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Even with a freeze on basic pay rates and unpaid leave days and repeated attacks on the federal workforce, being a federal employee means you have a good, though as of late, a less-lucrative job. That can’t be said by everyone in the federal workplace.

Federal taxpayers employ more low-wage workers than Wal-Mart and McDonald’s combined, a new study calculates.

Washington – On Wednesday, May 8 at 9 a.m. EST, low-wage workers from around the country employed in a variety of firms operating under federal contracts, loans, and leases will join Members of Congress, community leaders, and local elected officials to announce the launch of Good Jobs Nation—a new

The average unemployment rate in the first quarter of this year was 7.7 percent. But for African-American workers that rate was 13.6 percent. For Latinos, it was 9.5 percent. And among those who do have jobs, wages are not rising.

Lucila Ramirez, 55, has been cleaning the bathrooms and tables at Washington, D.C.’s Union Station for 21 years. Despite her long record of service, Ramirez says she makes only $8.75 per hour, and receives no benefits or sick days. “I work in a federal building doing work on behalf of the government

The vacuous, cheerful expression of the Walmart smiley face has long been associated with the paradoxically dark reality of low-wage work. With the recent fast-food worker walkouts in New York, the golden arches may go down, too, in the annals of class-war symbology.

The entire social and fiscal debate ignores this monster of an issue, but it’s only a matter of time. The kids are moving back home when they graduate and can’t find work. Soon, grandma and grandpa are going to be moving in, too. There’s a reckoning ahead that policymakers and the news media haven’t

How Our Tax Dollars Are Funding Low-Wage Work and Fueling Inequality

NEW YORK, NY – With much attention on labor strikes spreading across the country to protest low pay and poor working conditions in the retail and fast food industries, national public policy center Demos releases a new report today documenting a surprising part of the economy where low wages are

The class of ’13 has no luck at all. As the graduates take to the streets with their six-month grace periods before their student loan debt bills begin arriving, they face a horrific job market. “At 16.2 percent, the March 2013 unemployment rate of workers under age 25 was [roughly] twice as high as