On June 23, British voters will accept or reject a proposal that Britain leave the European Union. The latest polls show the vote in favor of the British exit, or “Brexit,” narrowly ahead.

The case for getting out has largely been driven from the political right, on the grounds that dropping out of the EU would allow Britain to close off immigration and free British businesses from rules made in Brussels that protect labor and the environment. A liberated Britain, goes the argument, would have the freedom to pursue policies that would bring it more prosperity.

But after an initial shock, the prolonged economic uncertainty following a win for Brexit would hit the U.K. economy much harder than its promoters expect. It would take at least two years to negotiate the terms of the pullout with the remaining 27 countries, which are unlikely to give Britain anywhere near its current privileged access to member countries’ customers or financial markets. It will then take even longer for the U.K. to find and negotiate trade deals for other export markets at a time of spreading deflation and rising protectionism throughout the globe. Pile on the political complications of disentangling British business regulations from rules made in Brussels, and the adjustment process could take as long as a decade.

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The Washington Post’s editorial board has been arguing for Social Security benefit cuts for years, so their negative reaction to the president’s call to expand the program should come as no surprise. Still, readers might wonder about some of the claims made in the editorial: first, that the wealthy would benefit most from across-the-board expansion plans and we should instead help the “very poorest,” second, that American seniors are better off than working-age adults and have higher incomes than their counterparts in other advanced economies, and finally, that we have better things to do with the limited tax revenues we might be able to wring from the wealthy.

Social Security is a through-the-looking-glass policy world, where progressives are constantly pushing back against conservatives who claim to want to focus on the poor. But the claim by conservatives that we should narrowly tailor Social Security to provide help to the poorest seniors sets up a destructive false choice. Social Security became the most effective antipoverty program precisely because it is social insurance and not simply a safety net program. We already have a means-tested old-age program—SSI—and it is woefully inadequate. You’ll get no argument from progressives on the need to increase SSI benefits, so ask yourself why conservatives want to make Social Security more like SSI.

Is it wasteful to expand a universal program that’s unambiguously progressive but not narrowly targeted on the poor? No. First, it’s important to understand that almost everyone, not just low earners, would better off if we expanded Social Security. Since the decline in traditional defined benefit pensions even many high earners—though maybe not those in Mitt Romney’s income class—could use more secure retirement and disability benefits. But for most people, Social Security only replaces less than half of pre-retirement earnings. It’s an efficient program with very low administrative costs. Instead of expanding it, however, we cut Social Security benefits in 1983, just as disastrous 401(k) plans came on the scene.

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This piece originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank.

Some policy makers and observers have urged raising interest rates in June. Proponents argue that some inflation measures show faster growth than the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure and that a potential bubble in the commercial real estate market justifies a rate increase. Ultimately, both arguments hinge on thinking that too-slow growth in real estate construction should be solved by raising rates. Here’s why that is not convincing.

The Fed’s inflation target is 2% annual growth in “core” personal consumption expenditures (minus food and energy prices, which tend to be volatile). The last quarter with annual growth of 2% in such expenditures was in 2012, and consistent price growth greater than 2% has not been seen since 2008.

Another measure, the core consumer price index, has shown growth exceeding 2% in recent months, leading some to declare that the Fed’s price inflation target has been met (and exceeded).

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A recent New York Times piece features some choice handwringing over the Labor Department’s new overtime rule, from executives in “prestigious” fields, like publishing, advertising, film and TV, and public relations. These are all fields where low-salaried junior employees are often encouraged or even expected to work well over 40 hours a week, and the executives quoted by the Times are worried that they will no longer be able to expect such long hours without paying overtime.

The change presents more than an economic challenge for the companies that rely on the willingness of young, ambitious workers to trade pay and self-respect for a shot at a prestige job down the road.

In the eyes of those who have survived the gauntlet of midday coffee runs and late-night emails, the administration’s overtime regulation represents nothing less than the beginnings of a cultural shift, and not necessarily a welcome one.

