Barro on the Slow Recovery

Robert says incentives are the key:

Consider the expansion of social-safety-net programs, including food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid (prospectively) and housing and mortgage programs. In a study published last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan observed that, because these programs were means-tested (falling or ending as income rises), expanding them raised the effective marginal tax rate on labor income.

Specifically, Mr. Mulligan estimates that the effective marginal tax rate for low-income households went from around 40% in 2007, before the recession started, to about 48% in 2009, at the start of the recovery. Thus, while these programs may be attractive from the standpoint of assisting poor families, they dilute incentives to work.

To achieve a real recovery, government policy should focus on individual incentives to work, produce and invest. Central here are tax rates and regulations, including especially clarity about future policies. In a successful policy package, the government would get its fiscal house in order and make meaningful long-term reforms to entitlement programs and the tax structure.