Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries tagged as unemployment

Black Unemployment Drop

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Jerry Bowyer at NRO highlights a remarkable statistic with this “BuzzChart”: The unemployment rate among black Americans has fallen 2.7 percentage points since April 2003 (the data come from the National Urban League’s annual “State of Black America” report).

Bowyer chalks it up to Bush’s tax cuts. I’ve no doubt the tax cuts have had a positive impact on the national economy, but I’m not sure that the drop can be simply tied to that cause. Overall unemployment, for example, has declined less steeply, and wouldn’t the effects of the tax cut be more or less uniform across race? I wonder whether anyone has analyzed this phenomenon more closely. In any case, it’s a development to applaud.

Posted by Kevin Schmiesing in Public Policy at 11:09 | Comment (1) | Trackback

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race, unemployment

The State of Discontent

Friday, March 9, 2007

Some of Michigan’s economic woes are pretty well outlined in an editorial in today’s OpinionJournal, “MoveOnOutofMichigan.org”.

It begins by noting a symbolically important defection:

Comerica Inc. was founded in 1849 in Detroit and the Detroit Tigers play in Comerica Park, but this week the bank holding company announced it is moving its headquarters to Dallas--where, it said, the bigger growth opportunities are. Consider it one more vote of confidence in the state the national expansion forgot, and especially in Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s economic agenda.

Read the rest here.

Michigan’s unemployment rate was 6.9% in January, the worst in the US, and has been one of the worst in the nation for about the last two years.

As a side note, the actual website MoveOnOutofMichigan.org is “coming soon.”

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Business and Society at 09:45 | Leave a comment | Trackback

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business, economy, Jennifer Granholm, Michigan, taxes, unemployment

CT on Political Races to Watch

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Christianity Today has identified four political races to watch that “feature debates about issues of special concern to evangelicals.” One of these is Michigan’s race for governor between incumbent Jennifer Granholm and challenger Dick DeVos.

CT is featuring the economy as an issue of evangelical concern in this race:

The September news of massive layoffs by Ford has become far too common in Michigan. Unemployment stands at 7.1 percent, well above the national average. What’s bad for the state could be good for the campaign of Dick DeVos, the Republican. The name may sound familiar to evangelicals. His father, Rich DeVos, helped found Amway Corporation and bankrolled many evangelical schools and ministries.

Acton’s Jerry Zandstra is quoted in the brief piece, as is Corwin Smidt, executive director of Calvin College’s Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics, whose "research indicates evangelicals have become more receptive to Republican economics.

Says Smidt, “Whereas evangelicals were fairly united on social issues in the 1980s and early 1990s and much less unified on economic issues, evangelical voters took a much more unified stand on economic issues by the end of the millennium.”

This contradicts, by the way, the message of Fr. Andrew Greeley and Michael Hout in their recent book The Truth About Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe. In a review of the book, E.J. Dionne writes of their conclusions, “All this suggests that a significant share of the white Christian community, including Evangelicals, is willing to hear alternative arguments to those offered by the Right. Greeley and Hout believe the best arguments for Democrats are about economics. ‘Get economic justice right,’ they argue, ‘and the conservative Christians held back by economic injustice will back you.’” (HT: Mirror of Justice)

Other races featured by CT include Pennsylvania’s Senate race between Bob Casey Jr. and Sen. Rick Santorum and South Dakota’s abortion ban.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in News and Events at 08:59 | Comment (1) | Trackback

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christianity today, dick devos, economics, economy, evangelicals, jennifer granholm, michigan, unemployment

Maximizing Wages, Minimizing Employment

Monday, March 13, 2006

This is probably not the best move for a state that has been among the worst in the nation in terms of unemployment: “Lawmakers in the Michigan House of Representatives are preparing to vote on a proposed hike in the minimum wage to nearly $7 an hour.” The state Senate passed the measure late last week, so the House’s agreement would put the matter into the hands of Gov. Granholm.

According to the Office of Labor Market Information, Michigan’s unemployment rate for January was 6.2%, which puts it in a tie for fourth-worst in the nation. Believe it or not, this is a notable improvement for the state, which at various points in the previous two years had been at the top of the unemployment rankings, hovering around 7%. The national unemployment rate is 4.7%.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Business and Society at 11:05 | Leave a comment | Trackback

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michigan, minimum wage, unemployment