The Next 10 Million Jobs–Part 1

Posted on September 30, 2019September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

This post begins our series on “The Next Ten Million Jobs.” Based on our analysis of the latest BLS employment projections, the U.S. economy will produce roughly 10 million jobs between now and 2030. The question is what kind of jobs will they be; how can Americans prepare for emerging new occupations; and what can policymakers do to improve the job situation.

We use the BLS projections as a starting point, but we don’t take them as gospel. First, we extend them from 2028 to 2030, to actually give us a ten-year projection horizon for the presidential race of 2020. But we also dig deep into some of the assumptions underlying the official projections. In particular, they can be thought as embodying a cautious extrapolation of current technological trends. For example, the BLS expects the number of heavy and tractor-trailer drivers to grow over the projection horizon, rather than being suddenly wiped out by autonomous trucks.

But recent history shows that technological change can drive sudden shifts in jobs, and create emerging new occupations. For example, the rise of ecommerce fulfillment centers means that the number of workers employed in the warehousing industry grew much faster than expected. Based on the BLS projections released in 2009, the warehousing industry was only expected to add 80K jobs between 2008 and 2018. Instead, the actual gain was closer to 500K.

Similarly, in 2007 no one could have predicted the rise of the App Economy, which has created so many new jobs since the introduction of the iPhone and all the smartphones to follow. Our latest estimate shows that the U.S. has roughly 2.2 million App Economy jobs, including a conservative calculation of spillover jobs. These jobs are supported by a bevy of technologies, including the iOS and Android mobile operating systems and the related app stores; fast and extensive mobile networks, which operators such as AT&T and Verizon are spending billions to upgrade to 5G; and an incredible number of mobile applications for consumers and businesses, written and maintained by both small app developers and app developers working for large companies.

In this series of posts we’re going to try to identify some emerging new occupations and industries that have the potential to create new job opportunities for Americans. These may or may not correspond to the BLS projections.

But for this first post, we start with the single biggest headline from the BLS projections: The importance of healthcare and social assistance jobs for the labor market. By our estimate, out of 10 million net new jobs by 2030, more than 4 million will be in healthcare and social assistance. As a result, between now and 2030, growth of healthcare and social assistance jobs accounts for 44% of the net growth of nonagricultural wage and salary jobs. That’s up from 39% in the period from 2007 to 2018.

In effect, healthcare has become the black hole of the labor market, sucking in workers at a prodigious rate.

From the perspective of young people entering the labor market, these huge numbers send a clear signal that healthcare is the place to be. Why wouldn’t you aim for the industry that is creating almost half of new jobs?

The problem for policymakers, though, is that the rapid growth of health care jobs is the single biggest driver of healthcare spending increases, as we have noted in past posts, by a wide margin. So the only way to restrain healthcare spending is to hold down health care job growth.

This takes on special meaning as proponents of various healthcare reforms try to find a way to hold down costs to make the numbers works. In this context, it should also be said that many European countries, with different health care systems than ours, are seeing an equally rapid growth in healthcare and social assistance jobs. For example, in Germany, health and social assistance jobs amounted to 37% of net new jobs created between 2008 (the business cycle peak) and 2017, the last data available. That’s based on OECD data.

Going forward, we can imagine two alternative scenarios to the BLS healthcare employment projections. In one scenario, a Democratic victory in 202o leads to expanded healthcare coverage, either in the private sector or by offering a public option. In that case, the number of jobs will increase faster than expected, and young people who go into health care will find a very strong labor market.

In the other scenario, policymakers try to hold down the growth of healthcare costs by boosting labor productivity and restraining the growth rate of health care jobs. That means young people who go into health care run the risk that health care job growth will be less than expected.

Marshall for Medium: “Trump Has Earned Impeachment”

Posted on September 27, 2019 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Originally shared on PPI’s Medium channel.

Donald Trump’s shambolic presidency has been one long, nauseating exercise in defining American democracy down. He’s relentlessly undermined the norms that uphold our Constitutional order, while abusing the powers of the presidency to pursue his own selfish interests at the expense of our nation’s interests.

There is no clearer example than his infamous July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski. Trump pressed Zelenski to dig up dirt on Vice President Joe Biden, promising a meeting between the two presidents and warmer Ukraine-U.S. ties in return. That Trump sees nothing wrong in soliciting a foreign country to interfere in America’s presidential election for his personal benefit tells you all you need to know about this man’s deformed moral sense.

To her credit, Speaker Nancy Pelosi until now has resisted pressures from her party’s left wing to launch a premature bid to oust President Trump from office. Now, to protect the integrity of U.S. elections against a rogue president, she’s announced a House inquiry into impeachment. It’s the right and patriotic thing to do.

