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The article focuses on addressing the employment situation in the U.S. following the recent global rescission of 2008-2009. Both the former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama Administrations enacted several programs designed to stimulate the economy and employment growth. However, initial analysis of some of the stimuli programs have found that the efforts had a fairly limited impact on job creation and unemployment, and any impact at a significant per-job cost. It is stated that direct job creation policies can be effective in the current environment.

The article offers information on the study regarding the effect of recent tax changes on taxable income in the U.S. The elasticity of taxable income to the net-of-tax share has been estimated using a random sample of taxpayers taken from the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 tax changes. It is found that the elasticity of taxable income to the year 2008's net-of-tax share lies between 0.3 and 0.4 overall. The elasticity of a broader measure of income falls between 0.1 and 0.2 overall.

Concerns over rising college tuition and slow economic growth have brought renewed attention to the role of federal and state financial aid programs in opening access to education. Despite a large body of literature examining the effects of grant aid on four‐year and public two‐year college enrollment, for‐profit colleges—particularly the vast majority that offer two‐year degrees and certificates—have largely been ignored. Using panel data methods and a new administrative data set of for‐profit colleges operating in California between 1989 and 2003, I assess the impact of the federal Pell Grant program, the G.I. Bill, and California's Cal Grant program on the net number of for‐profit colleges per county. The results suggest that for both Pell and Cal Grants, increases in the per‐student maximum award encourage for‐profit entry. This relationship is particularly strong in counties with high adult poverty levels, where more students are eligible for aid. Further, these gains in the private sector do not appear to come at the expense of the public sector. Rather, public community colleges also experience enrollment gains as the generosity of Pell and Cal Grants increases, although this reaction appears to be weaker than the reaction of for‐profits. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses on the measure used to gauge poverty in the U.S., Europe and other developing countries. It discusses that the present official measure of poverty in the U.S. is flawed and both, the poverty threshold and measurement of available resources should be improved. It reports that European countries provided with sufficient social aid but they face a technical problem of relative poverty threshold. Also mentioned are the levels of economic development in developing and underdeveloped countries.

The article presents the unique rankings of the extent to which fiscal structures of the U.S. states contribute to long-term economic growth. The rankings are extended in two respects, one is that they are grounded in established growth theory wherein the effect of taxes depends on the level of taxes and on the composition of expenditures and another, that they are derived from actual estimates of the link between fiscal structures and economic growth. It also evaluates the impacts of two hypothetical policy experiments on real growth in per capita personal income in each state which provide information relevant to potential changes in state's fiscal policies with regard to economic growth.