Rethinking growth strategies
As state and local governments expand efforts to promote economic development, one increasingly popular technique for encouraging investment is the use of state and local tax cuts and tax incentives to lure businesses. In the EPI study Rethinking Growth Strategies, author Robert G. Lynch analyzes the existing research to show that tax cuts and incentives largely fail to draw firms to a particular location, substantially improve local economic development, or stimulate job creation in a cost-effective manner. A more successful approach to economic growth may involve raising taxes in order to better provide essential public services in the areas of education and health care.

Educated, experienced, and out of work
College-educated workers and those age 45 and older have been hit particularly hard by the continued rise in long-term joblessness.  Educated, Experienced, and Out of Work, a new Issue Brief by EPI economist Sylvia Allegretto and Andrew Stettner of the National Employment Law Project, examines the severity of the long-term unemployment problem.

Unemployment measures understate job slack
Despite a steady unemployment rate of 5.6%, jobs increased by only 21,000 in the entire nation in February 2004, underscoring the fact that the typical unemployment measures are failing to convey the labor market's current distress. Evidence of this distress is obvious when taking into account both underemployment rates and the number of those who have dropped out of the job market altogether. For more details and to download charts and tables, go to JobWatch.org. Check JobWatch on Friday April 2 for an analysis of the latest jobs data.

Recent op-eds by Institute staff
EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey's opinion piece on rules that will potentially deprive eight million workers of overtime appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 21. On that same day, Elise Gould's commentary on how officials "cherry-pick" statistics from the payroll and household surveys to misrepresent the lack of job creation appeared in the Detroit News. All op-eds by EPI economists and researchers can be found in the Viewpoints section of the EPI Web site.

• Over the weekend of March 6, EPI was cited in five different stories across three days in the New York Times. All the pieces centered on jobs, with two columnists—Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman—using EPI data to criticize the Bush Administration's lackluster efforts in job creation.
  
  
• On March 4, EPI Vice President Ross Eisenbrey submitted testimony for a U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means hearing on the inadequacy of the Department of Labor's fiscal year 2005 budget with respect to trade-impacted and dislocated workers.
  
  
• Fifteen journalists participated in a March 17 national media conference call on EPI's latest report, Rethinking Growth Strategies: How State and Local Taxes and Services Affect Economic Development by economist and EPI research associate Robert G. Lynch. Lynch and several state experts spoke on how tax cuts and incentives designed to lure businesses by and large do not create jobs or give states and cities the expected revenue hikes.
  
  
• On March 18, The American Prospect (TAP) Online carried EPI senior economist Jared Bernstein's column on how investing in more education will not automatically reverse the labor market slump. The column marked the first in a biweekly series of commentaries in which Bernstein and EPI President Lawrence Mishel will alternate writing about the labor market for TAP Online.
  
  
• On March 10, EPI Research Director Lee Price addressed the Democratic Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives on how the job slump is taking a toll on working families.
  
  
• Senior economist Jared Bernstein testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce on March 11 on the roles of education and innovation in creating job opportunities.
  
  
• On March 19, The Northern Virginia Journal featured an article by EPI research associate Robert G. Lynch on why tax cuts and business incentives don't guarantee jobs and revenue to states and cities.  

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