Dean Baker
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of several books, including "Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better bargain for Working People," "The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive," "The United States Since 1980," "Social Security: The Phony Crisis" (with Mark Weisbrot), and "The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer." He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.
Articles by this author
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Views Sunday, November 25, 2012 NYT's Douthat Dead Wrong on Social Security Ross Douthat argues convincingly that if we eliminated the link between contributions and benefits it would be much easier politically to cut Social Security. Of course he thinks ending the link would be a good idea for that reason, but his logic is certainly on the mark, people will more strongly protect benefits that they feel they have earned. Douthat is off on a few other points. He tells readers: Read more |
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Views Saturday, November 17, 2012 Fiscal Cliff Hysteria is Manipulated by Self-Serving Deficit Hawks Washington elites have spent much of the last three decades getting hysterical about budget deficits, but they are outdoing themselves in the current budget stand-off which they labeled as the "fiscal cliff" . Read more |
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Views Thursday, November 08, 2012 Climate Change, Not the National Debt, Is the Legacy We Should Care About The political leadership, including the Washington press corps and punditry, were already intently ignoring the economic downturn that is still wreaking havoc on the lives of tens of millions of people across the country. Now, in the wake of the destruction from Hurricane Sandy , they will intensify their efforts to ignore global warming. Read more |
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Views Wednesday, October 24, 2012 Why Even President Obama Won't Champion Social Security It is remarkable that social security hasn't been a more prominent issue in the presidential race. After all, Governor Romney has proposed a plan that would imply cuts of more than 40% for middle-class workers just entering the labor force . Read more |
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Views Tuesday, October 09, 2012 Social Security: President Obama's Biggest Failure in Last Week's Debate President Obama definitely had a bad night when he faced Governor Romney in Denver for the first presidential debate. However, for many listeners the worst moment was not due to his atypical inarticulateness. Rather, the worst moment was when he quite clearly told the country that there was not much difference between his position on Social Security and Governor Romney's. Read more |
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Views Monday, October 08, 2012 What Price Basic Competence in Economics Reporting? One of the reasons that the United States and much of the rest of world remains mired in near-recession conditions is that many involved in the policy debate are completely confused on even the most basic facts of the downturn. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, September 18, 2012 Does President Obama Want to Cut Social Security by 3 Percent? That is a pretty simple and important question. Unfortunately most voters are likely to go to the polls this fall without knowing the answer. Read more |
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Views Tuesday, September 04, 2012 David Brooks Tells Us That His Populist Agenda Won't Appeal to Moderates (or People Like Him) David Brooks tells us that Obama has three choices for "big ideas." (Too bad he could only think of three, but that's another matter.) Anyhow, his choice number 2, fixing a broken capitalism, sounds pretty good. The basic point is that the gains from growth have been going primarily to the richest 1 percent and that this could be reversed. (Why this can't be merged with his idea number 1, slowing global warming, is a mystery to me.) Read more |
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Views Wednesday, August 29, 2012 Poverty: The New Growth Industry in America Recent trends in poverty rates should have the country furious at its leaders. When we get the data for 2011 next month, we are likely to see yet another uptick in poverty rates, reversing almost 50 years of economic progress. The percentage of people in extreme poverty, with incomes less than half of the poverty level, is likely to again hit an all-time high since the data has been collected. Read more |
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Views Monday, August 27, 2012 The Pacific "Free Trade" Deal That's Anything But Free "Free trade" is a sacred mantra in Washington. If anything is labeled as being "free trade", then everyone in the Washington establishment is required to bow down and support it. Read more |