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Elected officeholders cannot tell what their constituents want unless they hear from them. That is why a typical legislator employs staffers to keep track of messages from constituents. Likewise, because interest groups know that citizen communications matter, they routinely ask adherents to contact their representatives in support or opposition to particular policies. Scholars have accordingly shown that policymakers are influenced by what they hear.
Members of U.S.
The attack on voting rights in North Carolina is a shameful attempt by the state’s politicians to curtail access to the ballot, in ways devised particularly to discourage voting by African-Americans.
Low-wage workers employed under federal concession and lease agreements went on strike at Union Station on Thursday, calling on President Obama to guarantee them a living wage and a voice on the job.
Without a doubt, the big banks should be broken up; the need is even more urgent than it was in 2007 or 2008. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas – hardly an Occupy Wall Street affiliate – titled its 2011 Annual Report "Choosing the Road to Prosperity: Why We Must End Too Big to Fail – Now."
When Governor Lincoln Chaffee signed the Temporary Care Giver’s Insurance law last week, Rhode Island became the third state—along with California and New Jersey—to grant paid time off to care for a sick loved one or a new baby.
Rhode Island’s law, which goes into effect in 2014, will not only provide most workers with up to four weeks off with about two-thirds of their salaries (up to $752 a week), it will protect employees from being fired and losing their health insurance while they’re out.
The attack on voting rights in North Carolina is a shameful attempt by the state’s politicians to curtail access to the ballot, in ways devised particularly to discourage voting by African-Americans.
The most often repeated attack on the Affordable Care Act is that the law is a "job killer" -- an anti-business spool of red tape that will strangle free enterprise from coast to coast.
In fact, though, one of the biggest obstacles that entrepreneurs face when starting a new business is affording health insurance. Leaving a job where you have coverage to do your own thing has been very costly -- since individuals have tended to face the highest premiums in a deeply dysfunctional insurance market.
If you think Wall Street has cleaned up its act after a global financial disaster and then sweeping reform legislation, think again. A new survey by Labaton Sucharow, a law firm that represents Wall Street whistleblowers, has revealed that the financial services industry still has profound ethical problems.
Well, that’s embarrassing. McDonald’s sample budget for its employees lays bare the reality of trying to make it on a food service job at $7.72 an hour (mildly above the federal minimum wage of $7.25).