Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Lisa Burnam
Weak GDP, Strong Jobs: Key Takeaways from a Confusing Economy
We are seeing a strange economy that is getting stranger because of the war. GDP growth is relatively weak. The topline numbers for the last two quarters were misleading because of the DOGE layoffs taking effect in the 4th quarter, along with the government shutdown. These subtracted almost 1.2 percentage points from the quarter’s growth. The reversal of the shutdown added almost 0.6 percentage points to first quarter growth.
China, AI Competition, and Inequality in the Age of Trump
The world is leaning on China a lot these days as a counterweight to the lunacy of Donald Trump. No one has illusions that China and its leader, Xi Jinping, are champions of democracy, but at a time when the U.S. president is gleefully bombing boats and countries, and debating which regime to change next, China is an island of sanity. I’ve made the analogy to Stalin in World War II, which continues to be appropriate.
Investment and Government Spending Boost First Quarter GDP, Inflation Jumps to 4.5%
GDP grew at a 2.0 percent annual rate in the first quarter driven by large increases in investment and government spending. Non-residential investment grew at a 10.4 percent annual rate, adding 1.39 percentage points (p.p.) to growth in the quarter. Government spending was also a major contributor to growth, growing at a 4.4 percent rate and adding 0.73 p.p. to growth. Consumption grew at just a 1.6 percent annual rate, adding 1.08 p.p. to growth.
Florida Workers Deserve A Better May Day Than This
May Day is traditionally a day for workers to celebrate their collective power. In Florida, however, lawmakers have advanced yet another bill meant to undercut just that by weakening the state’s public-sector unions. Critics have characterized SB 1296 as a naked attempt to bust public sector unions.
Quick Thought on AI and the Environment: It Should Mean MORE Environmental Regulation
We know that logic is not highly valued in policy debates, but I have an addiction, so I will insist on using it. Everyone’s favorite example of logic failing elite intellectuals is the stories on the demographic crisis, where we are running out of workers, which alternate with the stories of AI causing us to run out of jobs. Somehow, people with advanced degrees can’t understand that we can’t both have a crisis of too few workers and too many workers.
GDP Preview: What to Expect in the First Quarter 2026 Report
GDP growth in the fourth quarter was extraordinarily weak at just 0.5 percent. The main factor depressing growth was a 16.6 percent decline in federal spending, which subtracted 1.16 percentage points (p.p.) from growth in the quarter. It’s worth noting that growth in the quarter still would have been weak, at 1.7 percent, even without the negative contribution from the federal government sector.
AI Bubble Warning: Lessons from the Dot-Com Crash
I have written before on the AI bubble. The stock valuations we are seeing now look a lot like the valuations we saw before the Internet bubble began to crash in 2000. Even a quarter century later, people miss much of the story of that bubble. It’s true we had companies that never made a profit, like Pets.com, with valuations in the billions. But the story went far beyond some flaky companies having ridiculous market capitalizations.
Why Most Americans Shouldn’t Celebrate Stock Market Gains
Imagine celebrating the price of corn or wheat hitting a record high. That would make perfect sense if you grew corn or wheat, but it’s hard to see why anyone else would be celebrating. This is the same story with the stock market, even though shareholders are a somewhat larger share of the population than corn or wheat farmers. But the basic principle is the same. In principle, the stock market reflects expectations of future after-tax corporate profits.
A Quick Note on the AI Bubble: Either the Market or Arithmetic is Wrong
Busy morning, but I was struck by this comment in OilPrice.com that repeated an observation from a Financial Times piece. “You may not know it, but AI work is measured in tokens. According to the Financial Times, as of recently, Chinese AI groups have overtaken American ones in sales of tokens. Why? For one, the Chinese models appear to be more efficient, and they get good electricity rates, according to the authoritative peach colored paper.
Is Imperial County, California Going to Get Burned Again? Sodium Can Replace Lithium
News of technological developments seem to take a long time to reach the New York Times. Yesterday it ran a major news story on how lithium deposits were going to be the economic salvation of Imperial County, California. The headline tells readers that the county stands to be the “Saudi Arabia” of lithium. The subhead gushes: “Residents of Imperial County, Calif., are in dire need of an economic boost.
Data Centers And Price Spikes: Why The Public Should Own Its Utilities – OpEd
As hyperscale data centers expand across the country, communities across the political spectrum are meeting big tech’s encroachment with critical, organized resistance. In Maryland, Prince George’s County residents recently scored a temporary ban on data center construction permits. In Arizona, Chandler City residents, environmentalists and political groups successfully pressured the city council to vote down a rezoning request by a developer, despite lobbying from former Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
Data Centers and Price Spikes: Why the Public Should Own Its Utilities
As hyperscale data centers expand across the country, communities across the political spectrum are meeting big tech’s encroachment with critical, organized resistance. In Maryland, Prince George’s County residents recently scored a temporary ban on data center construction permits. In Arizona, Chandler City residents, environmentalists and political groups successfully pressured the city council to vote down a rezoning request by a developer, despite lobbying from former Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
Kristi Noem is Out, But Who is Markwayne Mullin?
