It May be The "Dismal Science" but It Can be Useful

Economics is known as the "dismal science" with some reason, it it can be useful, for example when analyzing whether the Republican-inspired cut to unemployment benefits had a salutary effect or was something that Rasputin came up with to torture the populace, as charged by President O and his Merry Band of Progressives. Well what have we here but a study by the government's own Bureau of Economic Analysts wherein they say:

"We find that a 1% drop in benefit duration leads to a statistically significant increase of employment by 0.0161 log points. In levels, 1.8 million additional jobs were created in 2014 due to the benefit cut. Almost 1 million of these jobs were filled by workers from out of the labor force who would not have participated in the labor market had benefit extensions been reauthorized."

Unless the premise is that people actually having to work for a living is a bad thing - which I think is really what Progressives believe but are afraid to say - then this on balance was a good thing. Watch for personnel changes as BEA to assure that the next study of any import follows the Chairman's Little Red Book and the Party line.

finance.townhall.com/columnists/johnransom/2015/02/02/liberals-were-wrong-and-we-were-rightagain-n1951404