Bring Your Questions for White House Economist Alan Krueger
The Council of Economic Advisers last week released its annual Economic Report of the President. The CEA’s report, which dates back to 1947, aims to provide “an overview of the nation’s economic progress” while presenting “the Administration’s domestic and international economic policies.” This year’s report lays out the “defining issue of our time”:
Read More »One of the fundamental tenets of the American economy has been that if you work hard, you can do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little money away for retirement. That’s the promise of America.
The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do very well while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.
How Much Did Americans’ Financial Illiteracy Contribute to the Great Recession?
We’re working on a new Freakonomics Radio podcast about financial illiteracy, a topic we’ve visited a few times on this blog. Two guests you’ll hear from in the episode have held the same title: chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors.
First up is current chairman Alan Krueger, whom I asked what would improve if Americans were more financially literate:
Read More »KRUEGER: I think first and foremost, we’d probably have greater savings. People are often in a situation where they have to live paycheck to paycheck. That’s something I think we need as a country to work to improve. Most importantly I think we can improve income growth for the broad middle class. But many people who seem to have the wherewithal to save for the future find it difficult to save.
Should We Hope Congestion Gets Worse?
One of the less cheery parts of studying transportation is that the activity you have devoted your life to is widely considered an unmitigated downer. Even aside from the external environmental costs each trip places on society, travel is held to be no fun for the traveler. We don’t hop behind the wheel for the love of being honked at, cut off and stuck behind a creeping bus or semi; we endure travel only because we’ve got someplace to go. Right? Read More »
Middle-Class Suicide Bombers
Economist Alan Krueger‘s excellent work on terrorism — which we’ve discussed before — comes to the conclusion that suicide bombers tend to be surprisingly well-educated. They are not generally the poorest of the poor; in fact, they are more likely to be middle class members of society. Now it turns out that further support for Read More »
The FREAKest Links: Terrorists, Phones, and Breast Exams Edition
Mirroring Levitt’s thoughts on doctors plotting terrorist attacks, the Wall Street Journal takes an in-depth look at Alan Krueger‘s findings that terrorists tend to come from high-income, high-education families. David Pogue of the New York Times points out that, in the midst of last week’s iPhone mania, most of us missed T-Mobile’s announcement of a Read More »
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