Joint Economic Committee report on long term unemployment (LTU)

The US Joint Ecomonic Committe of the US Senate and the US House of Representatives released a report on the long-term unemployment.

The summary is here.

The detailed report is here.

The report was released to coincide with hearings on long term unemployment in the US.  The hearings were notable because only four committee members attended (only one was present at the start) held in Washington this week.

The Huffington Post has the story here. The story has no by line so we are looking for the original source which is probably AP.

The economist debates Affirmative Action (AA)

The Economist magazine is debating Affirmative Action in a Oxford Style debate format here. The two debaters, Dr. Ashwini Deshpande, of the University of Delhi, Economics Department and Lino Graglia of the University of Texas School of law, establish their position and then debate the issue in the magazine piece.

Ms. Deshpande gives an overview of when affirmative action might be neccessary and how it has benefited India and Malaysia. She talks about societies where equality exists "in the law" but not "in the facts" and how affirmative action can be used to offer the disadvantaged opportunity.

Mr. Graglia gives only a narrowly focus rebuttal rejecting race as a factor in US affirmative action. He also completely ignores any of the arguments from Ms. Deshpande.  He does not mention any other form of AA, any other country or situation.  He simply states that discrimination is wrong. And then returns his opposition to race based affirmative action.

The posted voting and comments are based on the readers ideological lines.

Gallup Poll: 150 million would migrate to US if they had the chance

In a Gallup Poll from last year, 150 million people around the global said they would like to migrate permanently to the United States. The Gallup Poll and story are here. The issue is important for immigration because the US cannot accept everyone who wants to move here.  Also, immigrants depress wages for existing citizens whom they compete with.

Race at Work: The realities of Race and Criminal Record in NYC

Devah Pager and Bruce Western did some great work in 2003 using job testers in NYC.  They used identical testers who were different only by race: black, white and Hispanic.   They then added the variable of a criminal record with a felony conviction.

The testers were choose for similar background,  appearance, and verbal skills.  The testers were also coached to use similar self presentation styles.  They went to 1470 interviews. They were then matched to fictitious resumes with high school diplomas and solid work experience

The results were indicative of significant racial descrimination.

23% of whites were offered a job or a call back
19% of Hispanics a similar positive response
and 13% of black got a good response

The report is here.