Given that Africa has the world’s youngest population, the lack of steady, formal-sector jobs is an enormous political and economic risk factor. Unemployed youth are more likely to be criminals, may be lured into militant groups, and contribute to political unrest.
Learn More...Joe works in a Pennsylvania steel mill. Many of Joe’s fellow Americans start buying more imported steel and, hence, less American-made steel. Because of this change in trade patterns, Joe – a good, hard-working, honest, play-by-the-rules, middle-aged family man who toiled in the steel mill all of his adult life – loses his job. Joe […]
Learn More...How to evaluate the economic record of Barack Obama? To even begin answering, it’s necessary to go beyond just counting the number of jobs created during his presidency (10 million) or calculating the average growth rate (1.5%) or even looking at something more wonky like the labor force participation rate.
Learn More...The glowing claims about minimum wage laws don’t pass the most basic economic smell tests. Just look at the data from Europe.
Learn More...A focus on jobs missing the forest for the trees. We should be focused on creating wealth, not maximizing employment.
Learn More...Abby Hobbs [name changed for privacy] is not the type of person you’d classify as lazy or naïve. As a digital strategist at a small marketing firm, her enthusiasm for and knowledge of her industry are obvious whenever she talks about her job. But, as she told Learn Liberty, getting there wasn’t easy. As a […]
Learn More...In an attempt to help black people and ex-convicts land jobs, policymakers have increased the employment prospects of white ex-convicts. Professor Alex Tabarrok explains this case of public policy’s unintended consequences in a post over at Marginal Revolution. The policy: Policymakers banned the “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” box from job applications. […]
Learn More...In the current debate about the minimum wage, some argue that higher minimum wages boost the economy overall. If workers receive higher wages, the reasoning goes, then they will have more money to spend, and their increased spending will boost business all around. In this news video, for example, an activist in the citizen action […]
Learn More...Editor’s Note: This is part 2 of an open letter from Prof. Howard Baetjer to a friend who commented on one of his Facebook posts about minimum wage laws. You can view part 1 here. Baetjer and his friend, Adam, look at the minimum wage issue from very different perspectives, so Baetjer wrote an open […]
Learn More...A student recently asked me why unemployment remains so stubbornly high, especially for lower-skilled people. Here’s an adaptation of my answer. No one can know for sure the precise causes of unemployment; the economy is a fantastically complex system, like an ecology but still more complex, so unemployment is sure to have a variety of […]
Learn More...The capabilities of self-driving cars are growing rapidly, and some sources predict they will become the primary means of transportation by 2040. However, “Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people—truckers, cabbies, delivery people—drive for a living in the USA”, and these drivers are likely to lose their jobs if they could be replaced by self-driving […]
Learn More...Without economic freedom, we cannot exercise our other freedoms. The freedom to speak is meaningless if the government prevents us from traveling from our homes or paying for a phone call. The freedom to write is meaningless if the government prevents us from selling newspapers. The freedom to worship is meaningless if the government forces […]
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