Economy and Business
A Bold New Call for a ‘Maximum Wage’
How about taking a moment this Labor Day to reflect about those Americans who earn the least for their labor?
Percolate-Up Economics
Washington keeps handing massive bailouts to Wall Street giants and multibillion-dollar annual subsidies to Big Oil. Those giveaways certainly boost the 1-percenters’ bottom lines, but they do nothing to perk up America’s grassroots economy. And that’s not only where the rest of us live and work, it’s the only place that can generate real national prosperity.
The Race to the Bottom
Is the love of money the root of all evil? OK, so Jesus may have played down bigotry and megalomania when he said that, but overall his observation holds true 2,000 years later.
Hellish Working Conditions
Fix the Minimum Wage
In most states, working full-time in a minimum-wage job pays $7.25 per hour. That’s just $15,000 a year for full-time work. It’s not enough to live on. In fact, a breadwinner for a family of four earning the minimum wage would be a full $7,000 below the federal poverty line.
We’re All Subsidizing Free Lunches for America’s CEOs
A generation ago, on National Secretary’s Day, America’s top corporate executives used to take their prized office assistants out to lunch. Times change, and National Secretary’s Day has become Administrative Professionals’ Day. But something else has changed. These days, CEOs are getting the free lunches. Secretaries and all the rest of us are picking up the tab. And not at Burger King either.
Belt-Tightening Time
The 64-Gazillion-Dollar Question
Peter Edelman has battled poverty for nearly half a century, first as a top aide to Senator Robert Kennedy, later as a state and federal official, and currently as a key figure at a widely respected law and public policy center in Washington.
Caution, Fiscal Cliff Ahead
Crashing the GDP
At 9 p.m. on June 12, there was a collision on the freeway between Baltimore and D.C. The first car, a beige Prius. The second, a gigantic 18-wheeler tearing down I-95. The truck knocked the Prius sideways, sending it spiraling down the road and into the guardrail, the only thing that stopped it from plunging over the edge into the river below. The truck kept going.
