The interaction of six government policies explains the timing, severity, and global impact of the financial crisis.

With so many risks still overhanging the fragile U.S. economy, one hopes U.S. policymakers will not allow themselves to be carried away by the equity market's present state of euphoria.

In the run-up to this weekend's G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European "austerity" with Barack Obama's economic policies.

The annual Social Security Trustees Report, released on Monday, confirms that the program is significantly underfunded. After decades of delay, Congress and the next president will need to take steps to restore Social Security's finances and improve Americans' retirement income security. Although it might seem counterintuitive, one positive step toward...

The American economy is experiencing a crisis in long-term unemployment that has enormous human and economic costs.

This was the worst jobs report since last October. The economy added 120,000 jobs in March, about half the pace of the previous three months.

Minimum wage laws do harm in the short run and in the long run. People acquire lots of valuable human capital in their first jobs. The longer those first jobs are pushed out of reach, the longer it takes low-skill workers to develop crucial capacities that can put them on a promising career path.

Our current "Great Recession" has hit the poor and middle class hard, but does this short-term downturn in prosperity characterize the last three decades? Bruce Meyer from the University of Chicago and James Sullivan from the University of Notre Dame take the long view and argue that things are not as bad as we think.