In Case You Missed It...

This week on Off The Charts, we talked about unemployment, federal and state budgets, taxes, welfare reform, and the 2009 Recovery Act.

• On unemployment, Chad Stone explained why food stamps and unemployment insurance create jobs in a weak economy.  He also released his analysis of the August jobs report, which highlighted the need for policies that will put people back to work.  Nick Johnson outlined the continuing cuts in state and local government employment, especially in education.

• On federal and state budgets, Stacy Dean urged the congressional deficit-reduction committee to consider the human impact of its decisions, and Phil Oliff described the widespread cuts in state funding for K-12 education.

• On taxes, Chuck Marr pointed out the flawed assumptions behind a new study claiming that a tax holiday for “repatriated” foreign corporate profits would actually raise revenues.

• On welfare reform, we released a chart book based on our series reviewing the TANF program on its 15^th anniversary.  Liz Schott examined Michigan’s decision to shorten TANF time limits even as it enacts costly new tax cuts.

• On the Recovery Act, Michael Leachman summarized a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis finding that it saved jobs and protected the economy from what would have been a much deeper recession.

In other news, we analyzed a new CBO report on the impact of the Recovery Act and surveyed state cuts to school funding.  We updated our backgrounder on unemployment insurance and our chart book on the recession.  We also released a new chart book based on our four-part series on TANF at 15 and issued a statement on the August unemployment report.