LegiStorm

Summary:

The longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression ended as expansion began in June 2009. Although output started growing in the third quarter of 2009, the labor market was weak in 2010, with the unemployment rate averaging 9.6% for the year. Despite showing improvement in 2011, the unemployment rate averaged a still high 8.9% for the year. The labor market continued to improve slowly, reaching 8% for the first time since January 2009. The rate fell slowly in 2013, reaching 7% by November, but still above the pre-recession rate of 5%. Several policy steps were taken after the economy entered the Great Recession. They include stimulus bills in 2008 (P.L. 110-185) and 2009 (P.L. 111-5), an unprecedented expansion in direct assistance to the financial sector by the Federal Reserve, and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP; P.L. 110-343). In December 2010, after the recession had ended, P.L. 111-312 extended the 2001 and 2003 "Bush" income tax cuts through 2012 as well as other expiring tax provisions and emergency unemployment benefits through 2011. The Tax Relief, Unemployment Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act also cut the payroll tax by two percentage points through 2011. The payroll tax cut was extended into early 2012 as part of the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act (P.L. 112-78) and again through 2012 as part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act (P.L. 112-96), which also extended emergency unemployment benefits. In 2012, attention focused on the significant increase in taxes and decrease in spending popularly referred to as the "fiscal cliff." Economic projections had suggested that these policies would have dramatically slowed growth and perhaps lead to a recession in the first part of 2013. The American Taxpayer Relief Act (P.L. 112-240) eliminated somewhat more than half the fiscal cliff, but fiscal policy remained contractionary for 2013 as compared with 2012 and was projected to cause growth to slow by one to two percentage points compared to what otherwise would have been the case. Some provisions of that legislation expire at the end of 2013. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 allowed for higher spending limits, but had offsetting provisions with a negligible effect on the economy and did not extend most expiring tax and spending programs, including extended unemployment benefits. These provisions cause further contractionary fiscal policy effects. This report addresses three policy issues: whether to take additional measures to increase jobs (or avoid contractionary policies), what measures might be most effective, and how job creation proposals should be financed. Most proposals that have been discussed in the past as part of a potential additional macroeconomic jobs bill are traditional fiscal stimulus policies. Their objective is to increase total spending in the economy (aggregate demand) either through direct government spending on programs or by providing funds to others that they will spend (through tax cuts, transfer payments, and aid to state and local governments). Proposals for employment tax credits are different from traditional fiscal policies in that their objective is to directly increase employment through a subsidy to labor costs. To be effective, fiscal stimulus is generally deficit financed. Although a stimulus measure could be paid for by cutting other spending or raising other taxes, these financing options will offset the stimulative effects on aggregate demand. It is possible to choose a deficit-neutral package of tax and spending changes that would stimulate aggregate demand if some types of measures induce more spending per dollar of cost than others, but such an effect would likely not be very large. The choice of financing affects both the macroeconomic impact and the cost-benefit tradeoff of the policy proposal. If such an effective stimulus package could be designed, it would have the advantage of not exacerbating the challenges of a growing debt.