In October 2009, the unemployment rate peaked at 10.0 percent. That same month, unemployment was 9.2 percent for white Americans and 15.8 percent for black Americans. While unemployment then began falling for whites, the black unemployment rate rose for another five months before it started declining. As of September 2015 the black unemployment rate was 9.2 percent, the same as the white unemployment rate from the peak of the recession.

Much reporting has focused on the fact that unemployment is higher for blacks than for whites. While this is an important point, it actually understates the level of racial inequality in the labor market for a number of reasons. One often overlooked point is that the experience of black unemployment is different than the experience of white unemployment.

This study shows the extent to which racial inequalities persist even amongst the unemployed. By a variety of measures unemployment is likely to be an even worse experience for black Americans than for whites.

On Monday, Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced that the preliminary results of the October 25 presidential and legislative elections, expected to be announced today, would be delayed until Thursday. The delay has been attributed to the formation of a committee by the CEP to investigate allegations of fraud coming from political parties and local observer groups. The committee consists of five members of the electoral council. Of the 162 complaints received, the committee says 43 are being followed up on, though few are placing their trust in the process. 

The elections were praised after there were only a few sporadic outbursts of violence, leading many in the international community to quickly conclude that there were few problems. Just as it had done in August, the Organization of American States (OAS) proclaimed the day after the vote that any problems “did not affect the overall course of the election.” After violence shut down nearly one out of every six voting centers in the August legislative elections, this was apparently the new standard by which to judge the elections.

At least a half-dozen leading presidential candidates have come out before results are even announced to denounce widespread fraud in favor of the government’s candidate, Jovenèl Moïse. The allegations have been wide ranging: replacement of ballot boxes with fakes distributed by ambulances, mass ballot box stuffing, and burning of ballots for opposition candidates. Little proof has been provided to back up these claims. But the most blatant example was there for everyone to see on election day, and was in fact anticipated by electoral officials and international observers.

In Haiti’s elections, political party monitors, called mandataires, are allowed inside voting areas in order to ensure the impartiality of electoral officials and to sign off on the count at the end of the day. In August’s first-round legislative election, these party monitors cried foul, as not enough accreditation passes were printed and only some were allowed in during the vote.

In response, the CEP flooded the parties with passes. In total, over 916,000 were distributed according to the organization’s president, Pierre Louis Opont. Unlike average voters, whose identification must be checked with the electoral list at the polling center where they are registered, monitors are allowed to vote wherever they are present. This became, in many ways, an election of mandataires.

International and local observers have estimated turnout at between 25 and 30 percent, meaning there were roughly 1.6 million voters. With over 900,000 accreditation passes for monitors, and thousands more for observation groups (whose members are subject to the same open voting rules), it means over 50 percent of votes could come from these groups.

All 54 candidates vying for the presidency received more than 13,700 passes, enough to be present at each voting booth in the country. Few, however, had the capacity or the money to actually use them. The result was that parties sold them to the highest bidder in the days leading up to the vote. Local observers said passes were going for as much as $30. By Sunday, they were going for as little as a few dollars.

The system for monitoring the vote had turned into a black market for vote buying, where those with the most money were most able to take advantage. And it was entirely predictable.

The RushCard is a prepaid debit card marketed to unbanked and underbanked populations — people not usually served by traditional banks and card issuers because they are categorized as high-risk and tend to be poorer. Started in 2003 by Russell Simmons, or

Mark WeisbrotÚltimas Noticias, 2 de noviembre, 2015

Dean Baker
Truthout, November 2, 2015

The end of China's one child policy is producing an outpouring of nonsense about demographics. Nowhere is the confusion greater than in the opinion pages of the Washington Post, which gets the gold medal for confusion on this issue. In honor of this occasion, BTP will explain the issue in a way that even a Washington Post editorial page editor could understand.

The key point here is that the ability to support a given population of retirees depends not only the ratio of workers to retirees, but also the productivity of the workers. The Post again told readers today that China faces a terrible demographic problem because of its one-child policy.

"Even with its recent rapid economic growth, China is growing old before growing truly wealthy; its shrinking labor force will be hard-pressed to support the millions of dependent elderly."

To see why this is not true, we will take a very simple story where we contrast a country with moderate productivity growth and no demographic change with a country rapid productivity growth and a rapid aging of its population. The figure below shows the basic story.

Source: Author's calculations.

We assume that in 1985 there are five workers to every retiree in both the Washington Post and China story. If we set output per worker in 1985 equal to 100, then the amount of output per worker and retiree in 1985 is 83.3 (five sixths of the output per worker). We then allow for different rates of productivity growth and population growth over the next three decades.

Last week CEPR released a report titled Rising Disability Payments: Are Cuts to Workers’ Compensation Part of the Story? The report examined the extent to which cuts in state-level workers’ compensation programs have led to increased expenditures for the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. The findings showed that up to a fifth of the increase in SSDI awards between 2001 and 2011 could be attributed to cuts in workers’ compensation programs.

Another obvious source of rising SSDI costs is the increase in Social Security’s full retirement age. The Social Security program maintains two distinct insurance systems: Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) for retired workers and their families, and Disability Insurance (DI) for workers who become disabled and can no longer work. Once someone on DI hits “full retirement age,” or the age at which retirees can begin receiving full OASI benefits, he is immediately transferred from the DI rolls to the OASI rolls.

October 29, 2015

October 29, 2015 (GDP Byte)