Expunging Marijuana Convictions

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Expunging Marijuana Convictions

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Public attitudes toward marijuana have changed dramatically since the counterculture days of the 1960s and 1970s when it was regarded as a “gateway” to more serious drug abuse. Today, marijuana (also known as cannabis) is widely seen as relatively benign and is used by many to ease chronic pain. Many states have moved to decriminalize the use and possession of cannabis. Nonetheless, too many Americans, especially from minority and low-income communities, still are burdened with criminal records from marijuana arrests and convictions.

That needs to change. As more states legalize the recreational use of marijuana, they should also expunge past marijuana convictions. Colorado and Washington were the first two states to legalize the Schedule 1 drug for recreational and medical use. Since then, 37 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have followed suit with laws allowing legal possession and use of marijuana. Taxes on cannabis sales are becoming a lucrative source of revenue for states.

As of 2020, about 40,000 Americans are burdened with marijuana-related convictions. State and federal lawmakers shouldn’t ignore the lingering damage past marijuana policies have inflicted on individuals. According to a report by the ACLU, marijuana-related arrests still account for over half of all drug arrests in the United States. There were over eight million between 2001 and 2010, with Black Americans 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for possession than Whites in every state, including those that have legalized the drug.

Based on the numbers provided by the ACLU, there were around 820,000 arrests annually between 2001 and 2010 and only 6% of those arrests led to a felony conviction for marijuana. The rest are misdemeanor charges which result in fines or probation. Whether or not it leads to prosecution or conviction, the arrest stays on an individual’s record. Having a marijuana arrest on record means the information is available for anyone to look up. Having prior marijuana convictions is a serious obstacle for people seeking jobs, education and training opportunities, and changes in immigration status. Even misdemeanor convictions can make it difficult for people to get driver’s licenses, qualify for insurance policies or apply for bank loans. Felony convictions restrict or limit certain rights such as professional licensing, voting, or receiving government assistance.

Expunging a conviction means that an individual’s case is vacated, dismissed, and “deemed a nullity” in any law or criminal records. When someone’s case is expunged, their past conviction will not appear on any public record and background check. States such as Colorado, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Oregon are allowing automatic expungement and for people to expunge their past marijuana convictions.

Guidelines for expungement differ state-by-state. Illinois legalized the recreational use of marijuana and provided the eligibility status for which individuals can apply for expungement. The act created three groups of marijuana-related records eligible for expungement. The first two groups are eligible for automatic expungement if arrests for possession were under 30 grams or less, while the third group requires a court petition to start the expungement process for possession up to 500 grams. New York’s legislation provides for automatic expungement with additional protection against discrimination in voting, housing, student loans, employment opportunities, and other vital services.

Federal marijuana trafficking cases continued to decline in 2020, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. There were only 1,118 such cases reported in 2020, marking a 67% decrease since 2016. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report in 2020 revealed a decline in the number of marijuana-related arrests with a 36% decrease from 2019; these arrests were primarily made in states where possession remains criminally outlawed.

On the federal level, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced the MORE (Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement) Act of 2021. The proposal would: (1) remove marijuana from the list of federally controlled substances, (2) reinvest in communities and people based on cannabis arrest/conviction records, and (3) provide for the expungement of federal marijuana convictions and arrests.

In 2021, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also proposed a draft of the Cannabis Administration & Opportunity Act (CAOA). Measures in the draft include descheduling cannabis and allowing states to continue to set their own cannabis laws. The discussion draft provides guidelines for the expungement of certain cannabis criminal offenses and prohibits federal agencies from denying a security clearance, federal benefits, and immigrant status based on past or present marijuana use.

Expunging marijuana-related convictions is a logical complement to the national drive to legalize cannabis use. The federal government cannot mandate state expungement, but it can set an example and offer federal funding to help states purge old convictions from legal records.

Marshall for The Hill: Biden Faces Down Putin

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Will Marshall

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a Siberia-sized chip on his shoulder. He hasn’t gotten over the unraveling of the once-mighty Soviet Union, which he served as a KGB agent, and he doesn’t think the West pays sufficient attention to Russia’s security interests.

What’s a strongman to do? Threaten war, of course. Putin has amassed over 100,000 troops on the border of Ukraine, which Russia already has invaded once (in 2014) to forcibly annex Crimea.

As Ukrainian forces continue to battle pro-Russia separatists in the country’s Donbas region, a second invasion is a plausible threat. To defuse it, the Biden administration dispatched diplomats to meet their Russian counterparts in Geneva Monday. At Russia’s insistence, neither Ukraine nor European nations were invited to this parley, an omission that reflects Putin’s disdain for Europe and nostalgia for Cold War-style summitry.

Here’s the gun-to-the-head deal Russian diplomats put on the table: Russia won’t invade Ukraine if Washington agrees to halt NATO’s eastward expansion, and dismantle military infrastructure in Eastern European countries that have joined the alliance. They presented draft security treaties obliging NATO to rescind its 2008 offer of membership to Ukraine and Georgia.

Read the full piece in The Hill. 

Why Digital Natives are Puzzled by the Senate’s Anti-Tech Bill

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As a member of the first generation to grow up with internet platforms and social media, the push to dismantle America’s leading technology companies feels especially regressive. Among my peers, now entering the workforce, many of us have hardly ordered anything without the option of two-day shipping and never driven anywhere without Google Maps directing us from our smartphones. Technology companies have their faults, but the increasingly dystopian narrative around internet and technology services perpetuated by Senator Klobuchar’s American Innovation and Choice Online Act doesn’t square with how indispensable they’ve become consumers here and around the world.

Here are five reasons legislators should take a careful approach in applying the blunt instrument of antitrust enforcement against America’s most innovative and globally competitive companies:

1. Big U.S. tech firms have created and continue to create millions of new, well-paid jobs for U.S. workers at all skill levels.

