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If we comparison shop for clothes and cars, why can't we do the same for something as serious as prices for the most common medical procedures? Until very recently, these prices were a closely guarded secret, secluded in a unwieldy, outdated government database that interested researchers had to pay

Fifty years after the "dream" of racial equality invoked by Martin Luther King at the March on Washington, the reality is that African-Americans still suffer the most unemployment. Government statistics show the overall US unemployment rate stood at 7.4 percent in July. But while whites had a

On Friday, Paul Krugman dealt with financial market price bubbles, focusing specifically on emerging markets. He takes on the issue of bubble creation as a result of aggressive Fed loose money policy of the recent past. He correctly points out that the emerging markets situation is really one of a

If you don't like unions, pray for tight labor markets. Because when labor is scarce, the law of supply and demand raises wages and workers don't have big incentives to unionize. It's when market's aren't tight that unions become a must-have for workers seeking more pay. That insight explains a lot

The Cato Institute came out with a big study recently that argues the familiar point that generous welfare payments undermine incentives to work. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities promptly replied with a four-page paper rebutting key aspects of the report.

Right now, eager 18-year-olds from across the country are tweeting with bravado photos of their newly postered dorm rooms and scanning with private fear their freshmen class schedules. They're embarking on a journey to capture their piece of the American Dream.

You know the drill — we have a dysfunctional political system and a gridlocked Congress. The House is firmly in the grip of a band of Republican maniacs and the Senate, though technically Democratic, requires a virtually impossible filibuster-proof majority to get anything passed. So we should just

On the eve of a march to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, labor and civil rights activists are calling on President Barack Obama to honor King with an executive order that would raise wages for as many as two million workers. One of the most poignant calls came Wednesday

How to handle Syria is the toughest call President Obama has yet faced -- a dilemma where two core progressive values stand in profound tension. That tension is clear if we walk through a best case scenario, and then look at a worst case.

Yesterday I wrote about why a tight labor market may not return any time soon to raise wages. But here's another scary thought: What if tight labor markets no longer push up wages like was once the case?