Today's Wall Street Journal profiled Pilgrim Screw Corp.'s successful use of work sharing — reducing workers' hours instead of laying them off, with the workers getting partial unemployment benefits to make up much of their lost pay — in this detailed article, "Cutting Hours Instead of Jobs." 

The WSJ points out that even a conservative, Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute:

also is a fan, and noted that he hasn't encountered any hostility when he has raised the topic with fellow Republicans.  "This thing could have a big impact on the labor market," he added.

At the other end of the media spectrum, earlier this month PBS television's Need To Know described work sharing as an "innovative job-saving program, which seems to be paying off" in Rhode Island and across the nation (and included an interview with CEPR's Dean Baker):

Watch Staying On The Job on PBS. See more from NEED TO KNOW.

Dean Baker
Truthout, November 21, 2011

“But I think it's fair to say that USAID, our premier aid agency, has been decimated. You know, it has half the staff it used to have. It's turned into more of a contracting agency than an operational agency with the ability to deliver.” – Hillary Clinton, Senate Confirmation Hearing as Nominee for Secretary of State

This is the first part of a series of posts analyzing USAID's increasing reliance on contractors and how this has affected efforts to provide greater oversight, implement procurement reform and improve the efficacy of U.S. aid.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has changed drastically over the past 20 years. Beginning in the early ‘90s and continuing through the 2000s, USAID saw its reliance on contractors increase drastically. From 1990 to 2008 USAID experienced a 40 percent decline in staff, from 3500 to 2200. Over the same period, funds under their responsibility skyrocketed. The American Academy for Diplomacy noted in a 2008 report that, “[i]mplementation of programs has shifted from Agency employees to contractors and grantees and USAID lacks the technical management capacity to provide effective oversight and management.” The Academy also noted that “USAID employs only five engineers worldwide, despite a growing number of activities in that sector.” However it was not just NGOs that benefited from the increased use of contracts and grants; the for-profit development industry has gained as well. From fiscal year 1996 to fiscal year 2005, “the share of funds awarded to for-profit contractors rose from 33 percent to 58 percent.” These companies, generally based in the greater Washington, DC area, have taken a leading role in U.S. foreign aid.  In a 2008 Senate hearing on USAID, Senator Patrick Leahy stated (PDF):

USAID’s professional staff is a shadow of what it once was. We routinely hear that the reason USAID has become a check writing agency for a handful of big Washington contractors and NGOs is because you don’t have the staff to manage a larger number of smaller contracts and grants.

Sometimes these big contractors do a good job, although they charge an arm and a leg to do it. Other times they waste piles of money and accomplish next to nothing, although they are masters at writing glowing reports about what a good job they did.

Meanwhile, the small not-for-profit organizations are shut out of the process. This is bad not only for U.S. taxpayers but also for the countries that need our help.

With the election of Barack Obama and a change in the leadership of the State Department and USAID, this situation was supposed to change. Incoming USAID director Rajiv Shah announced the USAID Forward project, which aims to “change the way the Agency does business.” Additionally, in 2008 Congress appropriated funding for the Development Leadership Initiative that aimed to double USAID’s Foreign Service workforce by 2012, overturning the previous decades of declining staff. However both the USAID Forward program and the Development Leadership Initiative have not led to drastic changes on the ground as of yet, and potential funding cuts from Congress will only exacerbate the slow pace of reform.

Eileen AppelbaumThe Huffington Post, November 21, 2011

Mark WeisbrotThe Guardian Unlimited, November 18, 2011 En Español

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan drafted a response to the Congressional Budget Office's recent study on inequality. This piece pulls out all the usual tricks. Most notably it:

a) argues that we should be focused on growth rather than inequality, failing to note that the U.S. economy is doing poorly by this metric also;

b) challenges the data showing growing inequality by saying the government data are wrong;

c) tries to divert attention to Medicare and Social Security raising the banner of generational war; and

d) ignores all the ways in which deliberate government policy has been responsible for the upward redistribution of income over the last three decades.

Representative Ryan's first summary bullet point is:

"The question for policymakers is not how best to redistribute a shrinking economic pie.  The focus ought to be on increasing living standards, expanding the pie of economic opportunity, and promoting upward mobility for all."

That sounds great, except the last three decades have not only been a period of rising inequality, they also have been a period of slower growth. According to the Commerce Department, in the 32 years from 1947 to 1979, when most of the population shared the gains from growth, per capita income rose at average annual rate of 2.6 percent. In the 31 years from 1979 to 2010, when most of the gains have gone to the top, growth in per capita income has averaged just 1.8 percent.