As the Progressive Policy Institute has documented, tech-ecommerce companies in recent years have been the biggest source of job growth in the U.S. economy. This proved especially important during the pandemic shutdowns, when Americans turned en masse to the digital ecosystem to work, shop, keep up with their studies and stay in touch with friends and family. Over the past five years, the technology and ecommerce industry created 1.8 million jobs in the United States, more than 40% of total private sector job gains over that period.

Moreover, these jobs pay decent wages and offer good benefits to workers regardless of their skill level. In the warehousing industry, which includes most ecommerce fulfillment centers, the average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers were $21.39 per hour in November 2021, up 19% over the past year. That’s 30% higher than the comparable figure for general merchandise retailers, and just 5% below the pay in nondurable manufacturing. PPI’s analysis shows that jobs in the tech and ecommerce ecosystem pay 32% more than in the economy as a whole for workers with some college, including an associate degree.

2. As U.S consumers feel the pinch from the highest inflation rates in 40 years, inflation in the digital economy has remained low.

As the old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The Senate bill is supposed to help consumers, but the digital sector is working as a powerful disinflationary force. Over the past year, prices for digital consumer goods and services—including hardware such as smartphones and computers as well as phone and internet services—have risen by only 1.6% overall, compared to 5.5% for consumer inflation less food and energy. In particular, the price of smartphones has dropped by 14% over the past year, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

3. The innovative services provided by online platforms are highly valued by U.S. consumers.

The Senate bill uses broad generalizations about alleged threats to competition and threatens tech companies with huge penalties without offering clear guidelines for what its authors deem acceptable. This ambiguity could subject tech companies to expensive lawsuits for almost any consumer-friendly innovation. One example: Amazon Prime, which offers free rapid delivery for a yearly subscription, is extremely popular with consumers. Other sellers can share Amazon’s delivery system–built on billions of dollars of investment–by paying a fee and meeting certain requirements. If the bill becomes law, it’s certain that Amazon will be sued on the grounds that Amazon Prime’s benefits to consumers represent an unfair advantage to the company. The result could be the end or significant curtailment of the Prime program. A recent PPI poll found that 72% of voters in political battleground states oppose legislation that would prevent Amazon from selling Amazon Basics products, while 84% oppose legislation that would prevent Amazon from providing Prime shipping services.

4. Because of economies of scale, large online platforms can offer services to small businesses, retailers and developers at relatively low cost.

The Senate bill simply assumes that, where tech is concerned, big is bad. In the real world, the economies of scale offered by platforms make it possible to offer services to small businesses, retailers, and developers at relatively low cost. Take advertising, for example. The price of advertising sold by newspapers has gone down by 7% since 2010. But the price of internet advertising, except for print publishers, has dropped by almost 40% over the same period.

Similarly, small app developers can get wide distribution through Apple’s and Google’s app stores–and certification as being safe for consumers–at a minimal cost. Small businesses can use Gmail and other online services, also at zero or low cost. And small retailers and manufacturers can utilize tools such as Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon program to list their products on the platform with the benefit of Prime delivery. Amazon then handles the distribution of these products as well as any returns, providing simple distribution methods for businesses that lack the infrastructure to do so themselves. With more than 200 million consumers subscribed to Amazon’s prime services worldwide, the platform provides an incredible reach for small and medium sized businesses, which the company says make up 60% of their retail sales from 1.9 million individual sellers. If passed, this bill would prevent Amazon from offering these services, harming independent retailers’ ability to reach Amazon’s established customer base.

5. Leading technology companies are vital to America’s economic competitiveness on the global stage.

As the balance of economic power between the United States and China remains in question, hobbling U.S. tech companies’ ability to innovate opens the door for emerging Chinese platforms such as Alibaba and TikTok to entrench themselves in U.S. and overseas markets. The United States is losing ground in technological leadership in key areas. This is particularly troubling when compared to our Chinese counterparts, who have doubled R&D spending as a percent of GDP over the same period. The U.S. is also increasingly reliant on imports of high-tech products, running a trade deficit of $304 billion in 2018.

Assuring American competitiveness in the high-tech sector is a pressing issue for voters. The PPI poll found that 74% of voters in battleground states are worried about the need for the United States to have an innovative tech sector so that Americans won’t have to become reliant on Chinese-developed tech.

The Senate bill couldn’t come at a worse moment. The U.S. economy is starting to rebound strongly from the pandemic recession. Unemployment is failing and wages are rising, though inflation clouds the picture. This simply isn’t the time to break up or severely regulate America’s most dynamic companies.

Trade Fact of the Week: World GDP will top $100 trillion for the first time in 2022

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

FACT:

World GDP will top $100 trillion for the first time in 2022.

 

THE NUMBERS: 

$102 trillion     World GDP (currency-basis), 2022
$480 trillion     World individually held wealth, 2022

 

WHAT THEY MEAN:

How much is “all the money in the world”?  And where is it?

