level since February 2009. For the last three months, job creation has averaged 201,000…
Chart 1 • WM 3485: Heritage Employment Report: January Jobs Sources: Unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; original chart from Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” January 10, 2009.…
What Is the Davis–Bacon Act (DBA)? The DBA requires federal construction contractors to pay at least the wage rates prevailing on non-federal construction projects in the same locality. …
Chairman Conrad, Ranking Member Sessions, Members of the Senate Budget Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is J.D. Foster. I am the Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are…
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Congress wants to help the unemployed, but extending the duration of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits slightly harms the economy. Raising benefits to 99 weeks has increased the unemployment rate by 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points.[1] …
What Are Extended Unemployment Insurance Benefits? States provide unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to involuntarily unemployed workers. UI benefits typically replace 35–40 percent of a worker’s weekly income. …
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) employment report for the month of May is depressing. The unemployment rate climbed to 9.1 percent as the economy created only 54,000 new jobs. Even worse, the details of the employment report reveal a labor market that is stalling with few glimmers of optimism.…
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced this morning that the U.S. economy added 117,000 jobs in July and that the unemployment rate fell from 9.2 to 9.1 percent, due in large part to people leaving the labor force. While the report indicates that the economy is still weak, it is…
For some professions, it makes a lot of sense to have some high standards before you're allowed to work -- doctors,...…
On Friday, Americans woke up to the news that the labor market in April 2012 continued its plodding path of mediocrity....…
Every day, America waits for a brighter future to arrive -- the promise of change that President Barack Obama made in...…
If you ask the American people, they don't have much good to say about the U.S. economy. According to a new poll by...…
A little over three years ago, President Barack Obama's advisers released a chart that purported to predict the future....…
After last week's Republican primary elections in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., the 2012 presidential...…
In the Super Tuesday primary, the economy was the number one issue on voters' minds, be they in Massachusetts, Georgia,...…
Yesterday, President Barack Obama ended his months-long press conference drought and faced the White House press...…
Three years ago today, President Barack Obama signed into law his trillion-dollar stimulus plan, a measure that he...…
Sure, the U.S. economy is recovering, but it's doing so at a very...slow... rate. Some on the left, including the...…
Norman B. Ture Senior Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy
Assistant Director, Center for Data Analysis and Research Fellow
Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics