by Sarah Anderson | Jun 4, 2014 | Minimum Wage, The Jobs Challenge
By Sarah Anderson and Frank Clemente Low-income families weren’t the only ones hurt by cuts to food stamps last fall. Top Walmart executives also took a hit. The cutbacks ate into the discount giant’s sales because so many of its low-income customers rely on this...
by Richard Eskow | Feb 19, 2014 | The Jobs Challenge
It’s been five years since the passage of President Obama’s stimulus bill (officially known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Its successes are well documented: an increase in the gross domestic product of between 2 and 3 percent from late 2009...
by Martha Burk | Feb 13, 2014 | Economy, Progressive Vision, The Jobs Challenge
When President Barack Obama talked about pay equity in his State of the Union speech last month and connected the dots between gender and low-wage work, advocates in the audience were ecstatic. Representative Rosa DeLauro, lead sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act...
by Robert Borosage | Feb 5, 2014 | Economy, Progressive Vision, The Jobs Challenge, The New Populism
One day after President Barack Obama called for moving forward on trade authority in his State of the Union address, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared, “I am against fast track,” and said he had no intention of bringing it to a vote in the Senate....
by Clyde Prestowitz | Jan 31, 2014 | Economy, The Jobs Challenge, Trans-Pacific Partnership
In his State of the Union message, President Obama suggested apprenticeships, tax reductions on new investments, and building new infrastructure as ways to increase jobs and reduce inequality in America. But he said virtually nothing about what is probably the single...
by Digby | Jan 27, 2014 | Economy, Making it in America, Minimum Wage, Progressive Vision, The Jobs Challenge
Responding to the depressing news that the administration has succumbed to elite pressure to "tone down" the rhetoric about wealth inequality, Damon Silvers, special counsel for the AFL-CIO, points out the uncomfortable truth: [T]he president faces a choice of...