Guessing at the economic outlook last October, the International Monetary Fund projected global growth of 4.9% for 2022. This would be a jump of about $8 trillion from 2021’s $94 trillion in total world GDP, for the first time bringing this total above $100 trillion.  Of this, $60 trillion reflects the output of “advanced economies” — meaning the U.S., Canada, U.K., EU, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore — with the rest of the world combining for the other $42 trillion. By country, about two-thirds of this represents the output of 12 countries:

COUNTRY     WEALTH OUTPUT
U.S.                 $24.8 trillion
China               $18.5 trillion
Japan                 $5.4 trillion
Germany            $4.6 trillion
U.K.                    $3.4 trillion
India                   $3.3 trillion
France                $3.1 trillion
Canada               $2.2 trillion
Brazil                   $1.8 trillion
Russia                 $1.7 trillion
Australia              $1.7 trillion
Mexico                 $1.6 trillion
All other            $30.3 trillion

Regionally, the IMF projects Latin America’s “GDP” at $5 trillion, the Middle East’s $4 trillion, and sub-Saharan Africa’s $2 trillion; its guess for the fastest-growing areas are developing Asia at 5.8%, the Middle East at 4.1%, and Africa at 3.8%. Overall, the long-term trend has been for “developing” regions to catch up toward traditionally wealthy ones, though much of this reflects the growth of China specifically. This is even more true with the alternative “purchasing power parities” method of estimating GDP, which tries to standardize the value of locally purchased goods and services; it yields a world GDP at $153 trillion for 2022, with China the largest economy at $29 trillion.

Another approach, less complete but suggesting a somewhat different pattern, comes from Credit Suisse’s annual “Global Wealth Report.”  This tries to calculate the value of individually held assets — houses, bank accounts, cars, property, stock holdings, etc. — and sums them all up to $418 trillion worldwide as of the end of 2020.  This total is rising by about 6% or 7% per year, suggesting that in 2022 the “global wealth” of individuals might be $480 trillion. This report doesn’t include a lot of valuable things, though — say, government assets such as buildings, roads and bridges, and national parks, or corporate assets like the value of entertainment industry intellectual property or the commercial airplane fleet, vehicles — and also leaves out the assets of about 2 billion of the world’s poor.  Were such things included, this version of the “all the money in the world” figure might easily be close to $1 quadrillion.

By country and region, this wealth estimate tilts more toward “advanced economies” than the IMF’s GDP projections.  By Credit Suisse’s count, the largest ones (using their 2020 figures rather than trying to extrapolate the 2022 levels) are:

COUNTRY   WEALTH ESTIMATE
U.S.                 $126.3 trillion
China                 $74.9 trillion
Japan                 $26.9 trillion
Germany            $18.3 trillion
France                $15.0 trillion
U.K.                     $15.3 trillion
India                    $12.8 trillion
Canada                $9.9 trillion
Australia               $9.3 trillion
Korea                    $9.0 trillion

Where the IMF’s GDP projections find a narrowing gap between traditionally rich countries and the rest of the world, Credit Suisse’s wealth estimates suggest an at least temporarily widening one.  It notes a worldwide increase in wealth of about 6.0% in 2020.  What with rising home values and stock indexes, the jumps in North America and Europe were 9.1% and 9.8% specifically, meaning that these regions accounted for three-quarters of the world’s wealth growth that year.

 

 

FURTHER READING

The IMF’s World Economic Outlook database, released last October; the next update comes in April.

For a quick study on currency-basis vs. PPP-basis GDP, the IMF has an explanation here.

The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2021 can be read here.

More on wealth “per capita”: By Credit Suisse’s measurement, the world’s richest people cluster conveniently around C.S.’ Zurich headquarters. Switzerland tops the world at $679,000 in wealth per person.  The United States ranks second at $505,000, followed by Hong Kong, Australia, and Denmark. (They toss out small tax havens such as Liechtenstein and Luxembourg, as too difficult to estimate.)  On the other hand, Credit Suisse’s figures find the U.S. total warped upward by a relatively few extremely wealthy people.  Using the wealth of the “median” adult rather than the “mean,” America places 23rd in the world with $79,000 per person, and Australia leads the world at $238,000 for the median.  Putting some names to this, a list maintained by Forbes Magazine of the world’s 100 wealthiest people reports that 9 of the top 10 are Americans, together holding $1.6 trillion.

Treasury Secretary Yellen (April 2021) on the Biden administration’s view of the global macroeconomic outlook and next policy steps.

A book recommendation: Diane Coyle’s “GDP: An Affection History” examines the history of the GDP concept, what it tells you, and some of the things it can’t help with.

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007).  He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week

 

PPI’s Dr. Michael Mandel: Senate’s Antitrust bill will hurt American consumers, middle-class jobs and technological leadership.

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced a markup of an antitrust bill aimed at a handful of America’s most successful technology companies, led by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). The bill will harm American consumers and American middle-class jobs from coast to coast.

Dr. Michael Mandel, Vice President and Chief Economist of the Progressive Policy Institute, released the following statement:

“It can’t be denied: The anti-tech antitrust legislation led by Senator Klobuchar will hurt American consumers and American middle-class jobs, and impede American technological leadership.

“The digital economy should be a source of pride for Democrats. Digital inflation is low, wage growth in the tech-ecommerce sector is extremely rapid, and digital job creation is strong – especially in pivotal swing states.

“Instead, if this bill is passed, it will undercut the tech and ecommerce industries –  which are vital to our 21st century economy – and give China the edge in leadership and the digital economy. The Senate and House bills are unpopular with voters in the battleground congressional districts, and will likely stunt job growth in these pivotal swing states ahead of the 2022 election.

“Senate Democrats should rethink their push to cater toward the extremes of the party and instead focus on pragmatic, pro-growth legislation that makes the digital economy stronger.”

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Media Contact: Aaron White – awhite@ppionline.org

Mosaic Economic Project Announces Applications Open for March Women Changing Policy Cohort

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Mosaic Economic Project application process is now open for the March 2022 Women Changing Policy workshop, scheduled for February 28 to March 2, 2022.

“The Women Changing Policy workshop is an opportunity to connect with and learn alongside other diverse experts in fields where women are traditionally underrepresented” said Jasmine Stoughton, Project Lead. “Through our interactive workshop, participants hone the skills necessary to engage with lawmakers and the media.”

This is the fourth Women Changing Policy workshop. Previous workshops have included candid conversations with seasoned media professionals, policy leaders, and representatives from the United States Congress.