After facing criticism from both sides of the aisle over her handling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and repeated calls for impeachment over her leadership of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Kristi Noem is out at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). But it doesn’t look like her handling of FEMA or ICE led to the decision — though that probably didn’t help. In the end, it was a $220 million ad campaign that promotes not DHS but rather Kristi Noem.
Worker Interests Are Not the Same as Corporate Interests
Karen Harned, president of Harned Strategies LLC and a senior fellow at the Institute for the American Worker (I4AW), has written one of the greatest works of gaslighting in recent memory. Her op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, “The National Labor Relations Board Gets a Makeover,” lauds the dismantling of the National Labor Relations Board as a victory for workers. Harned is not writing in a vacuum.
Donald Trump Says His Team are Total Morons: Can’t Find Millions of Illegal Voters
We all know that Donald Trump lies all the time about almost everything. But just for fun, it can be interesting to imagine he is telling the truth. Trump keeps repeating the claim that millions, maybe even tens of millions, of undocumented immigrants are brought into the country to cast votes for Democratic candidates. His incredibly rich friend — and occasional sidekick — Elon Musk has made the same claim. It’s worth sitting back and thinking about this one for a moment.
Why Are ICE Agents Wearing Masks While Local Police Do Not?
There are more than 700,000 state and local law enforcement officers. There are tens of thousands more who work for agencies like the FBI, the National Parks, and the Treasury Department. Except on rare occasions, like a SWAT raid on a drug gang, almost none of these officers cover their faces and hide their identities. Why does Kristi Noem’s ICE team feel this need? Noem claims that ICE is going after the “worst of the worst” — murders, rapists, child sex traffickers, and the like.
Higher Ed Cuts: Future's Promise to Future Profits
Part of my undergrad was spent at Howard University, standing in Financial Aid lines that snaked the halls of the Administrative building, often out the entrance doors. I saw futures derailed in that place: Hours of standing and sitting with all your need-validating documents in a folder, clutched to your bosom, just to find out you didn’t complete one form and had to come back the next day to do it all over again. No cell or smart phones. You had one shot to get it right.
No, Economists Didn’t Get It Wrong On Trump’s Tariffs
A threatened tariff that is never implemented does not hurt the economy as much as a threatened tariff that is actually implemented. That simple point seems to have eluded Matthew Lynn, whose recent Washington Post column title told readers, “Economists Were Wrong About Tariffs.
September 2025 CPI Preview: What to Expect
The overall CPI rose 0.4 percent in August, while the core index rose 0.3 percent. This brought the rate of inflation over the last year in the two indexes to 2.9 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively. Both indexes are likely to show similar rates of growth in September. The energy index rose 0.7 percent in August; it will likely also show a rapid rate of growth in September.
How the Affordable Rental Housing Crisis is Hurting Hispanics
Policies to provide affordable rental housing have been inadequate since the 1960s, and they have only gotten worse in recent years. Policy analysts consider households paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing to be cost-burdened. In other words, these households need affordable housing but are not able to find it. In 2001, the Joint Center for Housing Studies reports, 40.6 percent of renters were cost-burdened (see Excel Data tables).
September 2025 Jobs Preview: Weak Growth Ahead
There have been four consecutive months of weak job growth. Slower growth is likely to continue into September. A major factor is the slowing of potential labor force growth due to the curtailment of immigration. This is by design. However, there are other measures of the labor market, notably slower wage growth and low hiring and quit rates, that indicate there is also weakness on the demand side.
Trump, Pulte, and Lisa Cook: Rich People Lie, Consequences are for Others
A few weeks back, Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency Director (FHFA) and the billionaire heir to a housing construction firm, claimed to have found evidence that Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook had committed mortgage fraud. Donald Trump immediately tried to fire Cook from her position at the Fed, with the intention of getting another seat on the Fed’s seven-person board. This attempted firing raised several serious questions.
Trump's Nativist Strategy is Bread and Circus – and Deeply American
When liberal Journalist Mehdi Hasan took part in an online debate covering just a few topics, it turned into more of a gauntlet or political escape room than anything else. For one hour, Hasan debated 20 self-described ‘far-right conservatives.’ One of his claims was ‘immigrants are good for America.’ His opponents, of course, did not agree.
Opinion: A $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage Is No Longer Sufficient
By Lisa Burnam The writer is a mother of two and a democratic socialist candidate for Prince George’s County Council in District 9. $30,000 a year. Or, put another way, $2,600 a month — that’s how much $15 an hour amounts to before taxes. A recent cost-of-living study put out by Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC) examined what families pay for standard necessities, such as groceries, housing, utilities, transportation and health.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Lisa
Contact Lisa, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack