With Donald Trump sitting in the White House and right-wing Republicans controlling Congress, there is not much for labor to cheer about on the American national political scene. In addition, the overall prospect for union organizing does not look very good. Republicans are pursuing policies at both the national and state level to further erode …
Hints of Progress for Labor in the United States Read More »
While rising capital share and greater concentration of wealth explain some of the story of economic inequality, the largest part of the story is the growth in wage inequality over the last several decades. Available data from the Social Security Administration unfortunately doesn’t go past 1990, overlooking considerable upward distribution of wages beginning in 1980. However, wage …
With news that jobless claims are up, Dean Baker points out that “employers are already hiring more than 4 million workers a month. The problem is that roughly 4 million workers a month are also leaving their jobs, half voluntarily and half involuntarily.” So while it’s important to reduce jobless claims, the unemployment rate would …
Too often when economic times get tough, scapegoats are found in the wrong places. Wall Street greed and double-dealing sparked much of the nation’s recent near-financial collapse, yet many in the chattering classes instead are attacking public employees for this rolling recession. Economist Dean Baker puts the situation in perspective: Fifteen million people are not out of …
The White House on Wednesday took time out to promote the value of a flexible workplace that can accomodate two-paycheck families. With 15 million people officially unemployed, it made one nostalgic for a time before the recession, when people worried about the quality of their work lives rather than about just finding a job. But …
White House Boosts ‘Flexible’ Workplace, As 15 Million Still Seek ANY Workplace Read More »
*This article originally appeared in CEPR on March 1, 2010. Reprinted with permission. The housing bubble and subsequent crash were the result of extreme incompetence on the part of the country’s top economic policymakers. Somehow these people could not see, or did not care about, the dangers of an $8 trillion housing bubble. Unfortunately, economic …
Economic Policy and Unemployment: The Power of Stupidity Read More »
The index of total hours worked is below the November 1997 level. The unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent in January, driven by a 0.4 percentage-point drop in the unemployment rate for women to 8.4 percent. The unemployment rate for men fell 0.2 percentage points to 10.8 percent. This drop came in spite of a …
Surge in Women’s Employment Brings Unemployment Rate Down to 9.7 Percent Read More »
The Obama administration came out with its first set of numbers on the jobs impact of its stimulus package. It’s pretty much along the lines of what was predicted. To date, the package has created close to one million jobs. That is good news, but in an economy with more than 15 million unemployed workers, …
Employment of older workers has increased by almost 1 million in the downturn. The economy lost 247,000 jobs in July, bringing the rate of job loss over the last three months to 331,000. This is down sharply from the 700,000 monthly rate of decline in the months from November to February. The unemployment rate actually …
Pace of Job Loss Slows Sharply, as Unemployment Edges Down Read More »
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
