After decades of seeing their incomes shrink, those at the bottom of the economic ladder are starting to band together and fight back — and it’s one of the most important economic stories of our time.
Fast food workers in over 50 cities across the nation are striking on Thursday in what organizers are touting as the largest ever strike to hit the industry.
The workers are demanding $15 an hour and the right to unionize, continuing the calls and momentum of a series of strikes that first started in November of 2012.
Fast food companies keep employees at poverty-level wages while reaping billions of dollars in profits. It drives inequality, slows growth, and lowers living standards.
If I were a top executive in the retail or restaurant industries, or one of their hired guns in Washington, I'd be very nervous right now.
Tomorrow will see what may be the first-ever national strike against restaurant and retail chains, with workers expected to walk off the jobs in 35 cities -- including at retail giants like Sears, Macy's, and Walmart.
In the spring of 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to join sanitation workers seeking better pay, fairer treatment and the right to form a union.
I was with Dr. King as he stood with workers, all African-American, all fighting years of labor repression and wages that relegated them to poverty. Dr. King was assassinated on that trip to Memphis. His death, just as the images of workers carrying signs reading, "I am a man," is forever seared in my memory.
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 throw up our hands and admit that nothing productive can be done in Washington until we get a Democratic Congress, right?
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 from Alvin Turner, a veteran of the famous 1968 Memphis garbage workers strike. Recalling a recent face-to-face meeting with Obama, Turner said “he told me personally he was working hard for the little man. If he don’t sign, he’ll disappoint me badly.”
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?
The Justice Department on Thursday redoubled its efforts to challenge state voting laws, suing Texas over its new voter ID measure as part of a growing political showdown over electoral rights.
The move marked the latest bid by the Obama administration to counter a Supreme Court ruling that officials have said threatens the voting rights of minorities. It also signaled that the administration will probably take legal action in voting rights cases in other states, including North Carolina, where the governor signed a voter ID law this month.
With today's big higher ed speech, it's becoming clearer what President Obama's most important legacy may be: He could be the guy who finally stopped runaways costs for two of life's biggest necessities: healthcare and higher education.
This would be a big deal, because -- quite apart from issues of access and fairness -- the United States is putting itself at a global disadvantage by squandering so many resources on grossly overpriced services in both sectors.
A tight labor market is the great conservative answer to the low-wage jobs crisis. If we can just get the economy booming again, the logic goes, wages will rise along with demand for low-skilled workers.
Bill O'Reilly told me that earlier today, when I taped a segment at Fox on the economy.
Of course, many progressive economists will tell you the same thing, even if they have very different ideas about how to spur growth and how to share prosperity.
“Demos applauds President Obama for using the bully pulpit to shine a light on the college affordability and student debt crisis facing our nation. While Congress and state legislatures have failed to lead on this issue, the President’s tour promises to help highlight the dangers of tying opportunity to debt.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, is pushing the idea that being poor and living on government benefits in America is actually living high on the hog.
When Walmart broke the bad news to shareholders last week about declining same-store sales and cuts to their profit and sales projections, the company offered a glib explanation. "The retail environment was challenging," asserted Walmart Stores President and CEO Michael Duke. Company executives pointed to weather conditions and the January payroll tax increase to justify the disappointing sales, but larger questions about why consumers weren't buying were never addressed.
Here's something alarming to imagine: One day, your investment advisor at Merrill Lynch doesn't show up to his job. No warning, no nothing. He just doesn't show.
In June, five Supreme Court Justices rolled back the Voting Rights Act, widely considered the most effective tool in preventing discrimination in our nation's history. Section 5 of the act required that certain states and localities "preclear" proposed election changes with federal officials to ensure the changes were not discriminatory. The Court ruled that the formula used to determine which jurisdictions needed to get preclearance was outdated and unconstitutional. For those of us who care about voting rights, the question now is how do we respond?