True to form, Trump is trying to lie and bluster his way out of this self-inflicted crisis, polluting the air with ludicrous conspiracy theories, sliming the Biden family, and casting himself as the victim of Democrats, the media and the fictive “deep state.” He and his minions also are slurring Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, whose systematic amassing of devastating facts about Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigation should be a model for the impeachment inquiry.

To the everlasting shame of a once grand U.S. political party, Trump is abetted in his public disinformation campaign by the usual gaggle of robotically partisan Republicans. John McCain must be spinning in his grave as even his former protégé, Sen. Lindsay Graham, turns into a Trump sycophant. That only a handful of GOP leaders – including Sen. Mitt Romney – have been willing to venture even mild criticism of Trump’s outrageous abuse of power tells you all you need to know about how thoroughly he has corrupted his party.

Now that Trump has brought impeachment on himself, it’s crucial for Congress to proceed in a disciplined and dignified way. The inquiry should steer clear of Trump’s long catalogue of misdeeds and focus narrowly on the complaint from the intelligence community whistleblower that the president sought to induce Ukrainian officials to investigate one of his main political rivals. That complaint cites “multiple U.S. Government officials” – including some who work at the White House – as sources. These people need to be heard from, with due privacy protections to shield them Trump’s vindictive wrath.

The House inquiry should also focus on the White House attempt to cover up Trump’s efforts to get Zelensky to “play ball” by moving the record of Trump’s call onto a computer server reserved for top-secret information. Even if Trump describes his call with the Ukrainian leader as “perfect,” White House aides obviously felt otherwise.

Now the House needs to methodically build and lay before the public a solid case for impeachment. Speaker Pelosi will have her hands full discouraging histrionics from her party’s most reflexive partisans, which would likely play into the Trump-GOP strategy of dismissing the crisis as Washington swamp gas voters should ignore. Here the sure hand she’s shown on impeachment thus far inspires confidence.

You’ll see reams of punditry on the subject, but no one knows how the impeachment drama will unfold. The conventional view today is that there’s no way 20 Republican Senators will join Democrats in voting to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors. That means the U.S. government could grind to a halt over the next year as lawmakers get consumed in an impeachment battle that inevitably must end in failure – and that leaves Trump crowing over having yet again evaded the reckoning he so richly deserves.

Maybe so, but we are past political calculation at this point. Every Member of Congress has sworn an oath to protect and uphold the U.S. constitution. Congress has a duty to bear witness to Trump’s vandalizing of American democracy – and put its case plainly before the voters who will make ultimately decide the issue next year.

Affordable Health Care for All: An American Solution to High Costs and Coverage Gaps

Posted on September 12, 2019 by The Progressive Policy Institute

America’s sprawling health care economy faces many vexing challenges. But the root of the problem is simple: Medical care in the United States costs too much. Our overpriced health care system leaves too many uninsured, eats into workers’ wage growth, strains public budgets, and keeps families in fear that one medical emergency will leave them bankrupt. Health care costs are the top financial concern of families – greater than taxes, housing, or college expenses.^{(1), (2)}

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have aggravated public anxieties by failing to produce a credible plan for controlling health care costs and covering the uninsured. Instead, they have waged a partisan crusade to kill the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which protects Americans with preexisting conditions and has enabled 17 million people to get insurance coverage. Even after suffering a clear rebuke from voters in the 2018 midterm elections, Trump Republicans persist in trying (3) to sabotage the ACA in the courts. Thus it is no wonder Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans to address their health care anxieties. ⁽⁴⁾

Democrats, however, could squander that trust by overreaching. That’s the danger posed by several leading 2020 presidential candidates endorsing the abolishment of private insurance and replacing it with a government-funded, national health care system. It would require a staggering $32 trillion in new government spending over ten years and would massively disruptive coverage for the 155 million Americans forced to give up their employer sponsored insurance, risking a public backlash of seismic proportions.⁽⁵⁾

Furthermore, without transforming the delivery and payment system structure, a fee-for- serviced based Medicare-for-All program would not necessarily improve outcomes or restrain cost growth over time. Without reform, it would likely entrench fee-for-service medicine and limit the spread of accountable care arrangements that pay for prevention, wellness and healthier outcomes for patients.

