Failure by Design

Josh Bivens has been an economist at the Economic Policy Institute since 2002. He is the author most recently of Everybody Wins, Except for Most of Us—What Economics Teaches About Globalization. Lawrence Mishel is the president of the Economic Policy Institute and its research director from 1987 to 1999. He is the coauthor of every edition of The State of Working America.

• Foreword by Lawrence MishelI. The Great Recession: The Damage Done and the Rot RevealedII. The Great Recession's Trigger: Housing Bubble Leads to Jobs CrisisFallout: The Job MarketFallout: Broader Measures of Economic Security—Poverty, Health Insurance, and Net WealthIII. The Policy Response to the Great Recession: What Was Done, and Did It Work?The Dynamics of the Great RecessionRecovery Act Controversies: What Was in It?Recovery Act Controversies: Did It Work at All?Recovery Act Controversies: Why Has Consumer and Not Government Spending Led the Recovery? IV. The Great Recession Ended More Than a Year Ago—So, "Mission Accomplished"?Apathy, Not OverreachExchange Rate PolicyMonetary PolicyFiscal PolicyClear Economics, Fuzzy Politics V. The Cracked Foundation Revealed by the Great RecessionFalling Minimum WageAssault on Workers' Right to OrganizeGlobal Integration for America's Workers and Insulation for ElitesThe Rise of FinanceAbandoning Full Employment as a TargetYou Get the Economy You ChooseIncomes in the 30 Years before the Great Recession: Growing Slower and Less EqualIs Everybody Getting Richer but the Rich Are Just Getting Richer Faster?Why Have Typical Families' Incomes and Overall Economic Growth De-linked?The Arithmetic of Rising Inequality: Falling Wage Growth for Most American WorkersThe Economics of Rising InequalityLower Wage Growth Did Not Buy Greater Economic Security or Sustained Progress in Closing Racial GapsHow Did American Families Cope with Lower Wage Gowth and Rising Insecurity?VI. Where to from Here?BibliographyAbout EPIAbout the AuthorThe State of Working America Website

Bivens succeeds at exposing the 'cracked foundation' of the economy...: falling wages, assaults on unionism, globalization for workers and insulation for elites, the rise of the nonproductive financial sector, and the abandonment of full employment as a policy target. In graph after carefully and simply explained graph, Bivens walks the reader through the historical trajectory of these and other economic developments that have come to define the current situation.- Cecilio Morales (America) In this useful and timely work, Bivens provides an assessment that will clarify for many the widely held view that the current 'great recession' need not have occurred but rather was due to government policy errors. These included minimum wage erosion by inflation; weakening of laws governing unions and collective bargaining; globalization that benefitted the already privileged; and slow growth of wages and income at the middle of the income distribution.... Summing up: Highly recommended.(Choice)