One of the stats that always amazes is this: If the federal minimum wage had kept pace with the rising cost of living over the past 40 years, it would be $10.52 per hour today. Instead, the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. That translates to $15,080 per year, below the poverty line for a …
Current Georgetown University Law Center Professor Peter Edelman knows a thing or two about poverty. While serving in the Health and Human Services Department under the Clinton administration, Peter famously resigned in protest to Clinton’s signing of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. He believed that the move from federal control of welfare grants to a …
So Rich, So Poor: What to make of America’s poverty problem Read More »
Two sides of the planet. Two different systems. Two different realities for workers–and, therein, lies the lesson: economies are about power, and values. Over in the U.S., if you are a waiter in the food industry, you are screwed, as Mark Bittman outlined in his column a few days ago, on the backs of a …
Two Worlds: Waiters Who Starve, And Those Who Don’t Read More »
One official measure of poverty around the world is surviving on $2 per day or less. It’s a condition many Americans could barely imagine living in. And yet the official data suggests that while politicians insist the U.S. is insulated from such deprivation, a large share of the country is feeling a cold draft from …
As ThinkProgress has previously noted, the 99 Percent Movement has been set off thanks to long-standing economic inequities and and a recession caused primarily by Wall Street’s misdeeds. But Wall Street did not engage in reckless financial behavior — which plunged 64 million people worldwide into extreme poverty — in a vacuum. In order to engage in …
The Other Occupation: How Wall Street Occupies Washington Read More »
No American has been immune to the challenges caused by the less-than-thrilling state of our economy. However, new statistics show that half of our population may be struggling a bit more than the other, more specifically the female half. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), in a new compilation of statistics, reports that a record …
Studies Show Growing Depravity for Women in this Economy Read More »
The debate I took part in yesterday–well, it’s hard to call it a debate when your opponent is not operating with a full deck of cards…meaning facts–on CNBC really illustrates, in the most starkest terms, the two visions of America. One vision sees unionized jobs, like those that many people have had in the auto …
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.
