R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
Vice President Joe Biden was on “The Daily Show” Tuesday night, being grilled, ever so lightly, by host Jon Stewart on why unemployment was so high and the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package seems to be producing so few…
To no one’s great surprise, the national unemployment rate today exceeded 10 percent for the first time since 1983. It was another crushing, if symbolic, blow to the psyche of American workers.
The just-announced 10.2 national unemployment rate partly was fueled by…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
Last week, Gov. Jay Nixon whacked another $203.7 million from the state’s budget. He’d already cut $385 million in July, and vetoed another $105 million when he signed the $23 billion budget in June.
The governor really had no choice.…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
Back in January, we suggested that President Barack Obama should call for a “New Normal” in America, one in which shared civic responsibility comes ahead of personal aggrandizement. Lately, we’ve found our phrase has been kidnapped.
Celebratory caps were the rage on the Street.
As an economic indicator, the Dow Jones industrial average always is problematic, but never more so than last Wednesday, when it closed above what analysts call the “psychologically important” 10,000-point mark for the first…
Matson
Poverty is on the rise in Missouri. Over the past nine years, the state’s poverty rate has grown at more than double the national average.
The change has disproportionately affected whites. Poverty remains significantly higher among African-Americans. But the poverty rate grew fastest…
Legislators throw paper copies of bills into the air at the close of the 2006 session.
Chiseled in stone on the state capitol in Jefferson City is a Latin phrase that translates as “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme…
"Depression Bread Line" sculpture at the FDR Memorial in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
We kid around here about the search for a “unified theory” that pulls together all the stuff we write about.
There have been glimmers of that of late.
We learn…
Post-Dispatch file photo.
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to expand a key health insurance program for children that President George W. Bush vetoed twice last year. With less than a week left in Mr. Bush’s term, it is a fitting…
This AP story reports scary figures from the Labor Department. (Go here for the NYT the story.) More than 533,000 jobs were cut in November, the highest in 34 years, according to the story. NPR reported this morning that the Big Three…
Photo: EPA
I don’t care what the advance polls say: Right now, neither I nor anyone else knows who our next president will be. Nor can anyone say for certain why those who vote for Barack Obama or John McCain will do…
Eleven months ago, when the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that Washington University would host the vice presidential debate this year, it was a little like being awarded the ArenaBowl instead of the Super Bowl. Indoor football’s championship game is a…
Unemployment in St. Louis hit 7.2 percent in July — a 16-year high, according to the official government statistics. That’s a disturbing number, so let’s put it in perspective.
First, the jobless number may be wrong, or at least misleading. Unlike the national…
American voters are unhappy. Perhaps you’ve heard. About three-quarters say the country is headed in the wrong direction — the highest level in 15 years. Many believe we already are in a recession.
This being an election year, it’s big news.…
Here’s a measure of how much the Iraq war is costing America, not just in lives
and dollars, but in terms of the nation’s priorities:
When President George W. Bush signed the $186 billion Iraq spending bill two
weeks ago, the controversial part…
The Brookings Institution’s Gregg Easterbrook, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a thought-provoking piece today:
Democratic attacks on Mr. McCain and Republican attacks on Mr. Obama both seek to punish impermissibly positive thoughts. At a time when there exists a sense…
The prevailing notion today among most domestic economic and media observers is that the U.S. economy is in a recession — and most believe it will get worse before it gets better. But is that really the case?
Representing the prevailing view,…
Medicaid is like a parachute for thousands of Missouri and Illinois families: Most of the time, they don’t need it. But when the economy slows down, nothing else will take its place.
It plays the same role for economically hard hit…
