The New York Times crash-and-burn watch continues. To Ben Stein the Times has added...
CATHERINE RAMPELL: I’m pleased to introduce Casey B. Mulligan, an economist at the University of Chicago, as the newest addition to our “Daily Economist” panel...
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
Casey Mulligan says--wait for it--that the reason that unemployment is the 7% it is right now rather than the 4.4% it was two years ago because workers today face "financial incentives that encourage them not to work":
Are Employers Unwilling to Hire, or Are Some Workers Unwilling to Work?: Employment has been falling over the past year... if total hours worked had continued the upward trend they had been on in the years before the recession, they would be 4.7 percent higher than they are now.... [Today s]ome employees face financial incentives that encourage them not to work.... [T]he decreased employment is explained more by reductions in the supply of labor (the willingness of people to work) and less by the demand for labor (the number of workers that employers need to hire)...
If the New York Times has a future, it is as a trusted intermediary. This does not help.
