The Congressional Budget Office’s transparency efforts are intended to promote a thorough understanding of its work, help people gauge how estimates might change if policies or circumstances differed, and enhance the credibility of its analyses and processes. This report fulfills CBO’s requirement to report on its plans for such efforts.

Transparency at CBO: Future Plans and a Review of 2021

Author(s): Lara Robillard and Congressional Budget Office

Publication Date: 3/1/2022

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-03/57701-Transparency.pdf

In this Fifth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission seeks to obtain detailed comment to enable it to make further progress toward ensuring that the rates, charges, and practices for and in connection with interstate and international inmate calling services meet applicable statutory standards.

Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services

Publisher: Federal Communications Commission

Volume, Issue, & Page: Vol. 86, No. 142

Publication Date: 7/28/2021

Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services

Financial stability risks have been contained so far, reflecting ongoing policy support and a rebound in the global economy earlier this year. However, the optimism that propelled markets earlier in the year has faded on growing concerns about the strength of the global recovery, and ongoing supply chain disruptions intensified inflation concerns. Signs of stretched asset valuations in some market segments persist, and pockets of vulnerabilities remain in the nonbank financial sector; recovery is uneven in the corporate sector.

Global Financial Stability Report, Covid-19, Crypto, and Climate

Author(s): International Monetary Fund

Publisher: Global Financial Stability Report

The global economic recovery is continuing, even as the pandemic resurges. The fault lines opened up by COVID-19 are looking more persistent—near-term divergences are expected to leave lasting imprints on medium-term performance. Vaccine access and early policy support are the principal drivers of the gaps.

Recovery during a Pandemic—Health Concerns, Supply Disruptions, Price Pressures

Author(s): International Monetary Fund

Publisher: World Economic Outlook

Publication Date: 10/1/2021

The approval of several COVID-19 vaccines in late 2020 has brightened public health and economic prospects for 2021. Yet, prior to the onset of the pandemic, the global economy already had a fragile growth outlook, with social tensions over the evident polarization of economic outcomes and high levels of uncertainty. At this critical juncture, policymakers need to look beyond reviving the old economy and instead shift towards a thriving global economy—where growth is revived, social justice more fully realized, and the climate crisis averted.

Chief Economists Outlook 2021

Publisher: World Economic Forum

Publication Date: 1/1/2021

A once-in-a-century crisis—a Great Disruption unleashed by a viral pandemic—hit the world economy in 2020. In a matter of months, the number of people living in poverty increased sharply, while income and wealth inequality trended towards new highs. Governments around the world responded rapidly—and boldly—to stem the health and economic contagion of the crisis. Fiscal and monetary stimulus packages were quickly rolled out to save the economy. The crisis responses, however, entailed difficult choices between saving lives and saving livelihoods, between speed of delivery and efficiency, and between short-term costs and long-term impacts.

Congress tasked BJS and the U.S. Census Bureau with reporting on post-prison employment of persons released from federal prison. The study population in this report includes 51,500 persons released from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) whose release records could be linked by the U.S. Census Bureau to employment and wage files from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program.

Employment of Persons Released from Federal Prison in 2010

Author(s): U.S. Department of Justice

Publication Date: 12/1/2021

https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/eprfp10.pdf

This report presents data on state government finances collected from the 2020 Annual Survey of State Government Finances.

Annual Survey of State Government Finances Summary: 2020

Author(s): Deirdre Baker, Justin Keller, Raemeka Mayo, and Kristina Marie Pasquino Frates

Publisher: U.S. Census Bureau

Publication Date: 12/1/2021

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/econ/g20-asfin.pdf

The COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting high and rising human costs worldwide, and the necessary protection measures are severely impacting economic activity. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy is projected to contract sharply by –3 percent in 2020, much worse than during the 2008–09 financial crisis. In a baseline scenario--which assumes that the pandemic fades in the second half of 2020 and containment efforts can be gradually unwound—the global economy is projected to grow by 5.8 percent in 2021 as economic activity normalizes, helped by policy support. The risks for even more severe outcomes, however, are substantial.

Having a global pandemic steamroll its way through a state’s economy is no one’s good idea of enacting budgetary restraints. But facing reality is not optional. Texas has faced budget tightening in its corrections system before. So, legislators must address this situation in a similar fashion— by once again prioritizing finite resources while, this time, seeking to get a handle on a costly, aging prison population and reducing technical violations that undermine the entire purpose of community supervision in the first place.

Chances are that you believe you are in the middle class—nearly everyone in the United States does. Doctors and lawyers believe they are middle-class; so, too, do welders and waiters. In a 2015 Pew survey, only 10 percent of Americans said they considered themselves lower-class and just 1 percent thought they were upper-class.

Earnings have been flat or stagnant for many middle-class workers in the United States while health care, education, and housing costs are rising. Surveys show that Americans accurately perceive these pressures too and share a broad belief that the middle class is struggling. Seven in ten respondents to a Northwestern Mutual survey said that the middle class was staying the same or shrinking. One-third said the middle class might disappear entirely.