The United States spends 18 percent of its gross domestic product on health care – almost one and a half times more than Switzerland, the country with the second-highest rate of healthcare spending.⁽⁶⁾ Yet outcomes here are worse than in other advanced countries. Compared to the health care systems of 10 other high-income countries, the United States ranks last in access, equity, and overall health status. ⁽⁷⁾

With increasing premiums, co-pays, drug costs, and surprise bills, it’s not hard to see why middle-class families are feeling the squeeze. Americans spend more on medical services because prices here are higher than elsewhere. Our system is fraught with waste, our providers (physicians and hospitals) are paid more, and goods like biopharmaceuticals and medical devices are more expensive. ⁽⁸⁾ On average, U.S. hospital prices are 60 percent higher than countries in Europe ⁽⁹⁾ and physicians make twice as much as their counterparts in other advanced countries. ⁽¹⁰⁾

Americans shell out an average of $10,739 per person per year on medical care.⁽¹¹⁾ Families pay $5,547 annually toward their employer-sponsored coverage, which costs roughly $22,885 for a family of four.^{(12) (13)} Out-of- pocket costs have grown from $601 per person in 1970 (in 2017 dollars) to $1,124 per person on average in 2017. ⁽¹⁴⁾ Over the next decade, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) predicts that half of the estimated 5.5 percent average annual growth in health care spending will come from price increases, while just a third of the spending growth will come from greater consumption of health care services, even as the huge baby boomer generation ages and needs more care.⁽¹⁵⁾

For too long, however, the health care debate has been focused on who pays for care and what is covered rather than on why health care costs so much in the first place. Republicans routinely push to move the cost of care onto individuals and away from government subsidies, while Democrats go after short-term junk health insurance policies, huge drug price increases, and surprise health care bills. As former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, MD illustrates, this framing presents Americans with a false choice between cost and access.⁽¹⁶⁾

Medicare-for-All may be bold, but in essence it’s just a financing mechanism and without necessary delivery reform will not improve America’s flawed health care system. In this report, PPI offers a progressive alternative to Medicare-for-All aimed at lowering the overall cost of medical care and creating stronger incentives for reform and better health outcomes.

Affordable Health Care for All is a comprehensive plan to discipline medical prices, plug gaps in coverage and bring Medicare and Medicaid into the 21st century. It would cap medical costs and encourage insurers to pay for the value, not the volume, of medical services. By reducing

the overall cost of medical care in America, this plan also would free up resources that can be invested in housing, nutrition, public safety and other social initiatives that improve public health and keep people from needing medical care in the first place.

Progressives don’t need to import “single payer” plans from other countries to solve our health care problems. PPI’s plan offers a distinctively American solution to high costs and coverage gaps. It would leave room for choice and competition; promote more efficient use of health care resources; and, put America in the vanguard of medical research and innovation – all while protecting Americans from outrageous health care prices.

Affordable Health Care for All has five key components:

- - Cap out-of-network provider prices in the private insurance market
  - Build on the ACA’s coverage gains and insurance reforms
  - Allow older Americans to buy into Medicare
  - Update and streamline the Medicare program
  - Move Medicaid from fee-for-service to value-based payments

Read the full report:

The App Economy in India

Posted on September 12, 2019 by The Progressive Policy Institute

India is one of the premier technology countries in the world. According to one forecast, India will overtake the US as the world’s largest developer population center by 2024. (1) India is also one of the leading countries for mobile app downloads, due to its more than 500 million smartphone users. (2)

At the same time, as we will show in this report, India also has a very strong App Economy. We estimate that India has 1.674 million App Economy jobs, as of August 2019. That’s up from 1.208 million as of 2016, a 39 percent increase. By comparison, the United States had 2.246 million App Economy jobs as of April 2019, and the European Union (plus Switzerland and Norway) had 2.093 million App Economy jobs as of July 2019.

Press Release: “Price caps will make health care more affordable for all Americans”

Posted on September 12, 2019 by The Progressive Policy Institute

For Immediate Release (9/12/19)

Contact: media@ppionline.org, 202-525-3926

WASHINGTON – Price caps on out-of-network provider prices would cut in-network prices, according to Arielle Kane, Director of Health Care, in a new analysis from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). This aggressive proposal to go after the root cause of high health care spending: high prices.

Americans spend more money on health care because prices are higher here than anywhere else in the world. Our system is fraught with waste, our providers (physicians and hospitals) are paid more, and goods like biopharmaceuticals and medical devices are more expensive. On average, U.S. hospital prices are 60 percent higher than countries in Europe and physicians make twice as much as their counterparts in other advanced countries.

But despite spending almost a fifth of the U.S. economy on health care, Americans have no better outcomes (often worse) than other advanced countries. But as long as there is so much spending on health care services, there isn’t enough funding to go after other upstream solutions to improve health outcomes – things like housing, environment, education, and diet, all of which impact a person’s health status.