Applicants should be well established in their careers and eager to grow their profile in the policy arena. This workshop will be held in person in Washington, D.C., and the deadline to apply is February 11, 2022.

Interested applicants should apply here.

The Mosaic Economic Project is a network of diverse women with expertise in the fields of economics and technology. Their programming aims to bring new voices to the policy arena by connecting cohort members with opportunities to engage with top industry leaders, lawmakers, and the media.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Follow the Mosaic Economic Project.

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Media Contact: Aaron White – awhite@ppionline.org

The government stepped in to protect health care during the pandemic

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In 2020, for the first time, the federal government financed the majority of health care spending in the United States. Though the use of health care services declined during the first year of the pandemic as the country shut down and people avoided unnecessary interactions with doctors and hospitals, health care spending still grew by 9.7% in 2020 over 2019, reaching $4.1 trillion — a record high. That’s because the federal government spent record high amounts on public health, provider relief funds, and a larger social safety net, propping up the health care industry as a whole.

The government stepped in to support the health care industry to help meet the demands of an unprecedented pandemic. Through Operation Warp Speed, bolstering the strategic stockpiles of drugs, funding clinical trials and guarantee purchase orders for vaccines, supporting health facility preparedness, and increased enrollment in public health programs, public health spending increased over two fold from the year prior. Excluding federal public health activity and programs, health care spending only increased 1.9% over 2019.

The federal government provided financial relief to health care providers, which propped up the sector even while people used less care overall. Hospital and doctor spending largely remained constant in 2020 thanks to federal assistance to health care providers through the Provider Relief Fund ($122 billion) and the Paycheck Protection Program ($53 billion). Even while health care utilization was down, hospital expenditures increased 6.4% in 2020, similar to the 6.3% growth rate in 2019. Physician and clinical service expenditures increased 5.4%, more than a percentage point higher than the 4.2% growth in 2019.

Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) served as a safety net as many people lost jobs. Though the pandemic led to huge economic and employment downturns, the number of uninsured people declined by 0.6 million, or 1.9%. This was in stark contrast to the great recession when 9.3 million people lost their health insurance tied to employment. This time, safety net programs like Medicaid and subsidies available through the ACA kept people from losing health care coverage during a public health emergency. Medicaid and CHIP enrollment increased to 83.2 million, up nearly 18% since February of 2020. Because many people didn’t use services or lost their private sector coverage, spending on health care by private businesses declined 3.1% in 2020 compared to a 3.8% increase in 2019.

The pandemic’s impact on the overall economy and the health care sector was unprecedented. The GDP contracted by 2.2% (the largest drop since 1938), but because of efforts to support the health care sector, the health spending share of GDP was 19.7%, a two-percentage point increase from 2019 (17.6%).

While there were many failures throughout the pandemic, the government stepped in and mitigated a lot of the damage that could have happened to the health care sector. It supported hospitals as COVID cases surged and demand for other types of health care services waned, it protected people from losing health care coverage, and it partnered with private industry to develop and distribute vaccines at an unprecedented speed. Democrats shouldn’t forget to highlight the successes of these programs as they seek to run on their records in 2022.

 

MOSAIC MOMENT: Growth, Resiliency and Sustainability in New Orleans

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On a new episode of Radically Pragmatic, PPI’s Mosaic Economic Project examines the findings of the 2021 Greater New Orleans Startup Report. The episode explores topics such as the growth, resiliency, and economic sustainability of New Orleans – including the effects of increased remote work options – and dives into solutions to bridge gaps in race and gender equity in critical areas from entrepreneurship to COVID relief.

Hosts Jasmine Stoughton and Crystal Swann were joined by Emily Egan, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Tulane University, and Ann Marshall Tilton, Community Engagement Manager at the Albert Lepage Center.

Read the 2021 Great New Orleans Startup Report here.

Learn more about the Mosaic Economic Project here.

Learn more about the Progressive Policy Institute here.

Mosaic Moment on PPI’s Radically Pragmatic Podcast: Growth, Resiliency and Sustainability in New Orleans

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On a new episode of the Radically Pragmatic podcast, PPI’s Mosaic Economic Project examines the findings of the 2021 Greater New Orleans Startup Report. The episode explores topics such as the growth, resiliency, and economic sustainability of New Orleans – including the effects of increased remote work options – and dives into solutions to bridge gaps in race and gender equity in critical areas from entrepreneurship to COVID relief.

Hosts Jasmine Stoughton and Crystal Swann were joined by Emily Egan, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Tulane University, and Ann Marshall Tilton, Community Engagement Manager at the Albert Lepage Center.

Listen to the podcast here:

 

The Mosaic Economic Project is a network of diverse women with expertise in the fields of economics and technology. Mosaic programming aims to bring new voices to the policy arena by connecting cohort members with opportunities to engage with top industry leaders, lawmakers, and the media.

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.

Follow the Progressive Policy Institute.

Follow the Mosaic Economic Project.

 

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Media Contact: Aaron White – awhite@ppionline.org

PPI Statement on One-Year Anniversary of Jan. 6th Attack on the Capitol

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute, released the following statement on the one-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection at the United States Capitol:

“One year ago today, a lame duck president incited a mob of followers to storm the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election results. Dozens of police officers were injured in the ensuing violence, which eventually claimed five lives.

“For orchestrating this seditious and deadly attack on our elected representatives, Donald Trump was rightly impeached for a second time. But Congressional Republicans, in violation of their oath to defend the Constitution, failed again to hold Trump accountable for his lawless conduct.

“Their cowardly dereliction of duty opened the door to Trump’s despicable campaign over the past year to undermine public faith in the integrity of U.S. elections and launch what amounts to a coup attempt against our legitimately elected president, Joe Biden. It will fail, but not before eroding confidence at home and abroad in America’s commitment to democracy.

