Seymur Slavin: The startling fact is that low wage jobs now constitute 58% of all job growth. The jobs with the fastest growth were retail sales at a median wage of $10.97 per hour. At this salary, workers would be eligible for food stamps.
Why Austerity Economics Hurts Low-Wage Workers the Most
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Robert Reich: encouraged by the economic recovery and perhaps also by the election returns, low-wage workers have started to organize.
Anaheim’s Not-So Magic Kingdom
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Bobbi Murray: No one is saying The Mouse is somehow responsible for the present Anaheim unrest, but you can argue that city leaders might look out for the good of all Anaheim residents instead of a training a single focus on the Biggest Employer In Town.
Thoughts on Tax Day 2012
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Robert Reich: I worry about the well-financed big lies that the very rich are the nation’s “job creators,” that the benefits from tax cuts on the rich “trickle down” to everyone else.
Stop Starving Public Universities and Shrinking the Middle Class
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Robert Reich: Public higher education has been the gateway to the middle class but that gate is shutting – just when income and wealth are more concentrated at the top than they’ve been since the 1920s, and when America needs the brainpower of its young people more than ever.
The Seven Biggest Economic Lies
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Robert Reich: Here’s a short effort to rebut the seven biggest whoppers now being told by those who want to take America backwards.
Protests, Not Parades, This Labor Day
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Robert Reich: Labor Day is traditionally a time for picnics and parades. But this year is no picnic for American workers, and a protest march would be more appropriate than a parade.
Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, Democrats Punt
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Robert Reich: Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm — the late 1920s, and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s.
The Root of Economic Fragility and Political Anger
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Robert Reich: We’re back to the same ominous trend as before the Great Recession: a larger and larger share of total income going to the very top while the vast middle class continues to lose ground.
Why Main Street Isn’t Getting Any Better
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Robert Reich: Americans have no choice but to pare back their debt. That’s bad news because consumer spending is 70 percent of the economy. It helps explain why we so few jobs are being created, and why we can’t escape the gravitational pull of the Great Recession without far more government spending.
A Double-Dip Recession Coming?
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Robert Reich: The only reason the economy isn’t in a double-dip recession already is because of three temporary boosts: the federal stimulus (of which 75 percent has been spent), near-zero interest rates (which can’t continue much longer without igniting speculative bubbles), and replacements (consumers have had to replace worn-out cars and appliances, and businesses had to replace worn-down inventories). Oh, and, yes, all those Census workers (who will be out on their ears in a month or so).
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