We are changing the conversation around our democracy and economy by telling influential new stories about our country and its people. Get our latest media updates here.
Murphy suggested two ways out of this trap. One is crowd-sourced fundraising, which is already occurring over the Internet. Murphy stated that his Senate campaign raised $4 million of its $10 million total from donors giving online. That meant he did not have to call wealthy donors to raise 40 percent of his campaign haul.
From The Washington Post, “Federal taxpayers employ more low-wage workers than Wal-Mart and McDonald’s combined, a new study calculates. The report from the consulting firm Demos, set to be released Wednesday, estimates that taxpayer dollars fund nearly 2 million private-sector jobs that pay $24,000 a year — about $12 an hour — or less.”
The Heritage Foundation has a new report out looking at the cost of immigration reform. The report puts the cost of immigration reform at a whopping $6.3 trillion. I won’t go into all the reasons they list but let’s say it seems they believe that as soon as undocumented workers become citizens, they will immediately claim means-tested benefits.
Panelists at the annual Corporate Crime Reporter Conference in Washington, D.C. Friday said they were concerned that the Justice Department is abandoning full criminal prosecutions of financial industries in favor of Deferred and Non Prosecution Agreements (DPAs and NPAs), which usually involve a fine and a set of conditions that must be followed. The company in exchange does not get prosecuted for criminal activity.
The good news in the April unemployment numbers delivered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday finally spilled over to people under 25, who saw their unemployment rate drop last month even as their labor force participation rate increased.
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 the national average,” in the words of a recent report on young people entering the work force.
Young people starting out are normally at a disadvantage because they are trying to establish themselves in a profession.
In the constant race to be the best America is falling behind other large, wealthy nations in at least one major category: Employing the nation’s youth.
So far, the airline and meat industries have managed to exempt their parent agencies — the USDA and FAA respectively — from following through with furloughs that the across-the-board sequestration cuts require. It’s a victory, they say, for ordinary Americans who, without these exemptions, would be less safe as travelers and consumers.
Here’s an example of how government subsidies distort market economics: Gas prices are down nearly 35 cents from last year, yet this has had virtually no impact on this year’s first quarter profits of the big oil companies.