“From Trump, we can expect nothing but self-aggrandizing lies. Looking ahead, the deeper danger comes from the legions of Trump voters who seem willing to swallow his preposterous claims, and the elected Republican ‘leaders’ who lack the courage to stand up to his treacherous fabrications.

“That’s why Americans must never forget what happened on January 6th. The bipartisan House Select Committee’s investigation into the actions of the president and others who organized the insurrection must continue despite Republican stonewalling and disingenuous cries to ‘move on.’

“And what of the 147 Republican lawmakers who voted only moments after the outrage in the Capitol to support Trump’s bogus claims of a stolen election? Let’s make sure U.S. voters won’t forget their names when they go to the polls in this year’s midterm elections.”

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Media Contact for PPI: Aaron White – awhite@ppionline.org

Trade Fact of the Week: 49 of the world’s 100 tallest buildings have opened in the last 5 years

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

FACT:

49 of the world’s 100 tallest buildings have opened in the last five years. 

 

THE NUMBERS: 

World’s tallest buildings*, 2600 BCE to present

YEAR          BUILDING HEIGHT
2010           2,716 feet (Burj Khalifa, UAE)  
2004          1,666 feet (Taipei 101, Taipei)
1998           1,482 feet (Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur)
1974           1,450 feet (Sears Tower, Chicago)
1972           1,368 feet (World Trade Center, New York)
1931            1,250 feet (Empire State Building, New York)
1930           1,046 feet (Chrysler Building, New York)
1913               792 feet (Woolworth Building, New York)
1908              612 feet (Singer Building, New York)
1901               548 feet (City Hall, Philadelphia)
1311                525 feet? (Lincoln Cathedral, UK)
~2550 BCE    481 feet (Great Pyramid, Egypt)

 

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Stone buildings can’t get much above 500 feet, since the weight of the upper tiers will crack and break the load-bearing pillars and walls beneath.  This is why the 481-foot Great Pyramid outside Cairo held the world’s-tallest-building title for 3,800 years, until topped by a few slightly higher Gothic cathedrals in the 13th century. The cathedrals in turn held their lead until the early 20th century — unless you count free-standing towers like the 555-foot Washington Monument (1884) or 986-foot Eiffel Tower (1889) — when Chicago engineers devised the steel-skeleton frame, using curtain walls held in place by steel girders to add another 750 feet of space, metal, and glass.

Computer-aided design and new alloys — for example, twisting facades to minimize wind torque, and lightweight cladding to resist heat — enabled another jump during the 1990s. The results accelerated in the last decade with a bloom, or rash, of ultra-high skyscrapers at 1500 feet and above, mostly in Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. As 2022 begins, 49 of the world’s 100 tallest buildings, and four of the top ten, have opened since 2017. Only 13 20th century buildings remain among the top 100, and only four opened before 1990.  Eleven-year-old Burj Khalifa in Dubai remains largest of all, more than a half-mile tall at 2,717 feet or 828 meters. By location, the top 100-list maintained by the New York-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat breaks down as follows:

  • China: 45 of the top 100 and five of the top 10, including second-place Shanghai Tower (2015) at 2,073 feet and fourth-place Ping An Tower in Shenzhen (2017).  Hong Kong adds five more.
  • United Arab Emirates: 17, with Burj Khalifa’s 2,716 feet basically one old skyscraper’s height above the Shanghai Tower. Saudi Arabia’s competing “Kingdom Tower,” aiming for more than 1,000 meters (3,281 feet), stalled out at 1000 feet in 2018 after a contract dispute.
  • United States: 15, including 7 in New York — One World Trade Center, at 1,776 feet, is the world’s sixth-highest — along with 5 in Chicago, and one each in Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
  • The rest: 18, including five in Russia, four in Malaysia, four in Korea, two in Taiwan, and one each in Vietnam, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

Once unrivalled in the count of very high buildings, the U.S. now ranks third. The American intellectual role in skyscraper design and construction, though, remains central.  Specialized U.S. architecture firms in Chicago, New York, New England, and California remain at the core of worldwide tall building design, having designed seven of the current top ten and 24 of the 49 most recent entries to the list.

 

Burj Khalifa in the UAE stands at 2,716 feet.

 

FURTHER READING

 

New York’s Council on Tall Building and Urban Habitat lists the world’s 100 tallest buildings.

Burj Khalifa features 160 floors, a spiral shape to minimize wind torque on the upper levels, specialized glass and heat-resistant glazed aluminum/stainless steel cladding on the outer walls.

San Francisco-based Gensler designed the 2,073-foot Shanghai Tower, with “sky gardens” on the 37th of its 127 floors. BEA unromantically considers this an export of “architectural services”; in this sense, U.S. exports average about $900 million per year, against $135 million in imports. Read more from Gensler on the Shanghai Tower.

One World Trade Center (2014), at 1,776 feet, ranks sixth worldwide (pictured below).

 

 

Is China slowing down? Central government puts a cap on ultra-tall, weird, or “xenocentric” buildings.

A brief survey of three earlier tall-building eras:

1. Pyramids & Ziggurats, Middle East, 2600 BCE to 2000 BCE:  Pyramid-building began with Djoser’s 203-foot Step Pyramid around 2650 BCE and peaked a century later with Khufu’s 481-foot Great Pyramid.  Just outside modern Cairo, this building held the world’s-tallest-building title for 3,800 years, even if nobody was around to measure and compare. Not just a lame pile of rocks, the G.P. is a “smart pyramid” with a complex interior design of chambers, tunnels, and ventilation shafts meant for practical, religious, and perhaps astronomical purposes, all pointing to sophisticated architectural drafting and engineering as well as lots of donkeys and human labor. The slightly younger ziggurats in neighboring Sumer and Akkad were made of brick. The squishier material means they couldn’t be as tall, and topped out at about 170 feet, with small temples on top.

