The U.S stock market may be at record highs and U.S. unemployment at its lowest level since the Great Recession, but income inequality remains stubbornly high. Contributing to this inequality is the fact that while more Americans are working than at any time since August 2007, more people are working part time, erratic and unpredictable …
More U.S. Workers Have Highly Volatile, Unstable Incomes Read More »
The income gap between the classes is growing at a startling pace in the United States. In 1980, the top 1 percent earned on average 27 times more than workers in the bottom 50 percent. Today, they earn 81 times more. The widening gap is “due to a boom in capital income,” according to research …
Income Inequality Is off the Charts. Can Local Policies Make a Difference? Read More »
In 2011, President Obama, speaking in the wake of Occupy Wall Street, called inequality the “defining issue of our time.” Now Jason Furman, chair of the Council on Economic Advisors, argues that Obama “narrowed the inequality gap” more than any president in 50 years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office echoes the observation that income inequality …
Inequality Is Still the Defining Issue of Our Time Read More »
In the late 1970s, my early years at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB), the Department of Economics had two secretaries. When I retired, in 2008, the number of faculty members and students in the department had increased, but there was only one secretary. All the faculty members had their own computers, with which they …
Will Artificial Intelligence Mean Massive Job Loss? Read More »
The average woman who had a full-time, year-round job in 2015 made just 80 percent of what a man did, according to the latest data from the Census Bureau. That’s up from last year’s 79 percent, but the increase is not statistically significant. The wage gap hasn’t closed significantly since 2007. In 2015, men made …
Labor Day is now seen as the official end of summer and a day off (at least for those who actually get paid holiday leave) to grill or go to the beach one last time. But when it was originally conceived as a federal holiday, it was as a concession to the labor movement after …
Some of the top experts on income inequality released a study of new, more accurate data this week, revealing that Americans in the top 1 percent have done far better than everyone else for the last half century — and why they’ve gotten so far ahead. At the American Economic Association conference this week, economists …
Thomas Piketty Ran The Numbers On Income Inequality. Here’s What He Found. Read More »
For many American workers, union and non-union alike, work ethic and attendance will only get them so far in the workplace. They may still face many adverse working conditions including but not limited to lack of safety, pay, and benefits. Furthermore, bargaining power of America’s workers is far weaker than it used to be. Most …
Heavy machinery manufacturer Caterpillar gave its CEO a 14 percent raise last year, in a $17.1 million package of cash, stock, and other compensation that is hard to justify in light of the famed brand’s actual performance. CEO Douglas Oberhelman’s big raise came despite a decline in Caterpillar’s sales. The company justified its decision to …
The article “Inequality, Power, and Ideology” was written in early 2009, as the U.S. economy was in the midst of the Great Recession. I argued that the severity of the recession was brought about by a nexus involving three factors: A growing concentration of political and social power in the hands of the wealthy; The …
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.
