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If bankruptcy shuttered one or more U.S. automakers, the effect would be the loss of up to 3.3 million jobs in the U.S. within the next year, according to a study released today by EPI. Michigan alone could lose over 400,000 jobs, and stands to be the hardest hit state both in the number of jobs lost and the share of total state employment (8.9 percent) lost. If the Big Three fall, they would take down more than auto worker jobs: when the wages from those auto sector jobs dry up, an additional 576,700 to 2.1 million "re-spending" jobs would be lost. The report, When Giants Fall, lists possible job losses in each state and the District of Columbia.

Immigrants coming to America expect that each generation will do better than the first. In this week's Snapshot, EPI's Algernon Austin illustrates that Mexican Americans experience that upward mobility, but only until the third generation, when upward mobility stalls and reverses in subsequent generations.

The U.S. innovation system appears to be undergoing a significant transformation, and the U.S. policy discussion needs to catch up. Most signs point to a rapid increase in the offshoring of research and development and innovation, yet we have poor information on the nature of the work that is moving overseas. EPI's latest Briefing Paper, The Offshoring of Innovation, tries to untangle some of the recent trends in an attempt to help clarify the questions that need to be asked by policy makers going forward.

EPI's latest Policy Memo explains why the economic well-being of millions of American families hinges on getting an effective stimulus package into the system quickly.

The story of international trade for the American economy is not win-win, but rather good news, bad news. The good news is that some Americans will reap large rewards, and these rewards will actually be so large as to raise the average income of the entire American economy. The bad news is that many more Americans will lose ground. EPI's new book, Everybody Wins, Except for Most of Us, explains the simple economic theory easily found in almost any textbook that predicts how trade will have an upside and a downside. The book makes amply clear that it is time for the United States to begin its first serious political discussion about how to cut the majority in on the gains from international trade.

The lame-duck Bush administration is trying to link support for an auto-industry rescue loan to Congressional passage of the stalled Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The loan is a good idea, but the Colombia trade agreement is a very bad one. For a full understanding of why making a rescue loan contingent on passing another free trade act is such a bad idea, read EPI's new policy memo.

This week's Snapshot shows how the trend in new claims for unemployment benefits since June makes it abundantly clear how important it is to extend unemployment benefits again.

EPI's new policy memo provides a multitude of reasons why the $25 billion rescue loan being considered for automakers is essential to maintaining the industry and its 3 million jobs.

Read about EPI's Nov. 13 event co-sponsored with the Eisenhower Foundation regarding the progress made on racial inequality since the Kerner Commission report was released 40 years ago.

Since World War II, annual work hours per capita have gone up by more than an hour a year. But in recent years the economy has been underperforming, and work hours have not recovered since their peak in 1999. This week's Economic Snapshot examines the trend.

Payroll employment declined for the 10th month in a row, dropping by another 240,000 in October alone, according to today's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Furthermore, data revisions show that an additional 179,000 jobs were lost in previous months than initially reported. That brings the total number of job losses to 651,000 in the last three months and 1.2 million since December 2007.... Over the past 18 months, 3.3 million workers have been added to the jobless rolls, and there are currently 10.1 million unemployed workers in this country. The unemployment rate rose from 6.1% in September to 6.5% in October, its highest rate since March 1994. Underemployment, a more comprehensive measure of the extent of labor market weakness, rose to 11.8%, its highest level in over 14 years. Underemployment's growth is primarily due to a surge in people working part-time but wanting full-time jobs--up 645,000 from September to October, and by 2.3 million over the past year.

Commenting on the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency, Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel writes that U.S. economic thinking has undergone a dramatic shift, and that Americans are increasingly open to careful and effective government intervention. "We can declare with confidence and relief that the conservative era is over," Mishel said in a statement issued Wednesday morning. "It is now possible to build an economy with widely shared prosperity." Mishel noted that many Americans remain skeptical of government, especially given the mismanagement of the past eight years. "The task ahead is to fashion policies that will improve the economic circumstances of the vast majority, and thereby restore confidence," he wrote.

Between 2000 and 2007, the U.S. gross domestic product grew by 18% and worker productivity by 19%. Yet despite these gains, the Hispanic population did not benefit from the wealth that it helped create in the U.S. economy in this period. A new EPI Briefing Paper, Hispanics and the Economy: Economic Stagnation for Hispanic Americans Throughout the 2000s, examines the data that show how this group experienced a loss of median income and an increase in the poverty and unemployment rates. The Hispanic population began the 2000s business cycle significantly worse off economically than the nation as a whole, and they are ending the cycle in virtually the same place. For many Hispanics the current economic downturn will mean they will fall further behind the nation as a whole.

By many measures, the U.S. economy has steadily worsened since the beginning of 2008. EPI economists have compiled a one-page reference guide to that decline, featuring data on wages, employment, bankruptcy filings, pensions and foreclosures. For the grim but important fact sheet, click here.

Read EPI's GDP Picture for analysis of the latest Commerce Department report on gross domestic product (GDP).

EPI testifies before Congress for the second time in a week, as John Irons made the case for the right kind of stimulus in his testimony before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in a hearing entitled: "Infrastructure Investment and Economic Recovery."

With income on the decline, unemployment rising, and experts predicting a potentially long dry spell for the economy, people are understandably worried about how they can make ends meet. EPI's newly updated online Family Budget Calculator provides data on the cost of the essentials for families of various sizes wherever they may live across the country, with data for more than 600 locations, including cities, towns, and rural areas in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Accompanying the calculator are a Briefing Paper and a more-technical Working Paper that give an overview of family budget trends and provide details on the data sources.

For two years, consumer spending -- which is 70% of the U.S. GDP -- has managed to grow even in the face of trillions of dollars of evaporating housing wealth. This week's Economic Snapshot discusses two recent government reports on overall consumption spending and retail sales that indicate U.S. consumers have finally surrendered their spending habits.

The economy is undeniably in dire straits and needs help. EPI is offering Congress a comprehensive rescue plan for these times -- one that can get Main Streeters back on their feet and back to work, thus both easing the impact of recession and helping to get the economy back on solid ground. On Wednesday, October 29, EPI research and policy director John Irons will lay out the rationale and recommendations for jumpstarting the economy through targeted, smart spending on infrastructure to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Both parts of the plan offered to Congress can found in the report, A Rescue Plan for Main Street, released today by EPI.

We should hold public schools accountable for effectively spending the vast funds with which they have been entrusted. But instead of grading a school's progress in just math and reading (No Child Left Behind), we should hold schools accountable for the broad outcomes we expect from public education--basic knowledge and skills, critical thinking, an appreciation of the arts, physical and emotional health, and preparation for skilled employment--and then develop the means to measure, and ensure, schools' success in achieving them. Richard Rothstein's new book, Grading Education, describes a new kind of accountability plan for public education, one that relies upon both higher-quality testing and professional evaluation.