Egypt’s Great Pyramid homepage can be found here.

The Ziggurat of Ur is solid brick all the way through, with a (long-vanished) moon goddess temple on top, built around 2100 BCE per order of Sumerian King Ur-Nammu.  Read more from Iraq Heritage.

Book recommendation: The Babylon ziggurat “Etemanki” supposedly had “hanging gardens”, like the Shanghai Tower but open-air. Herodotus describes the ziggurat — eight tiers also with a temple on top — but doesn’t mention any gardens.  British Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley investigates, and concludes that they probably existed but were somewhere else.

2. Gothic Cathedrals, Europe, 1200 to 1400: “It was as though the world had shaken herself and cast off her old age, and clothed herself everywhere in a white garment of churches…”  Large buildings with enormous glass windows, hundred-foot stone pillars, and flying buttresses to relieve stress on load-bearing walls.  Designed without printing presses, standardized weights and measures, or mathematics beyond flat-plane geometry, cathedrals overtook pyramids in the 14th century and with the exception of Philadelphia’s 548-foot City Hall (1901) remain the world’s tallest stone-on-stone buildings. Lincoln Cathedral, completed in 1311, is said to been the highest Gothic cathedral, with a central spire rising to 525 feet. But the spire fell down in 1549 so we can’t be sure. The largest one still standing is Germany’s 512-foot Ulm Cathedral.

Read about the Ulm Cathedral.

Read about Abbot Sugar and the 12th-century Gothic boom.

3. Skyscrapers, United States, 1908 to 1974: Steel-skeleton buildings surpassed cathedrals with the completion of the Singer Building (referring to the sewing machine company, not the arts) in New York City in 1908. The Otis hydraulic elevator system made sure people could get to the top floors, and architects devoted occasional floors to water tanks and pumps so penthouse suites and executive offices could get toilets that flush and faucets that spout water rather than sucking air. Woolworth quickly overtopped Singer, Chrysler hit 1,000 feet in 1930, then the Empire State Building in 1931.

Read more about the Empire State Building.

Chicago’s William LeBaron Jenney, a Union army engineering corps vet, and Paris-trained architect, designed the first girders-and-curtain wall “skyscraper” — the 180-foot Home Insurance Building on South LaSalle, demolished to make way for the Field Building in 1931.

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007).  He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week

 

McDermott for The Hill: Surrendering to COVID-19 is the wrong cure for inflation

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Brendan McDermott

Republicans hoping to capitalize on high inflation have proposed a surprising solution: ending COVID-19 restrictions. But surrendering to COVID is the wrong cure for inflation. It would endanger public health without addressing the supply-chain snarls that are pushing prices higher. Ending pandemic inflation requires making the global economy a safe place to spend, work and live by continuing the fight against the virus.

The United States is enjoying an exceptionally strong economic recovery thanks in part to the bold stimulus actions lawmakers took last March. But businesses are raising prices, some because they and their competitors are bidding up the cost of workers and materials, and others simply because strong demand means that they can. Consumer prices were 6.8 percent higher in November than they were a year before, and almost half of households say inflation is hurting their finances.

Read the full piece in The Hill. 

Strong Digital Growth in 2022 Swing States

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Summary: Because of their mixed urban/rural nature, swing states are a magnet for digital “tech-ecommerce” jobs. Democrats should consider building their 2022 political narrative around support for the digital economy, which brings strong job growth, higher wages, and lower inflation to swing states.

1. This piece is primarily economic, not political. But to focus our analysis, we start with a list of eight potential 2022 Senate swing states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Adding or subtracting a state from this list doesn’t change the analysis appreciably.

2. For the most part, swing state employment is still below pre-pandemic levels, creating a handicap for the party in power. For example, Wisconsin had 260,000 fewer private sector jobs in November 2021 than in November 2019. The only swing state above pre-pandemic employment levels is Arizona.

3. Average hourly wage growth has significantly lagged national inflation in most swing states, That means real wages are falling on average in the swing states, an obstacle to making a positive economic argument. Once again, there is one exception, North Carolina.

4. However, voters in most swing states are benefiting from exceptionally dynamic job creation in the digital “tech-ecommerce” sector. The reason is not hard to understand. Swing states, by their nature, tend to have a mixed urban/rural character. Not surprisingly, ecommerce fulfillment centers are often sited in areas that are within easy driving distance of large populations but where land is relatively cheap, making them a good match for swing states. Similarly, software and internet operations looking to broaden out from the Bay Area and Boston will pick cheaper locations near to good urban amenities.

5. Digital employers gravitated to swing states during the Biden Administration. From the second quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2021, the most recent data available, swing states showed a 14% gain in tech-ecommerce jobs  By comparison, the rest of the country only showed an 8% gain in tech-ecommerce jobs over the same period.

6. We’ve bolded the key numbers in the table below, which lays out the job gains by digital industry.  Ecommerce fulfillment and warehousing jobs registered a 22% gain in the swing states, almost double the 12% gain in the rest of the country. The same thing held true for the electronic shopping industry (which mainly consists of those establishments that are in the technology end of electronic shopping but don’t do fulfillment). Also showing strong swing state growth was internet publishing, which also includes search and other “internet-type” companies.

By contrast, job growth in manufacturing and healthcare was weaker in the swing states than the rest of the country.  These states see their future in tech and ecommerce.

