Anyone concerned about the impact that long-term and short-term changes in the American economy are having on the working families that form the pillar of the American middle class should read the cover article in this month’s Atlantic monthly, “Can the Middle Class Be Saved”?

The article, by features editor Don Peck, provides a powerful and sobering look at how economic opportunity and financial security are increasingly out of reach for a growing segment of the American population. He argues that:

Arguably, the most important economic trend in the United States over the past couple of generations has been the ever more distinct sorting of Americans into winners and losers, and the slow hollowing-out of the middle class.

While Peck provides lots of data about widening income inequality and the ever-greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, his essay is most compelling in its focus on the fading fortunes of the majority of Americans who are without a college degree and who make up the ranks of the non-professional middle class. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is the second in a three-part series on “Oklahoma’s Unemployment Gap,” examining the persistence of racial disparities in unemployment.  Part One introduced the unemployment gap and presents preliminary descriptive data on state labor market trends by race.  Part Two explores underlying and immediate causes for the state’s black-white unemployment gap and suggests reasons for its persistence.  Part Three will evaluate solutions for addressing and closing the gap.

Part One of this series examined the stubborn persistence of the unemployment gap between black and white workers.  Despite decades of improvement in social, political, and economic status, black Americans are still unemployed at twice the rate of their white counterparts, a ratio that hasn’t changed since the 1940s.  Why aren’t black workers achieving employment parity?  Researchers point to two factors: (1) the high incarceration rate among blacks, especially black men; and (2) discrimination in the hiring process. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite a modest recovery in the overall economy, a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City finds that low- and moderate-income populations continue to face increased hardship in Oklahoma and other states in the Tenth Federal Reserve District.

The FRB of Kansas City conducts a quarterly survey of non-profit and community organizations that serve low- and moderate-income (LMI) populations in the Tenth District.* Respondents are asked about the economic conditions of the clients they serve. The results are used to construct indices measuring the financial condition, service needs, jobs availability, affordable housing, and credit access of LMI populations.  The June report found conditions continuing to worsen for LMI populations in the 2nd quarter of 2011, although in some sectors the gap between the number of respondents reporting things are getting worse and those reporting things getting better is narrowing : Read the rest of this entry »

June’s jobs report saw Oklahoma’s unemployment rate hold steady at 5.3 percent, the fifth lowest rate in the nation. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household employment survey showed that the number of employed Oklahomans declined by 6,900. To try to make sense of the numbers, I spoke with Lynn Gray, Director of the Economic Research and Analysis Division of the Oklahoma Economic Security Commission. This is an abridged and edited transcript of our conversation.

David Blatt: If we step back and look at what’s happening in the labor market in Oklahoma over the past six months or the past year, what is the story there?

Lynn Gray: Well, it’s actually kind of a disappointment. The unemployment rate in the state has dropped from 7.0 percent to 5.3 percent. The number of unemployed has dropped by 30,000 –  from 122,000 to 92,000. On the surface that look great, that is a very good recovery. The average person who hears this might assume that 30, 000 people went from unemployed status to employed status. But that hasn’t happened. Employment is only up by about 6,400 in the household survey in the past year. The number of unemployed has fallen by 30,000, but the number of employed is only up by 6,400… This tells me that this really is a weaker recovery than just the unemployment rate by itself would indicate. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is the first in a three-part series on “Oklahoma’s Unemployment Gap,” examining the persistence of racial disparities in unemployment.  Part One introduces the unemployment gap and presents preliminary descriptive data on state labor market trends by race.  Part Two explores underlying and immediate causes for the state’s black-white unemployment gap and suggests reasons for its persistence.  Part Three evaluates solutions for addressing and closing the gap.

LIFE Photograph by M. Bourke-White, 1937

Black unemployment in the United States has reached depression-era levels in the wake of the Great Recession, and some speculate that long-term unemployment is reversing decades of black economic gains.  Black unemployment at the state level mirrors the national trend.  Oklahoma experienced a comparatively less severe recession and maintains one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.  Yet black workers in the state were unemployed at more than twice the rate (13.1 percent) of white workers (5.9 percent) in 2010.  This is comparable to the national gap – where the unemployment rate for black workers is about twice (16.2 percent) that of whites (8 percent).  Andy Kroll at Salon.com explains that this entrenched unemployment gap has a puzzling statistical persistence:

The unemployment lines run through history like a pair of train tracks. Since the 1940s, the jobless rate for blacks in America has held remarkably, if grimly, steady at twice the rate for whites. The question why has vexed and divided economists, historians and sociologists for nearly as long. Read the rest of this entry »

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released May state-level employment numbers today and the news was again good for Oklahoma. The state’s unemployment rate fell from 5.6 percent to 5.3 percent, continuing a trend that has seen the rate fall a full 1.6 percentage points in just six months. Oklahoma’s unemployment rate is now the 4th lowest in the nation, behind only North Dakota (3.2 percent), South Dakota and New Hampshire (both 4.8 percent). The national unemployment rate stood at 9.1 percent in May, up from 9.0 percent in April.

However, while declining unemployment is encouraging, the jobs numbers reported by the BLS were more ambiguous. There were 1,555,200 jobs in Oklahoma in May, an increase of a mere 3,500 from April. Over the past twelve months, the economy has added less than 22,000 jobs.

