Why Have Levels of Income Inequality Risen So Much?
The recession has been tough on many Americans. But the recession only started in 2008, and the statisticians at the National Bureau of Economic Research figure it ended in 2009. ...
Labor
The Problem Isn’t Growth — The Problem Is Inequality
Commentators still talk about the Great Recession as if we're still in it. But according to semi-official statistics from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) the recession ended in...
Federal Workers Should Not Have to Pay for the Social Security Tax Cuts
Congress is set to extend the 2011 Social Security tax reduction to the end of 2012. Three cheers for that. Social Security taxes are some of the most unfair in...
Outrageous Bonuses for Federal Workers
Members of the US House of Representatives -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- seems to think that federal workers are overpaid. They voted 309-117 to freeze the salaries of federal...
Job Churning, Job Creation, and the Reregulation of America’s Realonomy
Where do jobs come from? Pro-business groups regularly repeat the mantra that jobs are created by entrepreneurs, strong-charging world-changers who fight endless government interference to build businesses from scratch. But...
The Realonomy versus the Wealthy 1%
According to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, the economy is growing again. In fact, it's been growing since July 2009. The economy grew in the second half of 2009,...
Making the Payroll Tax Cut Revenue-Neutral
President Obama and Republican leaders are currently debating whether or not to extend the 2011 Social Security tax reductions for one more year. The usual Social Security payroll tax is...
British and Greek Workers Strike for All of Us
Government workers went out on strike in Greece and the United Kingdom last week. The two strikes are unrelated, but they share the same root causes. In both countries the...
Centralized Labor Agreements in Finland: How Unions, Companies, and Government Can Work Together for a Better Society
Here in the United States, corporations treat their workers as adversaries. The role of management is to "keep costs down," which is another way of saying that it gets paid...