joining me now is jared bernstein former chief economist for joe biden. with the exception of the asian community, they are down for every racial group especially for african-americans. and when we break it down by age and gender, adult men and women, especially teens, they appear to be struggling less to find those jobs out there. what's your first reaction to this report and what it means on the grander scale? >> my first reaction is that it's a solid report. the payroll gains as you mentioned north of 200,000 for the past few months. if you kind of average out some of the dips in these numbers, we're adding jobs at about 190,000 per month this year. that's enough to slowly, steadily bring down the unemployment rate. and we should note that the decline in unemployment from 7.3% to 7%, some of the months we talked about falling unemployment has been because people have left the job market. they've given up hope of finding jobs. last month they came into the labor market, they found jobs. so a solid report for sure. >> as we look at the reaction from the

. >> joining me now, krystal ball and jared bernstein. krystal, this is one of those love john mccain days. just because -- i mean, the guy drives you crazy and then every once in a while there's one of these moments. he could have just voted and went his merry way but he couldn't help but rubbing ted cruz's -- if we don't do this, what do we do? just tell me what we do to avoid a government shutdown and he said the american public steadfastly rejects a shutdown. >> john mccain was the most vocal senator when ted cruz was pulling his government shutdown shenanigans. he's the one who called him a wacko bird as well. the interesting thing here, too, is that john mccain has been directly honest about what this deal is really about. for both sides, what they wanted to come to the table around was finding a way to avoid at all costs another government shutdown. democrats don't want it because government shutdowns are over and republicans like paul ryan and john boehner and those who voted against it don't want it because it is destruction for

joining me are jared bernstein and randy weingarten. you both for being here. >> jared, i thought obama care was supposed to be a job killer. what happened here? >> i thought the way you put it was right. they're going to have to go for a new talking point. not only did we add 203,000 jobs last month in november, but if you look over the past 11 months just over the year 2013, we've averaged about 190,000 jobs per month. so the trend of the last couple of months has actually been a lasting one. the unemployment rate fell from 7.3% to 7%. sometimes when we've talked about declining unemployment in recent months, it's been because people left the job market. but not in november. we had people coming into the job market and finding jobs. now, we're not out of the woods. 7% is too high an unemployment rate. i'm sure you would agree with me. but we're certainly headed in the right direction and perhaps at a faster clip than we thought. completely inconsistent with those talking points. >> no doubt about it. but, you know, randi here's a compa

joining me now are jared bernstein and krystal ball. you both for coming on the show. >> thanks for having us, rev. >> thank you. >> krystal, so much work to do but this dprs is on track to be the least productive ever. >> well, that's exactly right. and i think they're leaving because they don't care to get anything done. they want to keep flogging negative obama care stories and hope that scores them some political points. but the truth of the matter is they could put immigration reform on the house right now and it would pass. they could do something like raising the minimum wage which is hugely popular out there in the country. and whether they want to address these issues or not, i do think there is a rising wave of support that is going to have to force them to take action. they're not going to do it on their own. on black friday we saw 1500 prote protests around the country at walmart. this week we're e sooing fast food workers protest for a higher wage. i think that is one thing they're not going to be able to ignore for long. >

here now, jared bernstein and representative dave swikert.ave r let me begin with you, is my information correct? there is going to be a deal. there is going to be a vote. there are not enough votes to get 218 in the house. the defense hawks and others will not permit the sequester to go through. is that fair? is that correct? >> that's the information i'm hearing. we're all getting on the airplanes tonight and heading back to d.c. to start this actual discussion tomorrow morning. hopefully by midday tomorrow, we'll know what the real facts are and actually where the votes are starting to lay. >> jared, what i also gather is they're going to move some spending accounts around. not going to get into appropriations minutia. that's all going to be shifted around. but it is interesting, once they get that done and once the defense appropriations goes up some, they're looking at semiinteresting stuff here. higher co-pays for federal pension system, maybe higher fees for the guarantees of that system, maybe fannie and freddie have to pay more. avia