PPI has outlined how we can limit health care spending, encourage delivery reform, and invest the savings in upstream social services without the disruption and inflation in federal spending a single-payer system would bring.

Among many other comprehensive reforms in the plan, PPI proposes capping insurers’ out-of-network payment rates – starting at 200 percent and then steadily decreasing to 120 percent of Medicare rates. It would lower in-network prices because providers (including hospitals) have no incentive to remain outside of networks if the price they can charge is capped at levels comparable to what they would receive for delivering services to patients in network. This allow all Americans to benefit from the leverage of the government’s bargaining power without dramatically increasing government spending.

Capping out-of-network bills more broadly – not just for surprise bills – would have a huge impact on rates over all. It would place a de facto limit on all health care prices, tied to Medicare rates, and would create a stronger incentive for hospitals and doctors to negotiate value-based reimbursement arrangements with insurers.

“Endorsing price regulation in the private health care marketplace is not a step we take lightly,” said Kane. She continued, “but private insurers have demonstrated that they are unable to impose reasonable limits on what health care providers charge Americans for their services.” As a result, health insurance premiums keep climbing – along with spending on public subsidies intended to cushion working Americans from sticker shock. By capping prices above Medicare reimbursement rates, the plan would apply greater price discipline over time, so that providers wouldn’t see a precipitous decline in their earnings. More fundamentally, we believe a price cap or default price would speed the move away from fee-for-service towards a more efficient model for rewarding high-value, innovative health care.

The PPI proposal also includes many other substantial reforms – such as bolstering the ACA, allowing older Americans to buy into Medicare, modernizing Medicare for the 21st century – including prescription drug plan reform, and transition Medicaid to the delivery model of the future. “Relying on one national fee-for-service plan may hold down prices in the short-term – but without major reform to improve care delivery, it would not address needed upstream interventions or prevent a rise in utilization that could driving up costs in the long-term,” Kane said.

People are hurting in America – health care costs too much and our health care outcomes leave much to be desired. PPI’s plan could cut health costs in the commercial market by almost half if fully implemented.

###

Gary Pearce: “NC races pose dilemmas for both parties”

Posted on September 12, 2019September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Original publication can be found here: https://newdayfornc.com/2019/09/11/nc-races-pose-dilemmas-for-both-parties/

This week’s special congressional races in North Carolina show that both Republicans and Democrats face big dilemmas in 2020. The difference is that Democrats have a choice about what to do, but Republicans don’t.

The Republican dilemma: Will President Trump hurt or help them in 2020?

One way you can look at the 9th Congressional District result is that Trump spells real trouble for Republicans in 2020: Dan Bishop won by less than two points in a district Trump won in 2016 by 12. It’s a district that was gerrymandered “with surgical precision” to favor Republicans, as a special three-judge panel recently wrote.

Or you can say Trump saved Bishop and he’ll boost Republicans in 2020: Bishop won even though he was opposed by a central-casting Democrat, a centrist businessman and Marine veteran who was well-funded and had been campaigning for 27 months. Bishop won, as Trump himself noted, after Trump had a rally in the district the day before the election, made a TV ad for Bishop and turned out his famously loyal base.

Either way, Republicans have little choice next year. Like it or not, they’ve got Trump. They’re like Captain Ahab tethered to a Great Orange Whale.

Democrats, on the other hand, have a choice. Their problem is that Tuesday didn’t make it any clearer what’s the right choice to beat Trump in 2020.

Nominate a Dan McCready-like centrist who can take swing voters from Trump – Joe Biden, for example? Or roll the dice, pick a candidate who risks being tagged a “socialist” and bet on turning out minorities, millennials and new voters looking for someone totally different from Trump?

One millennial Democrat described the choice to me this way: “Do we want a revolution or a restoration?”

Liberal and moderate Democrats were at each other’s throats before Tuesday. The results didn’t resolve the dilemma and debate.

As a former Democratic political consultant, I confess I have no idea what the right choice is. But I can assure you that Democrats are perfectly capable of making exactly the wrong choice, whatever it is.

Here’s a thought to ponder.

Something strange has happened in American politics the last few years. Maybe it started with the 2008 financial meltdown and the recession. Maybe it started on that terrible 9/11 day.

People all over the political spectrum, and from all walks of national life, are angry, disillusioned and anxious. They have lost confidence in politics, politicians and public institutions. They may be doing okay financially or they may be on the brink of bankruptcy, but they’re all uneasy about the economy.

They’re willing to throw the dice. In fact, they already have. They have elected the two most unlikely Presidents you could imagine: a cerebral African-American man who was serving his first term in the Senate and, then, a flashy promoter and reality TV star who had never served in public office.

