Here's the weirdness, in an excerpt from the description of the CEA at whitehouse.gov:
... The Council of Economic Advisers was established by Congress in the Employment Act of 1946. The portion of the bill that authorizes the Council is presented below:
"There is hereby created in the Executive Office of the President a Council of Economic Advisers (hereinafter called the "Council"). The Council shall be composed of three members who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and each of whom shall be a person who, as a result of his training, experience, and attainments, is exceptionally qualified to analyze and interpret economic developments, to appraise programs and activities of the Government in the light of the policy declared in section 2, and to formulate and recommend national economic policy to promote employment, production, and purchasing power under free competitive enterprise. The President shall designate one of the members of the Council as Chairman...
It seems odd that an adviser to the president would need confirmation from the Senate. If this were an office which advised the government, or advised the nation, of course the Senate should have a say. But when we're talking about an adviser to the executive branch... ?
That said, the latest nominee in a council noted for its constant turnover, is a labor economist. The constant turnover isn't about dumping one appointee for a better one, it's that most appointees have other jobs and they can't stick around for long.
Alan Krueger will focus on the job market and job creation. And that brings us to another little weirdness: we've needed that kind of push for jobs since Obama first came into office. Appointing a labor economist at this point tempts one to ask the President, "Where've you been, hon?"
And one last awkward point. As the New York Times reminds us, Krueger "will bring a background in labor economics to the ongoing White House debate on how aggressive the government should be in confronting Congress about pushing for more government action to confront the high unemployment rate."
We can look forward to the Senate commitee's old-timey Republicans asking windy questions from now until November 2012 in an effort to prevent any possibility of improving the employment rate during the O-bomber administration. Watch for airless and pointless questions from Hatch, Coburn and Jeff "Endlessly Long and Boring" Sessions.
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Ezra Klein's sidekick, Brad Plumer, takes a hard look at Krueger and finds something that Judiciary Committee can sharpen its teeth on.
Krueger might be most famous for the paper he did with David Card back in 1992 showing that an increase in the minimum wage doesn’t always increase unemployment, as most economists had long believed. Krueger and Card compared fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and western Pennsylvania and found that New Jersey, which had hiked its minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.05, didn’t lose jobs as expected. In fact, in some conditions, an increase in the minimum wage can actually boost employment. As Robert Waldmann explains, “Their logic is basically that firms can choose to pay a low wage and have a high quit rate and take a long time to fill vacancies or pay a high wage and have fewer quits and fill vacancies more quickly.”
That's not exactly relevant to the current situation, as Plumer points out, but it should be a bean up a Republican nose. An article of Republican faith is that minimum wage hikes are threatening to employment.
In another study, Krueger (who teaches at Princeton) found that being a Harvard etc. graduate doesn't necessarily get you better pay.
There are more beans for the Republicans to sneeze at. But here's one Krueger discovery which should grab all of us:
... A column from 2004 noting survey research show[s] that most Americans get their economic info from television — and, as it happens, those Americans are the least informed. He also notes that people tend to base their economic views on ideology, rather than self-interest (for those interested in the partisan implications, he reports that conservatives and liberals do about equally well on tests of economic facts). With any luck, that’s a state of affairs he can try to improve, at least on the margins.
That, in turn, takes us to a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times written by two prominent mathematicians begging us (surprise!) not to teach math indiscrimately. Do not force heavy-duty math down the throats of those who won't ever need to use it. Instead, make them math-literate.
In math, what we need is “quantitative literacy,” the ability to make quantitative connections whenever life requires (as when we are confronted with conflicting medical test results but need to decide whether to undergo a further procedure) and “mathematical modeling,” the ability to move practically between everyday problems and mathematical formulations (as when we decide whether it is better to buy or lease a new car).
Parents, state education boards and colleges have a real choice. The traditional high school math sequence is not the only road to mathematical competence. It is true that our students’ proficiency, measured by traditional standards, has fallen behind that of other countries’ students, but we believe that the best way for the United States to compete globally is to strive for universal quantitative literacy: teaching topics that make sense to all students and can be used by them throughout their lives.
It is through real-life applications that mathematics emerged in the past, has flourished for centuries and connects to our culture now.