joining us now is former chief economist for vice president biden, jared bernstein. he's at the center of budget and policies. jim pazakukas is with the american institute and cnbc. jimmy p., what about income inequality. there's a lot of studies out there and they show in the last 20 or 30 years that hasn't happened. that's not true. it's a bogus issue. >> i don't want to have study versus counter study. income inequality, the top 90% and 10% have increased. a lot of disputes about how high inequality has gone. the president fears all of the statistics about income inequality. there is no evidence that, a, income inequality hurts income and, b, there's no evidence that income inequality has led to the middle class stagnation. you don't have to look at the studies. there's a country that's been running the obama playbook for 20 years. it's tough to fire people. that country is called japan. how has their economy done the past 20 years, terrible. that's the obamanomics there. >> what do you think of jim p.'s challenge? >> i think that the issue that you're missing the

washington, political strategist, angela rye, principle of impact strategies and msnbc contributor, jared bernstein, senior fellow at the center of budget and policy priorities. jared, start with you. this is president obama going deep. he really went in on an issue you have been working on for a long time, which is income inequality. what was your reaction to the president's speech today? >> i did think it was a speech of some depth. and i wrote that, because i thought that it was a very skewed diagnosis. we used to talk about inequality and i've been looking at that phenomenon for decades now, and throw up our charts and say, boy, look at that, folks, isn't that that a problem? what the president did today, is he tied that to the lack of opportunity, to the lack of mobility. even to problems in overall economic growth. financial instability. bubbles. the kinds of problems that have been really tanking the economy now for a number of business cycles. so it was a very complete diagnosis of the problem. and i thought the prescriptions, which you began to get at in your introduction, went right to th

kathryn ample, sarah cliff and jared bernstein, thanks for watching us through some of these numbers.oming up, we've got a question for you that's pretty important. is the president leading us into potentially the start of a new era in the war on trugs and one where the punishment actually fits the crime? say with us for that story. if i can impart one lesson to a new business owner, it would be one thing i've learned is my philosophy is real simple american express open forum is an on-line community, that helps our members connect and share ideas to make smart business decisions. if you mess up, fess up. be your partners best partner. we built it for our members, but it's open for everyone. there's not one way to do something. no details too small. american express open forum. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. stick with innovation. stick with power. stick with technology. get the new flexcare platinum from philips sonicare and save now. philips sonicare. ♪ ♪ if i was a flower growing wild and free ♪ ♪ all i'd want is you to be my sweet honeybee ♪ ♪ and if was

right back to the policy agenda the president talked about that we've been discussing here. >> jared bernstein and e.j. dionne, this is good stuff and we'll be watching this and looking forward to a year of action on these issues. >> thank you. >> thank you both for your time. >> thank you, reverend. >> great weekend to both of you. >> you too. >>> coming up, darrell issa's new leaks and smears against the president. the man taking him on, congressman elijah cummings joins me live on what he calls issa's reckless pattern of misleading information. >>> and more fallout from the "duck dynasty" star's anti-gay and racially charged remarks. why are so many on the right coming to his defense? one even compared the tv star to rosa parks. note to the republican party, you got a brand problem. >>> plus will there be justice after all? new developments tonight in the so-called affluenza case. >>> and george zimmerman gets back his guns. and his girlfriend was right by his side. we open the justice files tonight. stay with us. big show ahead. yep. got all the cozies. [ grandma ] with new fedex one rate,

jared bernstein, thanks so much. >> thank you, alex. >>> let's go to education.ings about the schools here in america, especially when you compare it to how the rest of the world is doing. it's based on the latest test results from the program for international student assessment. many consider this to be the world's most important exam. julia ryan wrote about these findings in her article. she joins me now. i think frightening is the word because i was very disturbed by this article, julia. the title really says it all. the american education system is apparently very pricey. it's not equal. we have the lowest scores in math. first of all, tell me about the study and its results. >> so the study is called the program for international student assessment. it's given every three years to 15-year-olds around the world. just over half a million students took this exam in 2012. outs of 34 oecd countries, america scores 26th in math. 17th in reading and 21 in science. >> okay. it may be average in most areas, but it did rank near the top in spending at number five. >>

joining me now, jared bernstein and josh barrow. u both. >> thank you. >> jared, i want to start with you because obviously this deal was, you know, finally calibrated to, you know, it was sort of not too much, not too little and as much as both sides are sort of unhappy, it does strike me that there is some credit to be given to the democrats for pretty immediately taking the entitlement programs off the table and president obama at one point had said he would support it or he would be open to the idea of it being on the table. >> actually, there wouldn't have been even this small deal at all if those kinds of larger issues hadn't left the room. down here in washington, there's a lot of talk about a grand bargain for years. the idea that democrats would give on entitlements and republicans give on tax revenues and it never happened because both camps were solidly against it. and so, only when they dispelled the notion of doing anything grand could they find any common ground at all and there's a tiny little patch of common ground th