In order to ensure that low-paid employees are covered by the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime law, the Department of Labor mandates that workers must be paid time-and-a-half for every hour worked over 40 in a week, unless they qualify as an executive, administrator, or professional employee. In order to qualify for that exemption, a worker must make more than a salary threshold set by DOL and have sufficiently independent, high-level, and consequential duties, such that they truly are an executive, administrator, or professional worker. That salary threshold currently sits at $23,660 a year, but on December 1, 2016, it will be raised to $47,476 a year.

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The American Enterprise Institute’s Aparna Mathur wrote an article claiming that the new overtime rules finalized recently by the Department of Labor could increase underemployment. The argument does not make much sense, however. Mathur tries to add to the wonky feel of her case by citing a recent (and good) Federal Reserve research note (or FEDS note, as they call it) on underemployment, but this is pure water-muddying; the FEDS note has nothing to do with the overtime rule.

First, a quick clarification because many are misunderstanding how the new rule works. The rule is only relevant to salaried workers—all workers paid by the hour are already eligible for overtime. Before the rule, only salaried worker whose pay was less than $455 a week were automatically eligible for overtime pay. This did not mean merely that salaried workers earning more than this didn’t earn time-and-half for hours worked in a week in excess of 40—t means they earned zero for each of those hours. The rule raises the threshold for determining automatic eligibility for overtime to $913 a week. Now, all salaried workers earning less than this amount must be paid (at time-and-a-half rates) for hours worked in a week in excess of 40.

Mathur argues that this rule will increase involuntary underemployment, and highlights findings from a recent FEDS note arguing that underemployment is currently even worse than traditional measures signal. However, Mathur’s description of the paper’s results highlights why her analysis of the overtime rule is so wrong. She writes about the FEDs note: “Relying on the more recent HRS data, the authors show that between 1992 and 2012, approximately 25 percent of workers reported that they had faced work-hour constraints, meaning they wanted more work but were unable to find it.”

Not quite. The Fed authors are very clear on a crucially important point: that the proper definition of underemployment is workers having fewer hours of work available to them “relative to the numbers they would prefer to work at current wages.”

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Federal budget season came and went this year without any budget proposal hitting the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. This was an odd (and ironic) bit of incompetence by the GOP leadership, who couldn’t even wrangle a majority to support their own budget proposal. But it was especially damaging to U.S. economic policy debates because it limited attention paid to the budget of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC).

It’s true that political gridlock has meant the only live macroeconomic policy debate in DC in recent years has been around monetary policy. And the Fed’s decisions are important! But the abandonment of fiscal policy as a tool that could boost the economy, which began not soon after the recovery from the Great Recession began, is a real tragedy.

The need to resuscitate fiscal policy was usefully underscored in a widely-discussed speech by former Treasury Secretary and National Economic Council Chair Larry Summers earlier this week. Because the CPC and Larry Summers are perhaps not always thought of as completely in sync in policy debates, it’s worth noting that Summers’s remarks can be read as a ringing endorsement of the CPC budget. Some examples:

1. “I am here to tell you that the most important determinant of our long term fiscal picture is how successful we are at accelerating the economy’s growth rate in the next three to five years, not the austerity measures that we implement.”

The CPC budget includes substantial upfront fiscal stimulus (mostly front-loaded infrastructure investments projects) precisely to accelerate the economy’s growth rate in the near-term.

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Colleges and universities have made the indefensible argument that they can’t afford to pay their low-level salaried employees for their overtime under the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule. Universities have singled out postdoctoral researchers, many of whom spend 60 hours a week or more running the labs that turn out the nation’s most important scientific advances, as a group of employees that would just cost too much if they had to be paid for the extra hours they work each week.

Analyzed on their own, these postdocs—who are among the best-educated and most valuable employees in the nation, on whom our future health and prosperity depend, in part—obviously deserve to be paid for their overtime hours. After all, at a salary of $42,000 a year, these postdocs are being paid about $13.50 an hour (less than fast food workers are demanding).

