Household Debt | Benjamin Studebaker

December 10, 2015

Why American Families are Worse off Now Than They Were in 1997

When we evaluate whether or not the economy is performing well, we sometimes pay too much attention to GDP. Gross domestic product tells us about the total amount of exchange going on in an economy, but many of those exchanges only serve to enrich those at the top of the economic ladder. To get a better sense of how ordinary people are doing, we need to look at real (inflation-adjusted) median household income. Today I checked in on the American figures, and they are bleak:

The median American family is not only poorer than they were before the 2008 crisis–they’re poorer than they were during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. What on earth is going on?

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July 10, 2015

Should Some Americans Work Longer Hours? Jeb Bush v. Hillary Clinton

In a soundbite that’s been circulating about, Jeb Bush said that “people need to work longer hours.” Hillary Clinton immediately pounced:

Jeb Bush fired back:

What’s really going on here? Who is right?

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June 17, 2014

The Yom Kippur War Butterfly Effect: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Inadvertently Led to the Global Economic Crisis of 2008

We often hear the argument that the American alliance with Israel is damaging to the American interest due to the Islamic terrorism it yields. Many Muslims resent the United States for aiding Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, and this resentment is often fertile grounds for radicalization when combined with the economic hopelessness many young Muslims face in their home countries. Today, however, I’d like to discuss something different–the extent to which the US alliance with Israel contributed to the global economic crisis in 2008.

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April 6, 2014

Minimum Wage: Rational Employers are Not Job Creators

There is a huge, gaping hole in the response right-wing politicians are giving to demands that the minimum wage be raised in the United States–they are assuming that employers generally behave in an irrational, inefficient way. Here’s how.

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August 2, 2013

Americans Still Don’t Know What Sequestration Is

I haven’t been doing much writing about the US economy lately, in part because there’s been no substantive movement on the issue politically since sequestration went through. All we’ve gotten lately are some retread hopey changey speeches from Obama and threats of future government shutdowns from congressional republicans. Nonetheless, these are the first signs that we will soon be having more unproductive fights about the economy with potentially devastating consequences for growth, so I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled. And, lo and behold, I stumbled on a little poll from Gallup.

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Tag: Household Debt