Romney's first campaign ad

How high unemployment lingers

Increasingly long periods of high unemployment have followed the US recessions of the last two decades. From 1945 to the 1980s, employment rebounded roughly six months after GDP did. But in the wake of the 1990–91 and 2001 recessions, it recovered 15 and 39 months, respectively, after GDP had returned to the prerecession peak. At recent rates of job creation, the lag this time will be upward of 60 months. To learn more, read “The growing US jobs challenge” from the Mc Kinsey Quarterly.

The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being

The older prosper relative to the young. Households headed by older adults have made dramatic gains relative to those headed by younger adults in their economic well-being over the past quarter of a century, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of a wide array of government data. Read the complete analysis here.

The debt challenge explained by a 10-year old

Busting the budget myths

Opinion writer Samuelson tries to banish the budget fictions of left and right. Read the complete article in The Washington Post here.

U.S. students’ scores go up, but racial gaps persist

U.S. students are making progress in reading and math, but the advances continue to be clouded by stubbornly high gaps between scores for white children and their black and Hispanic counterparts, according to a major new survey Tuesday from the National Center for Education Statistics. Read the complete article in The Washington Times (not the post this time!) here.

Pendulum swings on American oil independence

China will become increasingly dependent on energy imports compared to the US that is witnessing a new oil boom. Will energy become the determining factor in America's globalo economic dominance? Read the article in the Financial Times here.

No big bazooka

Do we need a United States of Europe, or get real about the straddle between the EU's political project and its economic feasability? A very interesting overview of Europe's response to the sovereign debt crisis by The Economist.