Quotes from Austan Goolsbee

We know there are a lot of people in the unemployment pool that do not match up in their skill set for what jobs are going to be created, and that's an area we've got to keep pressing on.

History teaches that the level of unemployment is not as important as whether the rate's going down.

You have to be looking for a job to get unemployment benefits. If you stop looking for work, you are no longer eligible to receive benefits.

In Michigan, in the mid-'80s, the unemployment rate goes way up because a lot of factories shut down. And then, the mid-2000s, to pick a date, the unemployment rate in Michigan isn't that much higher than in the rest of the country. But the main way that happened is people moved.

The U.S. is still in a pretty good spot, especially relative to other advanced countries. The aging of our population is not as pronounced as almost anyone else's.

The U.S. fiscal union has worked, in no small part, by enabling subsidies to the Mississippis without requiring the approval of the Minnesotas. It creates an important form of insurance.

When Texans suffered from the collapse of the oil market in the 1980s, they could rely on the fiscal union to help them. When Texas boomed with rising oil prices in the 2000s, it contributed to the union to help harder hit regions.

If we hit the debt ceiling, that's... essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history. The impact on the economy would be catastrophic.

It's clear that the medium and long-run fiscal challenges facing the country have to do with the rise of entitlement spending, they have to do with the longer run imbalances that we've created in the structure of the system.

What happened is we went into a recession beginning in December of 2007 that was the worst since 1929. And it is a very deep hole that we have been struggling to get out of.

I get massive invective, massive abuse, via email, phone messages, and Twitter. From people way, way to the right of center - scary, abusive kind of stuff. Really freaks out my assistant and my wife. Hate-filled.

My impression is the Trump administration is in imminent danger of violating the gunfighter's credo, which is 'Do not pick seven fights if you are carrying a six shooter.'

There were 14,000 people at the rally for the president in Ohio. There were another 8,000 people in Virginia. If all 22,000 of those people opened their wallets and gave $1,000 each, that would be less than one donation from a billionaire to the super PACs. And that's why he's in for the fight of his life.

If you're going to be an academic who's involved in the world of policy, you have to be involved in the world that exists.