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(c) 2010-2024 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.
Showing posts with label Labour economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labour economics. Show all posts

Sunday, August 24, 2014

This is why wages have risen so slowly. (But the Fed can help!)

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.washingtonpost.com

It’s no coincidence that there’s been an outpouring of research on wage trends of late, just in time for the annual meeting of the world’s central bankers at Jackson Hole, Wyo. But one noted monetary expert who should but won’t be there is Elsa, the ice queen from “Frozen,” whose policy of “Let it Go” is critically important when it comes to allowing for non-inflationary wage growth (so perhaps “let ‘em grow” is a bit more precise).
This new spate of analysis, which I’ll describe in a moment, generates two important findings. First, considerable lingering labor market slack is still a drag on wage growth. Second, the linkages between wage growth and price inflation are not very tight at all. Both findings should lead those poised to snuff out wage growth — in the case of the Fed, by raising interest rates — to stand down.
A key challenge for the Fed in recent years has been figuring out just how tight or slack the job market is, a question that’s been harder than usual because the unemployment rate isn’t as revealing a signal as usual. The reasons for the weaker signal are weak labor force participation and unprecedented shares of long-term unemployment, both of which dampen the jobless rate’s traditional dominance as a measure of labor market tautness. Simply put, the job market...
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Monday, January 13, 2014

U.S. workers’ comp industry revenues could decline

In a new report, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services predicts revenues for the U.S. workers’ compensation insurance industry could decline amid economic weakness and an unsettled labor market.
“We remain pessimistic about the near-term profitability prospects for the U.S. workers’ compensation market despite improved pricing in the past couple of years,” said S&P credit analyst Siddhartha Ghosh. “We base our cautious view of the industry on such factors as continuing high unemployment levels and economic uncertainty, potential adverse reserve development, higher health care costs, and emerging risks like the expiration of Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act in 2014 and significant uncertainty regarding the ACA.”
In its recent report, S&P explains that demand for workers’ compensation in the U.S. depends greatly on economic cycles with a strong correlation between premium growth for workers’ compensation insurance and the state of the labor market.
S&P cited unemployment and the GDP as affecting premium growth, noting that consumers remain worried, wages are virtually stagnant, unemployment remains high and the cost of living is rising.
Concerns about the on-and-off political gridlock in Washington, D.C., uncertainty about the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the potential for higher interest rates remain foremost on the minds of many, according to S&P.
Reauthorization...
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Sunday, August 8, 2010

Outsourcing is the New Carve Out for Government

The economic consequences of the Depression of 2007 is causing a huge drop in governmental employment and a rebound of that job market is not anticipated in the foreseeable future. In order to save payroll costs, including the expense of workers’ compensation benefits, governmental entities are looking to privatization to avoid expenses. A pattern of furloughing staff, laying off employees and eventually outsourcing work, is the present trend.  This pattern mirrors the original workers’ compensation carve out provisions utilized to lower costs originated by Bechtel and other large employers.