By Jared Bernstein

Nothing you didn’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but it’s worth reading this piece by Ed Porter on how places where many Trump voters live have been those with subpar job growth. Using data on jobs, output, factory work and income, Porter shows that the economy is doing much better in areas where voters […]

To hear President-elect Trump tell it, ripping up, repealing or renegotiating international trade deals will bring back lost factory jobs and restore the glory days of the American working class. Wilbur Ross, Trump’s nominee to run the Commerce Department, plans to work with his new boss to release America from “the bondage” of “bad trade […]

Since Donald Trump was elected president, the value of the US dollar is up about 4 percent against the currencies of our trading partners. And that “Trump bump” in the dollar is an extension of longer-term trend wherein the greenback is up 20 to 25 percent, depending on the basket of currencies to which you […]

  Donald Trump’s upset of Hillary Clinton was fueled in no small part by the votes of working-class Americans, mostly whites, for whom his populist economic message deeply resonated. At the heart of that message are what the president-elect called the “disastrous trade deals” signed by Democrats like President Bill Clinton (NAFTA) and supported by […]

While I rarely use this column to go far afield from political economy, I’ll make an exception here and wade into the intersection of foreign and economic policy: The push to sell the Trans-Pacific Partnership to Congress on the basis of geopolitics and national security. First, some background. It looks as if the Obama administration’s […]

For all his anti-establishment posturing, Donald Trump’s tax plans are standard Republican fare: big tax cuts that favor the wealthy by lowering top marginal rates (on individual, corporate, and pass-through income) and eliminating the estate tax. While it hardly seems newsworthy to point out that a Republican presidential candidate introduced yet another supply-side, trickle-down tax […]

I recently sat down for lunch with Dennis Kelleher, the president and chief executive of Better Markets, which Kelleher describes as “an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit that fights for the economic security and prosperity of the American people by advocating for a strong, stable and balanced financial system.” He has worthy insights regarding the current state […]

What happens when a study shows that a minimum-wage increase is simply having its intended effect? When it’s found to raise the pay of low-wage workers without causing much in the way of the job displacements that critics rail about? Unfortunately, one thing that apparently happens is the findings get misinterpreted (though, as I’ll show, […]

I’m willing to accept that, at least for now, I’ve got an illness that causes me to see everything through the lens of the presidential election. However, much in the way some bacteria protect you from getting sick, in this case my illness is arguably useful in clarifying a seriously erroneous point that conservatives constantly […]

Well, the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia hasn’t exactly opened with the show of unity organizers hoped for, as some of Bernie Sanders’s delegates loudly expressed disappointment with both the primary process and the presumptive nominee. On the former, the primary process, they’ve clearly got a point. On the latter, Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, Sanders himself […]