Americans rejected the most traditional and respectable candidates you could imagine: John McCain, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton. In fact, Democrats almost rejected Clinton in 2016 in favor of Bernie Sanders, not even a Democrat, but a “democratic socialist.”

Maybe we want a return to normalcy. Or maybe politics has left the gravitational pull of earth. I wouldn’t bet against anything happening in 2020.

European App Economy Jobs Update, 2019

Posted on September 5, 2019September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

In this note we update our previous estimates of European App Economy jobs. Our latest research estimates that the EU-28 countries (plus Norway and Switzerland) have 2.093 million App Economy jobs as of July 2019. That’s up 27% from the 1.642 million jobs that we estimated for January 2016 in our first European App Economy jobs report (released June 2016). We follow the methodology described in the appendix to our 2017 European App Economy report. For a summary description of the basic approach, see the recent update on U.S. App Economy jobs.

We also estimate European App Economy jobs by mobile operating system. As of July 2019, there were 1.584 million jobs in the European iOS ecosystem and 1.693 million jobs in the European Android ecosystem. (The iOS and Android numbers add up to more than the total, because many App Economy jobs belong to both ecosystems).

European App Economy Jobs by Operating System (July 2019)*
	(thousands)
Total app economy	2093
iOS ecosystem	1584
Android ecosystem	1693
*30 country total. Includes estimates for Norway and Switzerland
Data: ILO, PPI, Indeed

Our approach allows us to estimate European App Economy jobs by country and leading cities. The top country for App Economy jobs is the United Kingdom, followed by France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. The UK is the leader in iOS ecosystem jobs, with France closely followed by Germany. France and the UK are tied for the lead in Android ecosystem jobs.

European App Economy Jobs by Country (July 2019)
	(thousands)

	Total app economy jobs	iOS ecosystem jobs	Android ecosystem jobs
Austria	25	19	21
Belgium	29	22	23
Czech	42	29	30
Denmark	52	41	37
Finland	48	37	42
France	350	236	296
Germany	296	233	239
Greece	10	6	8
Hungary	25	17	20
Ireland	20	16	12
Italy	94	70	77
Luxembourg	4	2	3
Netherlands	212	171	163
Norway	43	36	37
Poland	78	53	60
Portugal	37	28	27
Romania	24	19	21
Spain	101	77	82
Sweden	98	72	84
Switzerland	34	25	31
United Kingdom	366	295	296

30-country total*	2093	1584	1693

*Includes estimates for Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
Data: ILO, Indeed, PPI

The top European city for App Economy jobs according to our research is London, followed by Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Berlin. Germany has a remarkable six cities in the top 30 and the Netherlands has four cities in the top 30. Noticeably missing from the top 30 list is Rome.

	European App Economy Jobs by Major City (July 2019)
		(Thousands)
		Total app economy	iOS ecosystem	Android ecosystem
1	London	175	141	141
2	Paris	169	114	143
3	Amsterdam	84	68	64
4	Stockholm	56	41	47
5	Berlin	54	43	44
6	Rotterdam*	45	36	34
7	Barcelona	42	32	34
8	Helsinki	36	28	32
9	Copenhagen	34	27	25
10	Eindhoven	34	27	26
11	Madrid	33	25	27
12	Milan	30	23	25
13	Munich	30	23	24
14	Manchester	26	21	21
15	Utrecht	25	21	20
16	Oslo	25	21	22
17	Prague	25	17	18
18	Warsaw	22	15	17
19	Frankfurt	22	17	17
20	Stuttgart	21	17	17
21	Lisbon	21	15	15
22	Brussels	20	15	16
23	Cologne**	20	16	16
24	Budapest	20	13	15
25	Lyons	19	13	16
26	Hamburg	18	14	15
27	Zurich	18	13	16
28	Birmingham	16	13	13
29	Krakow	15	10	12
30	Dublin	14	11	9
	*Radius around Rotterdam is only 45 kilometers to avoid overlap with Amsterdam.
	**Includes Dusseldorf.
	Urban areas are defined as 50 kilometers or 30 miles around a center city. We did not have data for urban areas in Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
	Source: Progressive Policy Institute

We also looked at change in App Economy jobs by country over time. To reduce the effect of statistical noise, we compared the average of the 2016 and 2017 estimates with the average of the 2018 and 2019 estimates. We note that the only countries with declining App Economy jobs are Italy and Poland. The United Kingdom’s 5% increase is surprisingly small, and perhaps reflects the impact of Brexit. By contrast, Ireland’s App Economy employment rose by 24%.

