Jared Bernstein Quotes (66 Quotes)

A number of other reports suggest the labor market is finally hitting its stride, one weekly claims number is not enough to undermine that conclusion.

There may be some signs that a fledgling recovery is beginning to take hold in the labor market, but we have had these kinds of moves before, so we don't want to make too much out of it.

When unemployment is that low, wages are growing broadly, and family incomes are rising. Wage-based demand growth keeps the economy growing at potential.

Of course there are jobs that few Americans will take because the wages and working conditions have been so degraded by employers. But there is nothing about landscaping, food processing, meat cutting or construction that would preclude someone from doing these jobs on the basis of their nativity. Nothing would keep anyone, immigrant or native born, from doing them if they paid better, if they had health care.

The problem isn't simply that families are facing higher prices, particularly at the pump. It's also that they're facing lower wages. If wages were keeping pace with inflation, the pinch wouldn't be as hard.

However, a far larger gap exists when we compare net worth minorities' net worth was about 27 percent of whites, about half the size of the income ratio.

The private sector's just not generating enough jobs here, and I would love to see some of the policy-makers in Washington wake up and take notice.

Where you see immigration competition play out most clearly is among high school dropouts. I'd say there's clearly immigrant competition among the least-skilled workers, but natives are a shrinking share while immigrants are a growing share.

I think the fingerprints of a faltering job market are all over this report. We've got more people working, but they're failing to get ahead.

With stagnant hourly wages, the only way for working families to get ahead is by working more hours, ... certainly not the path to improving living standards that we'd expect in an economy posting strong productivity gains.

He talks about lending a helping hand to the poor and disadvantaged. But these policies push the other way, toward lower wages and less racial inclusion.

While we continue to generate middle-class jobs, I would say we're doing so at a slower pace than we have in the past.

These top line numbers suggest we are into what's beginning to look like a jobless recovery. We simply can't drive unemployment down if we're only adding 30 or 40,000 jobs. So, basically, we're looking at a situation where the recovery is calling, but the labor market isn't really picking up the phone.

I and others have been looking desperately for silver linings in this tragedy and if Katrina were to motivate Congress to look at this issue seriously, that would be great.

My problem with the Bush plan is that it's so ideologically problematic that now these guys are going to have to argue about it for a month or two. That's bad because we need to inject stimulus into the economy quickly.

The government should be actively enforcing the high road.