When juxtaposed against the inflated salaries of university administrators with less stellar academic credentials making $200,000 to $3 million a year, the case for overtime compensation is only stronger. The comparison that really drives home how unfairly universities are treating their postdocs, however, is with the universities’ football coaches.

Figure A

Universities oppose paying their postdocs overtime, but will pay football coaches millions of dollars: Top NCAA College Football Coaches' Salaries by State, 2015

State	University	Head coach	Salary
Alabama	University of Alabama	Nick Saban	$6,932,395
Alaska	University of Alaska	N/A	N/A
Arizona	Arizona State	Todd Graham	$3,000,000
Arkansas	University of Arkansas	Bret Bielema	$3,954,166
California	UCLA	Jim Mora	$3,350,000
Colorado	University of Colorado	Mike MacIntyre	$2,009,778
Connecticut	University of Connecticut	Bob Diaco	$1,550,000
Delaware	University of Delaware	Dave Brock	Unknown
Florida	Florida State	Jimbo Fisher	$5,150,000
Georgia	University of Georgia	Mark Richt	$4,000,000
Hawaii	University of Hawaii	Norm Chow	$550,000
Idaho	Boise State	Bryan Harsin	$1,100,004
Illinois	University of Illinois	Bill Cubit	$915,000
Indiana	Purdue	Darrell Hazell	$2,140,000
Iowa	University of Iowa	Kirk Ferentz	$4,075,000
Kansas	Kansas State	Bill Snyder	$3,000,000
Kentucky	University of Kentucky	Mark Stoops	$3,250,000
Louisiana	LSU	Les Miles	$4,300,000
Maine	University of Maine	Jack Cosgrove	$186,995
Maryland	University of Maryland	Randy Edsall	$2,110,648
Massachusetts	Boston College	Steve Addazio	$2,585,655
Michigan	University of Michigan	Jim Harbaugh	$7,004,000
Minnesota	University of Minnesota	Jerry Kill	$2,500,000
Mississippi	University of Mississippi	Hugh Freeze	$4,300,000
Missouri	University of Missouri	Barry Odom	$2,350,000
Montana	University of Montana	Bob Stitt	$175,000
Nebraska	University of Nebraska	Mike Riley	$2,700,000
Nevada	University of Nevada	Brian Polian	$575,000
New Hampshire	University of New Hampshire	Sean McDonnell	$200,000
New Jersey	Rutgers	Kyle Flood	$1,250,000
New Mexico	University of New Mexico	Bob Davie	$772,690
New York	University of Buffalo	Lance Leipold	$400,000
North Carolina	North Carolina State	Dave Doeren	$2,200,000
North Dakota	University of North Dakota	Kyle Schweigert	$1,500,000
Ohio	Ohio State	Urban Meyer	$5,860,000
Oklahoma	University of Oklahoma	Bob Stoops	$5,400,000
Oregon	University of Oregon	Mark Helfrich	$3,150,000
Pennsylvania	Penn State	James Franklin	$4,400,000
Rhode Island	University of Rhode Island	Jim Fleming	$175,000
South Carolina	University of South Carolina	Steve Spurrier	$4,000,000
South Dakota	University of South Dakota	Joe Glenn	$145,010
Tennessee	University of Tennessee	Butch Jones	$4,100,000
Texas	University of Texas	Charlie Strong	$5,100,000
Utah	University of Utah	Kyle Whittingham	$2,600,000
Vermont	University of Vermont	N/A	N/A
Virginia	University of Virginia	Mike London	$3,196,724
Washington	University of Washington	Chris Petersen	$3,400,000
West Virginia	University of West Virginia	Dana Holgorsen	$2,880,000
Wisconsin	University of Wisconsin	Paul Chryst	$2,300,000
Wyoming	University of Wyoming	Craig Bohl	$882,000

Note: The highest available head coach salary was selected for each state.

Source: Data from USA Today and HKM Employment Attorneys LLP

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