Read the rest of this entry »

The national unemployment rate rose for the second consecutive month in May, edging up to 9.1 percent. Fortunately for Oklahoma, the unemployment rate is moving in the opposite direction, dropping for a fifth consecutive month in April to 5.6 percent, giving us the 6^th lowest unemployment rate in the nation.  While this is good news for the state, inconsistent job growth locally and nationally suggest that the road to labor market recovery will continue to be rocky.  While any encouraging news is worth celebrating, we need to look beyond this standard indicator to better gauge the overall health of Oklahoma’s labor market.

The unemployment rate as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is an imperfect measure of unemployment, especially in the aftermath of a protracted economic downturn.  The widely reported unemployment rate only counts people who “made specific efforts to find employment” in the last month.  If you are unemployed but don’t meet that criteria, you are not considered part of the labor force.  This method discounts unemployed Oklahomans who had no specific leads on a job, didn’t make any effort to find a job, or have given up looking for work indefinitely.  The BLS describes the distinction this way:

Persons who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. This category includes retired persons, students, those taking care of children or other family members, and others who are neither working nor seeking work. Read the rest of this entry »

David Stockmann was director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan and once a leading advocate of supply-side economics. Yet In a recent New York Times op-ed, he makes a point most frequently heard from liberals and progressives: America is in a period of rapidly and steeply rising inequality. Stockmann contends that both federal budget proposals, one by President Obama and the other by Republican Congessman Paul Ryan, would bring the nation “dangerously close to class war.” He writes:

This lamentable prospect is deeply grounded in the policy-driven transformation of the economy during recent decades that has shifted income and wealth to the top of the economic ladder. While not the stated objective of policy, this reverse Robin Hood outcome cannot be gainsaid: the share of wealth held by the top 1 percent of households has risen to 35 percent from 21 percent since 1979, while their share of income has more than doubled to around 20 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

The nation continues to show signs that it is emerging from the deep and prolonged economic recession that began in late 2007.  April’s edition of Numbers You Need, our monthly bulletin of key economic and budget trends, paints a mixed but mostly positive picture of economic recovery in Oklahoma. While the state was not the hardest hit during the recession, we saw noticeable spikes in unemployment, foreclosures, and bankruptcies, and increased reliance on social safety nets like food stamps.  Considering Oklahoma came late to the recession, might it also be late in joining the recovery?  That doesn’t appear to be the case.  The most recent data suggest that Oklahoma may be slightly outpacing the nation in two key areas of economic growth: personal income and employment.

Personal income growth in Oklahoma paints an encouraging picture of economic recovery over the last year.   Personal income is reported quarterly and encompasses all of the different kinds of income received by Oklahomans.  When personal income rises, so does the amount citizens have available to spend, save, or invest in the economy.  Tax revenues also increase with personal income, meaning states have more to spend on infrastructure and social services.  Since a large majority of small business income is reported as personal income, it is an excellent overall measure of the health and growth of the state’s economy.

Read the rest of this entry »

As the state continues to grapple with severe budget shortfalls, Gov. Fallin’s agenda has mostly involved regulatory changes and managing additional cuts to state services. Yet the governor does have one major new program on her wish list: a deal-closing fund to entice new businesses to Oklahoma. The “Oklahoma Quick Action Closing Fund” would allow the Governor and Department of Commerce to help cover businesses’ relocation and expansion costs, pay for maintaining existing jobs that are at risk of termination, or invest in capital improvements requested by a company. Read the rest of this entry »

In a blog post last summer, we took issue with the polarizing concept of “the government versus the private sector”.  We argued that you cannot have a vibrant, productive private sector without government undertaking a whole array of activities that serve as the foundation of a functioning economy and society: helping to educate our children and train our workforce; protect property and prosecute lawbreakers; enforce  patents, copyrights and torts; coordinate the response to natural disasters and outbreaks of disease; maintain and upgrade our roads and bridges; and protect our air and water quality, among many others.

We were pleased to find echoes of our argument in a column by State Treasurer Ken Miller, which appears in the Oklahoma Economic Report, a new monthly publication from the Treasurer’s Office.  The column, titled “Rightsizing Matters”, addresses the question of the appropriate size of government. Miller, a Republican who has a Ph.D. in Economics, offers a decidedly pragmatic take on government spending:

Government size and economic output are expected by many to have a negative association. Although public spending does displace private investment, it can also promote private sector productivity.

Some base level of spending on safety, infrastructure and education provides the very foundation for a functioning free market economy. Therefore, policymakers must consider both the positive and negative effects while seeking the government spending level that maximizes economic output…

The state appropriated budget is now at its lowest level in 30 years.  We may be at the point where we are no longer able to make the investments needed to educate our students and workforce, keep the public safe, and maintain our infrastructure. Miller doesn’t quite reach that conclusion: he focuses on the need to prioritize spending  and restore fiscal discipline. Still, he recognizes that government can get too small. With more budget cuts threatening to shrink state government further still, we hope lawmakers will take notice.

“There’s no excuse for states to let 100 percent federally funded jobless support just die on the vine,” said Christine Owens, Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project. ”This is a no-brainer for states to help their workers, businesses and economies.”

The no-brainer Owens refers to is an unemployment insurance extension known as Extended Benefits approved by Congress and waiting to be used by states.

Oklahoma is one of 9 qualifying states – along with Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Utah and Wyoming —that has not taken advantage of the Extended Benefits provision that NELP estimates would provide 13 additional weeks of assistance for over 29,000 long-term unemployed Oklahomans and inject $101 million in federally-funded benefits to help support Oklahoma families and businesses. Read the rest of this entry »