. >> joining me now are jared bernstein and dana milbank. dana, a deal. can they sell this deal? >> well, i think they can, rev repd. it's not clear paul ryan can sell it to a majority of his caucus, but they're taking it to the floor anyway. it's something to celebrate in it beats a shutdown. it's not something to celebrate they put aside all the big deals. doing something about tax reform, entitlement. and just said what's a small thing we can agree on in the short-term. >> but they do need to sell it, dana. they need democratic votes to even get this out of the house. >> definitely are going to need democratic votes. and i expect democrats will be an easier sell for this because they're replacing some of the sequester. not all of it. they didn't get that far. but the cuts aren't going to be quite as deep as they otherwise would have been. i think democrats are going to say it's better than we had otherwise even though we don't like it. >> it's a narrow deal, jared. because you're dealing with it does reduce the sequester by $65 billion. but nobody got what they wanted on the e

okay, if it's jobs friday, it times for our dynamic economic duo, jared bernstein and peter marchi, even>> i think this is a good jobs report given what we've been through. >> easy, jerry. >> i would like to have more jobs and be around 300,000, 400,000 but i think next year will be even better. so much so i think it is time to start to withdraw the stimulus and start focusing on budgetary priorities in terms of what do we really want to do. what do we really need and worry less about stimulus but more about the fundamentals. we need to rebuild bridges. let's not do that because it's stimulus but because we need bridges. >> i think we've got an optimist in a peter suit. i'm suprprised what i'm hearing from you morici. jared, you have an article talking about the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. let me quote a little bit. in a highly consumption driven economy such as ours, the upward distribution of growth to those with lower propensities to consume should lead to slower growth. i know you caveat that it's hard to find all of the evidence to prove it but you se

. >>> today's tweet of the day comes from msnbc contributor and economist jared bernstein.m wage increased to $11.50 by 2016. who says d.c. is dysfunctional? [ male announcer ] more than a security system. adt can help you turn on a few lights... ♪ ...bring family in from the cold... ♪ ...even let you know when an old friend has arrived. ♪ now get adt's best holiday offer. adt. always there. see who does good work and compare costs. it doesn't usually work that way with health care. but with unitedhealthcare, i get information on quality rated doctors, treatment options and estimates for how much i'll pay. that helps me, and my guys, make better decisions. i don't like guesses with my business, and definitely not with our health. innovations that work for you. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. stick with innovation. stick with power. stick with technology. get the new flexcare platinum from philips sonicare and save now. philips sonicare. >>> to politics now. how fun would it be to go on a tour of the white house and actually be greeted by the guy who lives there?

joining us now is jared bernstein, senior fellow at the center for budget and policy priorities.sor at ucla berkeley. labor secretary under president clinton, as you know. and his new film, "inequality for all," about america's widening income gap is currently in theatres. welcome to both of you. >> thank you. >> let me start with you, jared, the consumer financial protection bureau, some of the recent prosecutions we have seen of banks, including jpmorgan and other civil investigations. are we seeing something of a shift in the way the obama administration is able to combine basically prosecution and regulation to rein in some bank practices? yes. we're seeing something of a shift. the volcker rule, as articulated today, came out of a set of negotiations by a bunch of regulators. actually looks pretty good. and i'm not the only one to say that. believe me, i look at these things with a jaundiced eye. others oh worried it wouldn't be teat enough are writing fairly flattering commentary about it. i do think there is a shift. the big question, though, is whether the oversight funct

from sanford, florida, msnbc contributor jared bernstein, senior fellow for budget policy priority, one-time economic adviser to the vice president. welcome jared down there and everybody here. susie, if you can give us the bottom line on the capitol hill congressional politics of where it stands? harry reed in the senate set a vote on january 6th of some kind of extension. does it have any chance of clearing this republican-controlled house? >> so the extension as you mentioned would not be offset by any other proms that republicans have been asking for. it would be three months. the idea is the folks supporting this extension want to buy themselves more time for a year-long extension. >> that this will be give them more time to work something out. they said even democrats are willing to look for pay fors to offset the costs overall for the year it would be $25 billion. so the three month extension would be $6 billion t. question is, is this something that congress can swallow right now? as you mentioned, there is a budget deal. although both the house and the senate easily passed this firs

