Your analysis of the positive jobs report?
Since March 2010, there’s been a net increase of 1.1 million nonfarm jobs. But employment gains are uneven. An acceleration and broadening of jobs gains, along with declines in underemployment and discouragement, would be a marker of recovery.
State and local employment has fallen. Why?
With dwindling federal stimulus and tepid economic growth, conditions are difficult. Monthly declines are more likely due to attrition—hiring freezes—and a rise in retirement rates prompted by potential modifications in pension plans.
Can machines replace white collar workers?
This should evoke excitement for increased productivity and higher standards of living, as well as concern for career disruption. We need policies that promote innovation and enable displaced workers to gain skills for the jobs of the future.
A government shutdown — a real worry or not?
It would be disruptive, but the bigger impact would be its demonstration of political impasse on the country’s unsustainable fiscal posture. The financial market implications of such an impasse should not be underestimated.
The business sector’s view of health care reform?
Concerns are twofold. Current mechanisms for financing and distributing health services are expensive, inefficient and inequitable. And recent federal reforms do little to address the structural defects inherent in those mechanisms.