In Case You Missed It...

This week on Off the Charts, we focused on the economy, the federal budget and taxes, Social Security, and state budgets and taxes.

• On the economy, Chad Stone explained that the November jobs report shows the jobs market is not strong enough to justify policymakers’ letting emergency federal unemployment insurance expire.  Stone also pointed to his latest U.S. News blog post charting the growth in income inequality in recent decades.  Chuck Marr warned that allowing unemployment benefits to expire would be detrimental to the economy.  We highlighted Jared Bernstein’s post for the New York Times’ Economix blog that listed five ideas for getting back to full employment.
• On the federal budget and taxes, Chye-Ching Huang listed three important facts about tax expenditures.
• On Social Security, Kathy Ruffing illustrated that Social Security benefits in the United States are modest by international standards.
• On state budgets and taxes, Michael Mazerov noted that by declining to hear a challenge to New York State’s “Amazon law,” the Supreme Court has helped pave the way for states and localities to collect Internet sales taxes.

In other news, we issued Chad Stone’s statement on the November employment report, a paper on four expiring Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) provisions that should be extended in end-of-year legislation, and a policy basic on federal tax expenditures.  We updated our chartbook on the legacy of the Great Recession and our paper on historical trends in income inequality.

A variety of news outlets featured CBPP’s work and experts recently.  Here are some highlights:

The case for extending unemployment insurance, in one chart
The Washington Post
December 5, 2013

Supreme Court Opens Door Wider for Collecting Internet Sales Taxes
Huffington Post
December 3, 2013

2.2 million jobless Americans face aid cutoff
USA Today
December 1, 2013

White House: Food stamp cuts will hurt kids
CNN Money
November 26, 2013