Table 1. Swing States Lead In Digital Growth
Employment change, 20Q2-21Q2
Swing states Other states
Computer and electronic manufacturing -1.6% -0.4%
Electronic shopping 18.5% 11.8%
Local delivery 12.4% 13.9%
Ecommerce fulfillment and warehousing 22.1% 12.3%
Software publishing 11.8% 8.7%
Data hosting 12.6% 6.1%
Internet publishing and other information services 14.6% 6.1%
Computer software systems 7.1% 3.5%
Tech-ecommerce (total) 14.0% 8.1%
Private 11.2% 10.6%
Manufacturing 5.0% 6.1%
Healthcare and social assistance 5.6% 6.4%

 

7.  What are the positive economic stories in individual swing states?  Digital employers in Arizona, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin are adding digital jobs at a faster rate than private sector jobs. Voters in North Carolina, for example, have benefited from 20% growth in tech-ecommerce jobs, almost double private sector job growth.

 

Table 2. Digital Jobs Drive Swing State Growth
Employment change, 20Q2-21Q2
Tech-ecommerce Private sector
Arizona   16.7% 8.6%
Florida   18.2% 10.8%
Georgia 8.6% 10.4%
Nevada   24.6% 21.4%
New Hampshire 8.4% 13.4%
North Carolina   20.3% 11.5%
Pennsylvania 7.8% 12.4%
Wisconsin   10.2% 9.1%
Swing states 14.0% 11.2%
All other states 8.1% 10.6%

 

8. A strong economic narrative around digital growth in the swing states depends on wages as well. On average, tech-ecommerce jobs pay significantly more than the average for the private sector in every swing state. For example, in the second quarter of 2021, tech-ecommerce workers in swing states got paid at an average annual rate of $81,000, 39% more than the private sector average of $58,000. This includes the full range of tech-ecommerce jobs, from software developers to fulfillment center workers.

Table 3. Workers in Digital Jobs Are Paid More on Average
Annual pay, thousands of dollars, based on 21Q2
Tech-ecommerce Private sector
Arizona 76 59
Florida 81 57
Georgia 83 60
Nevada 65 57
New Hampshire 111 71
North Carolina 86 57
Pennsylvania 81 62
Wisconsin 77 53
Swing states 81 58
All other states 123 66
All other states except California and Washington 96 62

 

9. The core of the tech-ecommerce job boom in the swing states is the expansion of ecommerce jobs. These jobs pay well for high-school educated workers. Amazon pays its starting distribution workers an average of $18 per hour. That’s roughly comparable to starting manufacturing wages in many parts of the country. Overall, ecommerce industries pay about 30% more than brick-and-mortar retail in swing states, on average. This is at the heart of a powerful political narrative of growth that creates better jobs.

 

 

Table 4. Ecommerce Industries Pay More than Brick-and-Mortar Retail
21Q2 pay in thousands at annual rates
Ecommerce industries Brick-and-mortar retail
Arizona 48 41
Florida 49 39
Georgia 45 36
Nevada 46 39
New Hampshire 57 38
North Carolina 40 35
Pennsylvania 51 34
Wisconsin 45 31
Swing states 47 37
Other states 62 38
Other states ex California and Washington 51 37

 

10. Democrats have a chance to build a powerful economic narrative around strong digital growth in swing states.  They should embrace this opportunity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ritz for Newsweek: Social Security Needs Solutions, Not Gimmicks

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

By Ben Ritz, Jason Fichtner, and Charles Blahous

Ben Ritz is Director of the Center for Funding America’s Future at the Progressive Policy Institute, Jason Fichtner is Vice President and Chief Economist at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and Charles Blahous is the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Chair and Senior Research Strategist at the Mercatus Center.

Despite repeated warnings from Social Security’s trustees that the program is facing a growing financial shortfall, lawmakers seem to have reached a bipartisan consensus to kick the can down the road. If they continue procrastinating until Social Security’s trust funds near depletion in the 2030s, it will be impossible to save the program without abruptly cutting benefits for retirees or significantly reducing the lifetime incomes of young workers. Americans who rely on Social Security cannot afford to wait much longer for lawmakers to enact corrections.

Unfortunately, a new proposal that was the subject of a congressional hearing earlier this month, Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, moves in the wrong direction. It would worsen intergenerational inequities by providing substantial benefit increases for those becoming benefit-eligible in 2022-2026, while passing the costs to everyone else, especially young workers already getting the short end of the stick under current law. There is no justification for such discriminatory treatment. In fact, those who would receive the proposed windfall already benefit from superior treatment under current Social Security law, relative to those who would pay for it.

Read the full piece in Newsweek. 

Ritz for The New York Times: Joe Manchin Has Given Democrats a Chance to Save Their Agenda

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute
by Ben Ritz
Director of PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future, for The New York Times

Mr. Ritz is the director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Center for Funding America’s Future, which released a framework for paring down the Build Back Better plan in October.

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia seemingly dealt a terrible setback to President Biden’s agenda on Sunday, when he told Bret Baier of Fox News that he could not support the version of the Build Back Better Act passed by the House last month. Although Democrats were rightfully frustrated by the way in which Mr. Manchin expressed his concerns, he was raising a valid critique: This bill was deeply flawed, and the “compromises” his colleagues made did nothing to address the concerns he has been consistently raising since this summer.

Other Democrats may not realize it, but Mr. Manchin may well have given them a gift. They should’ve gone back to the drawing board months ago, when it first became clear that their budgetary gimmickry was turning the bill into a confusing mess. Now, they will have to — and if they revise the bill to cut the number of programs they propose while making the ones they do propose permanent and easier for Americans to navigate, it could deliver Democrats both lasting policy change and the political victory they so desperately need.

Read the full piece in The New York Times.

Trade Fact of the Week: Remittances from overseas workers to poor and middle-income countries are double the size of all foreign aid programs

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

FACT:

Remittances from overseas workers to poor and middle-income countries are double the size of all foreign aid programs.

