top
US
US
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

Back to Full Employment

by Robert Pollin
Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is co-author of A Measure of Fairness.


"Employment conditions in the United States today, in the aftermath of the 2008–09 Wall Street collapse and worldwide Great Recession, remain disastrous—worse than at any time since the Depression of the 1930s.

Since Barack Obama entered office in January 2009, the official unemployment rate has averaged more than 9.5 percent, representing some fifteen million people in a labor force of about 154 million. By a broader definition, including people employed for fewer hours than they would like and those discouraged from looking for work, the unemployment rate has been far higher—16.5 percent, on average. Still worse, if we count people who have dropped out of the labor force, unemployment would rise to nearly 20 percent, or 30 million people, roughly twice the combined populations of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago..."

to read Robert Pollin's "Back to Full Employment" published in The Boston Review Jan/Feb 2011, click on

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.1/pollin.php

Robert Pollin will speak on http://www.booktv.org Sunday March 17, 2013.

"Back to Full Employment"
Robert Pollin
About the Program

Robert Pollin argues that the U.S. government should be pushing for full employment (less than 4% unemployment), a policy goal which he says was abandoned in the 1970s when concerns about inflation began to take precedence. Prof. Pollin spoke at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Robert Pollin is a professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of "Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity."


We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network