Change in App Economy Jobs by Country, 2016-17 to 2018-19
	(thousands)
	2016-17*	2018-19**	percentage change
Austria	20	32	64%
Belgium	24	28	14%
Czech Republic	29	35	19%
Denmark	40	50	26%
Finland	51	51	1%
France	244	287	17%
Germany	289	319	10%
Greece	7	8	11%
Hungary	17	19	14%
Ireland	14	18	24%
Italy	99	92	-7%
Luxembourg	2	3	31%
Netherlands	155	193	25%
Norway	46	51	11%
Poland	68	63	-7%
Portugal	29	34	15%
Romania	21	25	18%
Spain	82	92	12%
Sweden	82	95	16%
Switzerland	32	34	7%
United Kingdom	326	342	5%
Average of 2016 and 2017 estimates. *Average of 2018 and 2019 estimates. Source: Progressive Policy Institute

U.S. App Economy Jobs Update, 2019

Posted on September 2, 2019September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

In this note we update our previous estimates of U.S. App Economy jobs. Our latest research estimates that the U.S. has 2.246 million App Economy jobs as of April 2019. That’s up 30% from 1.729 million that we estimated for December 2016 in our previous report (released May 2017).

That figure translates into a 12% annualized growth rate for App Economy jobs, compared to a 6.7% annual growth rate for computer and mathematical jobs over the past 3 years, and a 1.8% annual growth rate for all nonfarm private sector jobs.

Since fall 2011, we have done a total of six App Economy job estimates for the United States. The chart below lays out our published U.S. App Economy job estimates, starting with the first one in fall 2011 (released February 2012). These numbers include a conservative estimate of indirect and spillover jobs.

We also estimate U.S. App Economy jobs by mobile operating system. As of April 2019, there were 1.853 million jobs in the iOS ecosystem and 1.736 million jobs in the Android ecosystem. (The iOS and Android numbers add up to more than the total, because many App Economy jobs belong to both ecosystems).

U.S. App Economy Jobs by Operating System, April 2019
	millions of App Economy jobs
All App Economy Jobs	2.246
iOS ecosystem	1.853
Android ecosystem	1.736
Data: PPI, Indeed.com

Summary Methodology

The methodology for generating these estimates is described in the appendix to the May 2017 US App Economy report. Since then, we’ve made some small technical adjustments to make the U.S. methodology consistent with our global methodology.

For this research, a worker is in the App Economy if he or she works in:

An information and communications technology (ICT) related job that uses App Economy skills— the ability to develop, maintain, or support mobile applications. We will call this a “core” App Economy job. Core App Economy jobs include app developers; software engineers whose work requires knowledge of mobile applications; security engineers who help keep mobile apps safe from being hacked; and help desk workers who support use of mobile apps.
A non-ICT job (such as human resources, marketing, or sales) that supports core App Economy jobs in the same enterprise. We will call this an “indirect” App Economy job.
A job in the local economy that is supported by the income flowing to core and indirect App Economy workers. These “spillover” jobs include local retail and restaurant jobs, construction jobs, and all the other necessary services.

To estimate the number of core App Economy jobs, we use a multi-step procedure based on data from the universe of online job postings, and described in detail in the methodology appendix of the May 2017 report. The source of the data is Indeed.com, which calls itself “the #1 job site in the world.” Indeed’s API allows us to use Boolean search to identify App economy-related job postings.

Job postings are a powerful source of information about the skills being required by employers. For example, if a job posting requires that the job candidate have experience developing apps for iOS—the iPhone/iPad operating system—then we can reasonably conclude that the posting refers to a core App Economy job.

However, the number of job postings does not immediately translate into employment levels. The process for estimating the relationship between jobs postings and employment was initially described in a series of papers starting in 2012, when we produced the first-ever estimate of the U.S. App Economy. [i] We use an improved version of that methodology here, including a conservative set of multipliers relating indirect and spillover jobs to core App Economy jobs.[ii]

Future blog items will discuss App Economy jobs by state and by city.

[i] Michael Mandel. 2012. “Where the Jobs Are: The App Economy,” South Mountain Economics/Technet.

Michael Mandel and Judith Scherer. 2012. “The Geography of the App Economy,” South Mountain Economics/CTIA.

Michael Mandel and Judith Scherer. 2015. “A Low-Cost and Flexible Approach for Tracking Jobs and Economic Activity Related to Innovative Technologies,“ South Mountain Economics/Nesta.

[ii] We assume that companies have one indirect job for every core app economy job. We then assume there are 0.5 spillover jobs for every core or indirect job. This low number is consistent with the latest research on local job multipliers. See, for example. Timothy J. Bartik and Nathan Sotherland. 2019. “Realistic Local Job Multipliers.” Policy Brief, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. https://doi.org/10.17848/pb2019-8.

