December 2011-- Robert Pollin, James Heintz, Heidi Garrett-Peltier and Jeannette Wicks-Lim show that since 2009, U.S. commercial banks and large nonfinancial corporations have been carrying huge cash hoards and other liquid assets, totaling $1.4 trillion. Small businesses, by contrast, have been locked out of credit markets. The authors examine the impact on job creation of mobilizing these excess liquid assets into productive investments, finding that U.S. employment could expand by about 19 million jobs by the end of 2014, with unemployment falling below 5 percent. The paper discusses policies to transform these hoards into job-generating investments, both for the national economy and, specifically, the Los Angeles and Seattle regions. 

>> Download "19 Million Jobs For U.S. Workers: The Impact Of Channeling $1.4 Trillion In Excess Liquid Asset Holdings Into Productive Investments"

November 2011 -- Given the recent attention to potential cuts to the federal defense budget, Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier revisit their assessment of the employment-creation potential of military spending. As in the previous editions of this study (2007 and 2009), they find, unequivocally, that government spending on the military is a far weaker engine of job growth than are investments in clean energy, health care, or education, and is even weaker than spending the same amount on household consumption. Pollin and Garrett-Peltier also find that alternative productive investments create a much larger number of jobs across all pay ranges. 

>> Download “The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities: 2011 Update” 

September 2011 -- Jeannette Wicks-Lim's column in Dollars & Sense explores the class-action case over Wal-Mart's affirmative action policies. 

>> Download "Wal-Mart Makes the Case for Affirmative Action"

June 2011 -- The benefits of pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure such as sidewalks, bike lanes, and trails—reduced congestion, better air quality, safer travel routes, and improved health outcomes—are well documented. But in this study, Heidi Garrett-Peltier examines another dimension of these public investments: the employment impacts of building and refurbishing this infrastructure, as well as construction and rehabilitation of roads without cycling or walking facilities. Using data from eleven cities, Garrett-Peltier finds that bike and pedestrian projects are effective job creation engines, notably more so than investing at similar levels in road construction for cars.

>> Download "Pedestrian and Bicycle Infrastructure: A National Study of Employment Impact"

May 2011 -- In this report examining the U.S. chemical industry, James Heintz and Robert Pollin show that a shift to the production of chemicals that are safer for workers, the environment, and our health can create jobs and new markets. The industry has shed 300,000 jobs since 1992, and has under-invested in research and development. These job losses, and their continuation under the status quo, are not inevitable. The study finds that shifting the chemical industry towards greater disclosure, appropriate regulation (such as reform of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act), and long-run sustainability would encourage innovation, support competitiveness, and renew American manufacturing jobs.

>> Download "The Economic Benefits of a Green Chemical Industry in the United States: Renewing Manufacturing Jobs While Protecting Health and the Environment"
>> Download the press release, summary, PowerPoint presentation, or webinar

April 2011 -- As New England continues to struggle with serious budget shortfalls, policymakers face pressure to increase taxes to replenish the coffers. Tax opponents raise the specter of families fleeing for lower-tax states. Jeffrey Thompson finds that taxes have only a very weak effect on cross-state migration. Other factors — primarily employment and family concerns — provide the reasons that families move. And when states use revenues from tax increases to create jobs, any small negative impacts from taxes are swamped by an increase in migrants attracted by those jobs.

>> Download "The Impact of Taxes on Migration in New England" or the state-specific research briefs

March 2011 -- In keeping with the trend of balancing state budgets on the backs of public workers, New Haven is considering outsourcing its public school custodial services to a private firm. Outsourcing would cut the cost of services in half, saving the city $8.1 million, or 19% percent of its deficit. In “Pushing Working Families into Poverty,” Jeannette Wicks-Lim finds that the cost of that savings would be severe: the family of a custodian who continues to work in the New Haven Public Schools would simply no longer be able to make ends meet.

>> Download "Pushing Working Families into Poverty: Assessing the New Haven Plan to Privatize the Public Schools’ Custodial Services"

February 2011 -- In this article for The Nation, Robert Pollin and Jeffrey Thompson remind us that the recession was caused by Wall Street hyper-speculation, not the pay of school teachers or firefighters, and that public workers are a driver of our economy, not a burden on it. As lawmakers attempt to allow states to declare bankruptcy, effectively canceling obligations to public employees and their pension funds, Pollin and Thompson present more appropriate routes to state fiscal health.

>> Download “The Betrayal of Public Workers”

February 2011 -- Jeannette Wicks-Lim writes a column for Spotlight on Poverty on how the EITC and wage floors can be combined for an effective poverty-prevention program.

>> Download "EITC and Minimum Wage: We Need Both to Make Work Pay"

February 2011 -- Robert Pollin is interviewed in Campus Progress on the policy goal of full employment and steps that can be taken to reach it.

>> Download "Five Minutes with Robert Pollin"

January 2011 -- In a working paper co-authored with Jeannette Wicks-Lim, and in a column for New Labor Forum, Robert Pollin considers the charges made by some policymakers and segments of the population that immigrants are to blame for the high rates of unemployment and that immigrants are soaking up government social spending budgets. The evidence he reviews finds that both charges are unsupportable. Pollin and Wicks-Lim present data showing that, as with the years prior to the recession, there is no evidence supporting the idea that immigrants are to blame for the unemployment crisis.   

>> Download “Economic Prospects: Can We Please Stop Blaming Immigrants?”
>> Download the technical note, “Did Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market Make Conditions Worse for Native Workers During the Great Recession?”

January 2011 -- Jeannette Wicks-Lim and John Miller examine the argument that persistently high unemployment levels are due to a gap in skills and education on the part of workers. Miller & Wicks-Lim look carefully at the data, and conclude that the reality of the situation—widespread job losses and the long, fruitless job searches of experienced workers—is that today’s employment problem is due to a jobs deficit across the economy. Recognizing this would put the focus back on the federal government, which could help to remedy the problem if it had the political will to do so.

>> Read “Unemployment: A Jobs Deficit or a Skills Deficit?”

For earlier PERI research on Labor Markets, Wages & Poverty, please go to the program archive page.