Insights Blog
Wealth and Inequality: What Can the Federal Reserve Do?
Schwartz Lecture by Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic Provokes Rich Dialogue | In these times of broadening precarity, how can Americans build wealth, economic mobility, and security as they grow older? What can policymakers do to give financially fragile aging Americans a fighting chance, and build greater economic equality? This crucial question was the focus of this year’s Schwartz Lecture, by Dr. Raphael Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
In all the excitement about the crack in Amazon and Starbucks’ anti-union armor as workers post big union wins, one might think that labor power in America is rising. But unionization is just one of 10 indicators of worker bargaining power—and of these, only five show worker power is up.
Why does worker power matter? It depends on whom you ask.
Tax increment financing (TIF) is a long-standing and popular public financing tool in the U.S., but it’s starting to jump its borders. And while domestic TIF use has had its pitfalls, the U.S. experience can offer lessons learned to municipalities worldwide looking at how best to finance their economic development goals.
New York City's Hudson Yards project includes heavily discounted property taxes for Hudson Yards developers.
Brief— SCEPA's research finds nearly 1.5 million low-income older workers would benefit from an expansion of the popular Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program. The report—released by our Retirement Equity Lab (ReLab)—finds without expanding the EITC, the program actually lowers wages among non-educated workers, especially those over 55.
Research Note— New research shows that even before the COVID-19 recession, 55.3 percent of workers age 55 and up in the bottom half of the income distribution were forced to leave the workforce and 32.4 percent in the next 40% of the income distribution – the middle class – were forced out of work in old age.
(This article initially appeared in a Forbes column authored by SCEPA Director Teresa Ghilarducci)
This year’s materials for the G20 Summit include a SCEPA research paper co-written by Willi Semmler, the Director of SCEPA’s Economics of Climate Change project. The paper investigates how to recover the European Union (EU)’s sense of common aims after the Covid-19 crisis to address challenges such as long-term scarring of the labor market, Climate Change, European social and health care system and sustainability of sovereign debt.