Ritz for Forbes, “Projected Deficits Grew $872 Billion In Three Months. Here’s How To Rein Them In”

Posted on August 22, 2019 by The Progressive Policy Institute

A new report from the Congressional Budget Office projects federal budget deficits between 2019 and 2029 to be $872 billion higher than was projected just three months ago. As a result, Donald Trump will be forced to campaign for re-election next year with his government running a trillion-dollar deficit. Democrats should hold the “king of debt” accountable for his inability to manage the nation’s finances and present voters with a compelling alternative: a new progressivism that invests in our country without burying young Americans under a mountain of debt.

The increase in CBO’s deficit projections is largely due to the bipartisan budget deal signed into law this month and other spending policies enacted over the summer, which CBO says together will cost nearly $2 trillion – making them almost as expensive as the tax-cut bill enacted by Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress in 2017. Projected deficits also increased by almost $280 due to technical changes in CBO’s modeling. Partially offsetting these costs was a reduction in CBO’s forecast for interest rates, which brought projected deficits down by a whopping $1.4 trillion.

That a change of less than one percentage point in interest rates can cost nearly as much as the budget deal or the Trump tax cuts is a testament to the size of our national debt on which that interest is owed. The $16.5 trillion debt (which grows to almost $22.5 trillion if one includes intragovernmental debt such as that owed to the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds) will only become worse moving forward as the government is projected to spend $1 trillion more than it raises in revenue every single year from 2020 onward if current laws remain unchanged.

Continue reading at Forbes.

PPI Blog: A Simple Way to Help Formerly Incarcerated Americans Reenter Society

Posted on August 13, 2019September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Roman Darker, PPI Summer 2019 Intern

We often take for granted the many essential tasks that require government-issued ID, such as a drivers’ license or a state-issued ID card. We need them to open a bank account, apply for a job, rent property, stay in hotels, get a P.O. box, and even for most interstate bus travel.

People leaving prison often lack ID for various reasons: IDs expire, deteriorate, or are simply lost. Unfortunately for many people formerly incarcerated in the U.S., the need for new government ID is acute, while the process of obtaining it is commonly drawn out. Not having a government ID means not having the ability to get money necessary for food and shelter, nor the requisite documentation for the ladder. Even today, amid promising criminal justice reform, hurdles to getting a new state ID for formerly incarcerated people are extensive.

Most Americans have had government-issued ID, in the form of a drivers’ license, since the age of 16, so we don’t easily recall the process and documents necessary for obtaining our first ID. Depending on the state, applicants must supply one form of primary documentation and/or two secondary forms. Primary forms of documentation are government-issued documents or receipts that indicate a person’s full legal name and date of birth, such as a birth certificate. Secondary forms include both a name and evidence of residency, such as a utility bill or school records.

Prisoners incarcerated in a state other than the one that issued their previous ID will first have to locate their birth certificates, a time consuming process even in the best of circumstances. If born in the state of their release, obtaining a birth certificate can take around two weeks after the responsible agency receives the application, with some variance in the timeline depending on the state (1). However, if the formerly incarcerated person was serving a sentence in a state other than the one in which they were born, then this process can take up to eight weeks (2).

Of course, this scenario assumes that the individual has a place to receive mail (which is difficult to secure without government identification) and knows the county in which they were born, the hospital they were born in, and their mother’s full maiden name (3). Also, formerly incarcerated people often do not have the luxury of being able to wait eight weeks to find employment. Many need money quickly for food and shelter; moreover, evidence shows recidivism becomes much less likely with stable employment (4).

Fortunately, some states are moving to help people released from prison get IDs. For example, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, and Wyoming have passed laws or forged interagency agreements aimed at providing inmates with state ID prior to or upon release (5).

Other states have turned to a simpler, cheaper (albeit less effective) option: allowing prisoners to exchange release documents and/or prison identification for state ID (6). One such state, Ohio, began providing “offender release cards” that contain all the information required by the federal Real ID Act, which lays out the minimum information necessary (7).

The former prisoner can then take that card to any Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and obtain a state ID. The introduction of the offender release cards was one of several reforms that correlated with a drop in the state’s three-year recidivism rate to 27.5 percent back in 2015, which was over 20 percentage points below the national average (8)

Both federal and state agencies operating prisons should have gathered all of the information provided on the cards through the process of verifying the inmate’s identity. Giving it to prisoners upon release would be a radically pragmatic addition to standard release procedure, and allowing it to suffice for obtaining a state ID is in every state’s interest.

