by Dean Baker | Apr 29, 2014 | Economy
President Obama's chief economist, Jason Furman, weighed in behind efforts to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last week. The main plan on the table is a bill forward by Senators Tim Johnson and Mike Crapo, the chair and ranking member, respectively, on the Senate...
by Leo Gerard | Apr 29, 2014 | Economy, Making it in America
On Feb. 12, Edward Lewis Neal told his wife goodbye and drove to the Cooper Tire plant in Texarkana, Ark., where his co-workers called him Preacher because of his ministry at the Springdale Church of God and Christ. When an ambulance took Preacher from Cooper Tire...
by Robert Reich | Apr 28, 2014 | Economy
Until the 1980s, corporate CEOs were paid, on average, 30 times what their typical worker was paid. Since then, CEO pay has skyrocketed to 280 times the pay of a typical worker; in big companies, to 354 times. Meanwhile, over the same thirty-year time span the median...
by Robert Borosage | Apr 28, 2014 | Blog, Economy, Tax Reform
“The game is rigged and the American people know that. They get it right down to their toes.” — Senator Elizabeth Warren This week, the House Ways and Means Committee is poised to demonstrate exactly how the rules are rigged. On Tuesday, the committee will begin to...
by Lynne Stuart Parramore | Apr 24, 2014 | Economy
Fancy living up in Canada? Granted, it’s a bit chilly. But the middle class up there has just blown by the U.S. as the world’s most affluent. America’s wealthy are leaping ahead of the rest of much of the globe, but the middle class is falling behind. So are the poor....
by Bill Moyers | Apr 24, 2014 | Economy
Written by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship. The evidence of income inequality just keeps mounting. According to “Working for the Few,” a recent briefing paper from Oxfam, “In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since...
