Weekly Economic Snapshot 9/18 - 9/22

Economic Facts for this Week

Last week, the Joint Economic Committee Democrats released a report that underscores the importance of high-quality, universal pre-K in meeting the needs of working families and setting all children on the path to succeed.

• Half of all preschool-aged children lack formal education in a system where scant public funding puts pre-K education out of reach for millions of families.
• Costs for private, center-based pre-K programs, on average, amount to 13 percent of a median family’s income.
• Every dollar spent on early learning and development earns a social return of $7.30—out-preforming the long-run returns of investing in the S&P 500 stock index by more than 40 percent.
• Mothers of children receiving high-quality early learning and care are more likely to pursue post-secondary education and will earn on average an additional $90,000 over their lifetime.

Chart of the Week

Without adequate public funding for quality early learning and care programs, costs of quality private programs remain out of reach for many working families or relegate their kids to lower quality care. JEC research shows that in families earning less than $100,000, children are 27 percent less likely to be enrolled in high-quality early learning. Universal access to public pre-K is key to meeting the needs of working families and setting all kids on the path to success.

 ICYMI

• Assets equal to 10 percent of world GDP are held in offshore tax havens, according to new research. Typical measures of income and wealth do not include such offshore holdings, meaning that wealth is even more concentrated than previously understood.
• A modest tax on financial transactions—the trading of stocks, bonds, and derivatives—would raise $220-250 billion per year in federal tax revenues while curbing potentially destabilizing financial speculation. Numerous countries with leading global financial centers have long used financial transaction taxes, including the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
• Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz argues that sweeping changes to our economy—like the shift from a manufacturing-led to a services- and tech-led growth we’re seeing now—require policies to match the scale of disruptive change if we are to avoid prolonged drags on employment levels and economic growth.

Coming This Week

• Wednesday 2:00pm: Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) press conference - https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htm 
• Tuesday 8:30am: U.S. International Transactions (Current account balance and trade position) for 2^nd Quarter 2017 - https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/transactions/transnewsrelease.htm
• Wednesday 8:30am: GDP by Metropolitan Area for 2016 - https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_metro/gdp_metro_newsrelease.htm