Let’s stop punishing prisoners after they’ve paid their debt to society. Helping newly released prisoners get an I.D. can give them a fresh start and reduce the cost of recidivism in the bargain.

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Stephen Lilly, “How Long Does it Take to Receive a Birth Certificate?” PocketSense, November 6, 2018, https://pocketsense.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-receive-a-birth-certificate-12213245.html.
Ibid.
City of Columbus, Columbus Public Health Department, “Birth Certificate Walk-in or Mail Application,” Accessed July 29, 2019, file:///Users/romandarker/Downloads/BirthCert_Application.pdf.
G. Mesters, V. van der Geest, and C. Bijleveld, “Crime, Employment, and Social Welfare: An Individual-Level Study on Disadvantaged Males,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 32, no. 2 (2016), 159-90. doi:10.1007/s10940-015-9258-5.
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, “The Elusiveness of an Official ID After Prison: A bureaucratic maze within the federal government leaves scores of former inmates without the key to a fresh start,” The Atlantic, August 11, 2016. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/the-elusiveness-of-an-official-id-after-prison/495197/.
Ibid.
U.S. Congress, House, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate): Title II–Improved Security for Drivers’ Licenses and Personal Identification Cards, H.R. 1268, 109th Cong., 1st sess., Introduced in House January 26, 2005, https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/real-id-act-text.pdf.
Brian Bull, “As Recidivism Rates Drop In Ohio, Officials Work To Keep Ex-Felons From ‘Revolving Door’ Of Prisons,” ideastream, September 24, 2015, https://www.ideastream.org/news/as-recidivism-rates-drop-in-ohio-officials-work-to-keep-ex-felons-from-revolving-door-of-prisons.

Cribb for The 74: “The English Embrace Charter-School-Like Academies – and Learn the Free Market Is No Substitute for a Quality Authorizer”

Posted on August 12, 2019September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The English Embrace Charter-School-Like Academies — and Learn the Free Market Is No Substitute for a Quality Authorizer

by Phoebe Cribb, Summer Intern

New Orleans is the first major U.S. city to convert all its traditional public schools to public charter schools. Now imagine an entire country moving in this direction. That is exactly what England has done.

Academy and free schools, England’s equivalent of charter schools, currently educate more than half of all public school students, far more than the 6 percent of U.S. public school students who attend charters. In just nine years, England’s conservative government has pushed academy and free school numbers from 200 to more than 8,600, representing a third of all primary schools (grades 0-5) and 76 percent of all high schools (grades 6-10). (After grade 10, English students choose to remain in full-time education for two more years or enter into employment or vocational training.)

Since 2016, the government has required public schools rated “inadequate” to become academies. Unfortunately, it created only eight authorizers to hold the explosion of autonomous schools accountable for performance, and they have been overwhelmed by the numbers, leaving England’s academy sector with uneven performance. The English have learned the same lesson we have on this side of the pond: The key to quality charter schools is quality authorizing.

Read the full piece.

Marshall for NY Daily News: “Why the moderates must prevail”

Posted on August 5, 2019 by The Progressive Policy Institute

Thanks to CNN’s penchant for elaborately staged political melodrama, it’s easy to dismiss Round 2 of the Democratic presidential debates last week as a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. But amid all the sniping and squabbling, a larger theme did emerge: Democrats won’t beat an unpopular president with unpopular ideas.

The pragmatic candidates in the field finally found their voice and pushed back hard against what Montana Gov. Steve Bullock called the left-wing “wish list” that so far has dominated the debates. They took aim at the massively expensive “Medicare-for-All” schemes pushed by Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris; at calls from former HUD Secretary Julian Castro and others to decriminalize illegal immigration; and, at racing to shut down U.S. oil and gas production as part of the “Green New Deal.”

Read PPI President Will Marshall’s full piece here.

Janda for Medium: “Would Single Payer Set Back Progress on Paying for Value?”

Posted on August 2, 2019September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

While the left and center-left have been debating the wisdom of abolishing private insurance, another critical policy issue has not gotten much attention: The Medicare-for-all bill currently in question would create a single-payer health care system based on fee-for-service, disregarding the financial and outcome-based successes of Accountable Care Organizations, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), Medicare Advantage, and other payment reforms emphasizing value-based care.

Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here.

Long for Medium: “The Canadian App Economy is Global and Diverse – But Can Improve”

Posted on August 2, 2019September 18, 2024 by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Canadian App Economy is strong both in terms of app exports and compared to its industrialized peers. The Canadian App Economy has 262,000 App Economy workers as of November 2018, according to a recently released report by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). App Economy workers are those that develop, maintain, or support mobile applications. What’s more, Canada is outperforming many of its industrialized peers.

Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here.