Economics Roundtable

Over the past two decades, the adult population in the United States has, on average, become much heavier. From 1987 to 2007, the fraction of adults who were overweight or obese increased from 44 percent to 63 percent; almost two-thirds of the adult population now falls into one of those ...

The federal government incurred a deficit of nearly $1.3 trillion in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2010, CBO estimates in its latest Monthly Budget Review—a total that is about $100 billion less than the shortfall recorded through August of last year. Outlays are about 2 percent less ...

I am delighted to announce that, for the second year in a row, CBO has been recognized by the Partnership for Public Service as one of the "Best Places to Work in the Federal Government."  We were ranked third among 34 agencies in the small agency category.

The Partnership says that ...

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the economic stimulus package, certain recipients of funds appropriated in ARRA (most grant and loan recipients, contractors, and subcontractors) are required to report the number of jobs funded through ARRA after the end of each calendar quarter. ...

In March, CBO estimated that the total cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would be $109 billion over the life of the program.  That estimate (which represented the present value, adjusted for market risk, of the program’s activities) was based on market values in February, actions that had ...

CBO estimates, in its annual summer update of the budget and economic outlook, that the federal budget deficit for 2010 will exceed $1.3 trillion—$71 billion below last year’s total and $27 billion lower than the amount that CBO projected in March 2010 when it issued its previous estimate. Relative ...

The federal budget deficit was about $1.2 trillion in the first ten months of fiscal year 2010, CBO estimates in its latest Monthly Budget Review—about $90 billion less than the roughly $1.3 trillion deficit incurred through July 2009.

By CBO’s estimate, spending during the first 10 months of the fiscal ...

In responding to questions raised by Congressional staff and outside analysts, we have found some errors in one section of our report The Long-Term Budget Outlook, which was released on June 30, 2010 and discussed in a previous blog entry. To correct those errors, we issued a revised version ...

In fiscal crises in a number of countries around the world, investors have lost confidence in governments’ abilities to manage their budgets, and those governments have lost their ability to borrow at affordable rates. With U.S. government debt already at a level that is high by historical standards, and the ...

People born in other countries are a growing presence in the U.S. labor force. In 2009, more than 1 in 7 people in the U.S. labor force were born elsewhere; 15 years earlier, only 1 in 10 was foreign born. About 40 percent of the foreign-born labor force in 2009 ...