highlighted in the year-end column called "guide posts on the road back to factville" by my next guest, jared bernsteine vice president, also a cnbc and msnbc contributor. everyone knows how much i appreciate jared on this show. before i get to some of the points you have in your column, big picture here, is there a clear growing inequality in this country? does the notion of an economic trickle down effect a fallacy? in other words, wall street riding high, main street not feeling it. >> there's a very clear disparity between those who depend on, say, assets like stockings or bonds and those who depend on paychecks. for example, i just ran these numbers this morning, and they're very much in sync with what you've been saying. if you look since the economy's been expanding, mid-2009, the stock market in real terms is up 77%. corporate profits are up 50%. the median household income, the real income of the household right in the middle of the scale is down 4%. clearly that disparity exists. now, it doesn't mean -- i do believe the trickle down economics is very much a fallacy, but i think we have to be

with us now, two top economists, lindsey and jared bernstein, welcome. >> thank you. >> you know, lindseyunemployment rate was the biggest surprise of the year. it went all the way down to 7%. this was the point at which bernanke had previously indicated and others at the fed that we'd be tapering -- that we would be towards the end of tapering. what do you think happens with the unemployment rate? >> the fed tied it to unemployment rate, but he said he would be looking at decline in unemployment rate in context with other variables. i.e. works week, participation rate, average weekly earnings, all of dh we've seen very little improvement. as we've seen a decline in unemployment rate, the fed said they'd be looking at that in the context of the broader economy. >> i wonder if to some extent the jobs report doesn't take a backseat to inflation reports from now on. >> i don't think so. i know janet yellen looks very carefully at the jobs report and is extremely interested in the labor market improving. it's almost the first sentence she talks about when she talks about the economy, is the j

jared bernstein, the senior fellow at the center for senior budget policies, also former chief economistro, joe biden. >> another great joe. >> joe, we sent him to china, it's done, boom, 24 hours, everything's fine. right? pats a couple people on the back. i don't know. we need more joe. i'm backing him against -- becky's backing hillary. anyway. here's what -- i like what you say, jared, because you're smart. you make the point that -- >> this is feeling a little bit like a set-up, but go ahead. >> it is. no. because you make the point that it matters how much you raise the minimum wage. >> right. >> i've said, okay. let's make it $100 an hour and see whether that does anything. and you do a thing where you go up to a certain point where it's beneficial. and beyond that, it could actually hurt job creation, right? >> right. that's precisely what i believe the evidence shows. and i was listening to your conversation earlier, much of which i found very interesting, especially about the economy. but on the minimum wage, i do think it often gets discussed in much too sweeping a manner beca

. >> jared bernstein is the chief economic officer.congressman from georgia, representative phil beginni begin gree. we were having a conversation as to whether or not people know that today is that very important deadline if they need coverage from january 1st. i see that the traffic on the government's federal website. >> if they don't sign up today and if they don't get through this healthcare.gov or whatever government website that they are try tog get on or maybe even through the states, the state of maryland is having a terrible time. they have their own exchange and people having a horrible time. the governor there, o'malley, is complaining profusely about that. if they don't get signed up and they don't have coverage in january, they can continue to sign up until the end of march. what happens if they get run over by a mack truck between january 1st and march the 30 th they are not covered. >> jared, if you were still an adviser to the white house, would you have let them effectively break the individual mandate when they sugge

let's bring in jerry bernstein. jareds a senior fellow at the center of budget and policy priority, former chief economist and economic adviser to vice president joe biden and an msnbc contributor. thanks for being here. happy holidays. >> thank you, kristen. nice to see you. >> great to see you as well. i want to ask you about this point you raised in politico last week. we have a graphic of it. you write, does the recent outbreak of compromise between the parties that delivered the murray/ryan budget deal mean more much cooperation is on the way? that's the question. what's the answer? more cooperation in 2014? >> i'm afraid we're not going to see a lot but we'll see some. whether 2014 will be more productive than 2013 just makes it a very low bar and i think probably they'll be able to clear that. i mean, remember, at the end of the year as we said, there was a little bit of bipartisanship on a tiny budget deal. also very important to add to your list of those three bullet points you had, raise the debt ceiling. that's