Economists' Statement News Conference: Jobs, Not Austerity

Three hundred and fifty prominent economists issued a statement warning that “the fragile recovery is threatened by obsessive concern with cutting deficits that has infected both parties.” The economists from universities and research groups across the U.S. and the world reminded politicians that the U.S. economy in the post-election period is still “marked by mass unemployment, rising poverty, and declining wages.” And they warned that big spending cuts aimed at reducing deficits could throw the economy back into recession.

At a news conference, the co-authors of the statement, Robert Borosage and Roger Hickey, co-directors of the Institute for America’s Future and by Robert Kuttner, founder of The American Prospect, were joined by two of the signers, Robert Pollin, University of Massachusetts Economist and co-director of Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) and Teresa Ghilarducci, Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the The New School.