 

THE NUMBERS: 

Central American GDP and international income, 2020

$200 billion       GDP
 $45.6 billion     Exports
 $25.3 billion*    Remittances from migrants
   $1.6 billion      Foreign aid
   $3.4 billion     Foreign Direct Investment

* Assuming about 95% of remittances to Central America came from the U.S. in 2020, as the World Bank has estimated for 2017 (most recent year available).

 

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Who changes the world? Governments, intellectuals, scientists, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and charities? Doubtless they do their part. But do not discount the power and generosity of humbler, less celebrated people. An example:

Small banks and wire services in Central American neighborhoods around the U.S. are busy this week, as Christmas money flows south from places like Maryland’s Wheaton or LA’s Pico Union to Chalatenango, Intipuca, and La Union. World Bank research suggests that these “remittance” flows to the five Central American republics totaled $25 billion in 2021, with about 95% of this total coming from the United States. About $55 million will likewise move from the homes of security guards and drivers in New Zealand to small Pacific island towns in Tonga and Samoa; $11.6 billion will arrive from the Gulf states to places like Medan and Dhaka, sent by Indonesian and Bangladeshi maids, clerks, nurses, and construction workers.

How significant is this? Three ways to answer the question:

(1)    In the economic lives of recipient countries, sometimes very large. Central America joins the Pacific Islands, Central Asia, and the Caribbean among the world’s most remittance-reliant regions, and so provides an illustrative (if somewhat extreme) example. The $25 billion in remittance flows at the north end of the wire make up about 12.5% of a $200 billion regional ‘GDP’ (combining Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) with peaks of 24% of GDP for El Salvador and Honduras.  Meanwhile, in 2020 the five countries together (a) earned $45 billion from exports; (b) received about $1.6 billion in much-debated but relatively modest flows of foreign aid, and (c) received $3.4 billion in foreign direct investment from international businesses.  Thus at the macro end, remittances from migrant workers and their families rank below (but not far below) trade as a source of income, and are five times the combined value of aid and FDI.

Moving the lens back, the picture shifts but does not fundamentally change.  Twelve countries rely on remittances for more than 20% of GDP, with Tonga at 35% and then Somalia, Lebanon, South Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, Haiti, Jamaica, and Lesotho.  If we combine all low- and middle-income countries (using the World Bank definition but excluding China, Russia, and EU members Bulgaria and Romania), trade is easily the largest earner, with remittances a fairly distant second and about equal to FDI and foreign aid combined:

$14,210 billion       GDP
$3,850 billion       Exports
$462 billion       Remittances
$267 billion       Foreign Direct Investment
$175-$250 billion*  Foreign Aid

* The aid total depends upon how one estimates Chinese aid programs.  The OECD reports $175 billion from OECD members, plus Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Taiwan, and several other non-OECD donors. The scale of Chinese aid programs is uncertain, but probably large, with private-sector estimates going up to a maximum of ~$80 billion depending on one’s definition of Belt and Road Initiative loans. 

(2)     From the donor perspective, quite a lot.  A Honduran-American population of about 1 million, for example, likely sent $5 billion in remittances this year.  The median income for adult workers, by a Pew Research estimate, is around $25,000, which suggests that workers spent as much as a fifth of their earnings on remittances.

(3)    From the recipient perspective, often of great value:  Remittances seem most valuable to the poor and lower-middle class.  Central America again provides some interesting examples.  About 20% of families in El Salvador families receive remittances.  A 2016 report for the Inter-American Development Bank reported that 70% of these recipients are women; that 47% live in rural provinces; that 70% have primary education or less, and that 79% are poor or “vulnerable”.

In this holiday season, one need not doubt the potential of thoughtful governments, energetic intellectuals and scientists, or entrepreneurs, NGOs and charities to change the world for the better.  But the populist force of quite humble communities of migrant workers — tens of millions of Salvadoran waitresses and construction workers, Filipina nurses, Indonesian maids, Haitian cooks and security guards, Nigerian taxi drivers and Jordanian accountants — looks to be at least their match.

Closing note:  PPI’s Trade Fact service will be closed next week and return in the New Year. We wish friends and readers a happy and peaceful holiday, grateful for our good fortune and mindful of those who have less.

 

 

FURTHER READING

 

Overview

The World Bank’s remittances page has figures by region and country for 2020; $701 billion in remittance flows, or about 1% of the world’s $75 trillion GDP.  Bank experts trace $471 billion back to the source, with $70 billion of this coming from the United States; by comparison, USAID reports $51 billion in official U.S. foreign aid.

The Inter-American Development Bank has a snapshot of Salvadoran remittance recipients (70% women, 47% rural, 70% with primary education or less, 79% poor or “vulnerable”).

The World Bank’s bilateral remittance tool, including figures for flows to and from all countries.

Pew Research has a statistical snapshot of Salvadoran-Americans and other Hispanic communities.

 

Countries & regions

The White House lays out its “root causes” program for Central American migration.

The Kingdom of Tonga (population 105,000, an hour’s flight southeast of Fiji when service is available) is the country most reliant on remittances, accounting for 48% of GDP, with money coming principally from New Zealand, the U.S., and Australia.

Miami-based Haitian Times on a COVID-era lifeline for Haiti.

$1 billion a year flows out of Hong Kong to recipients, many in the Philippines and Indonesia, read more about The Hong Kong Domestic Helpers Campaign.

 

For comparison: 

Exports: The WTO’s World Trade Statistical Review has export and import figures.

Aid: The OECD’s Development Assistance Council page details $175 billion from OECD members and other sources (though not China) in 2020 aid by recipient.

Aid: The U.S. Agency for International Development’s data dashboard has U.S. foreign assistance figures by country, project, and topic.

Investment: UNCTAD’s 2021 World Investment Report

 

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007).  He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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