Friday, the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) minority released its response to the 2022 Economic Report of the President (ERP). Many people are unaware that the Employment Act of 1946 created both the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), which advises on the ERP, and the JEC. It also set up a process by which the JEC provides a congressional response (“Response”) to the policies proposed in the ERP. It is easy for this important process to get lost in the news cycle.
To my eye, the Response has two significant contributions: (1) a compelling narrative about the impact of the administration’s policies that stands in stark contrast to the ERP, and (2) an insightful critique of the administration’s unwillingness to engage in policy debate on the terms set out in the Employment Act itself.
On the former, two graphs (reproduced from the Response) capture the essence of the critique. The first (“Figure 3-2”) focuses on employment growth in the recovery both prior to the American Rescue Plan (ARP) in March 2021 and after its passage. As it makes clear, of the 22 million jobs lost during the pandemic downturn in 2020, 14 million were recovered in the 12 months prior to the ARP. In contrast, in the 14 months after the passage of the massive $1.9 trillion “stimulus,” only 7 million additional jobs were recovered. In contrast to the monthly hyperventilation by the administration on its jobs “success,” the ARP policies have slowed the economy.
Figure 3-2: Employment Loss and Recovery Pre...
In 2025, U.K. insurers found fewer bogus claims than in 2024, but the cases they intercepted tended to involve more money. According to The Independent, insurers stopped 1.34 billion (about $1.77 ...