Six years after finishing college – with a degree in molecular and cellular biology – Sydney Gray works 18 hours a week as a cashier at a New Orleans farmers' market. Other times, she volunteers there to get free food.
"I can't even get a job waiting tables," says Ms. Gray, whose two previous part-time jobs ended when the employers folded. "When I apply for jobs, I'm competing against people with master's degrees and PhDs."
Washington D.C. Mayor, Vincent C. Gray vetoed legislation demanding that large retailers pay a higher minimum wage, Sept.15. The announcement came on the heels of Wal-Mart threatening to cancel plans for new stores in the District of Columbia if the minimum wage was increased.
Mayor Gray denied that he vetoed the minimum wage because of Wal-Mart’s threat in his weekly radio address.
On September 15, the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, progressives toasted a victory.
True, thanks to Congressional timidity, the biggest banks have only gotten bigger since the financial crisis five years ago, and the men (yes, mostly men) in charge of them are mostly still in charge. But Larry Summers, the architect of a good chunk of the deregulation that set the stage for the crisis in the first place, had withdrawn his name from consideration to be chair of the Federal Reserve, thanks to a populist uprising within the Democratic Party.
Three and a half years have passed since the afternoon when the stock markets went into a trillion-dollar free fall and just as suddenly reversed course, recovering 80 percent of that loss. It all happened in less than 45 minutes.
Suppose we think income redistribution is a good idea -- given near-record corporate profits at a time when wages for most workers are stagnant. There are two main ways to achieve this goal: We could make business pick up the tab directly by raising the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to form unions, and mandating more employee benefits, such as paid vacation time. Or, we could leave business alone, but give poorly paid workers public benefits like tax refunds, free health insurance, food assistance, and so on.
In 2005, Indiana passed a law requiring voters to present a government issued photo-ID before they would be allowed to vote. The law was challenged by voting rights advocates and was upheld by the Appellate Court and ultimately, the Supreme Court. The Appellate Court concluded that the burden placed on potential voters to show a photo-ID was outweighed by the state’s interest in reducing voter fraud.
Assuming some short-term deal emerges in Washington to avert a default, pending later budget talks, we all know what comes next: Another dead-end debate over taxes.
Why? Because if there's one issue that conservatives in Congress are even more implacable about than Obamacare it's taxes -- as in, no new taxes, ever.
The debate over America’s federal budget is getting stale — and getting us nowhere, as the latest government shutdown depressingly reminds us. Political obsession over budget deficits has now morphed into legislative extortion.
The CATO Institute styles itself as the nation's leading defender of personal liberty, but don't count on these libertarians to watch your back in the face of any threats you may face from powerful private actors. No, CATO is only worried about threats posed by public entities.
Those Bush tax cuts are a gift that just keeps on giving. They are a big reason the national debt is so high, requiring huge interest payments, and a big reason that the Treasury faces such large shortfalls every month between what comes in the door and what goes out.
Yet, somehow, conservatives have managed to spin the national debt strictly as a "spending problem." And strangely, Democrats have largely let them do that with barely a word about how low taxes got us in this jam.
One of the most alarming aspects of a possible default is also one that gets the least attention: A default would raise the cost of federal borrowing, perhaps for years to come, and send the deficit soaring.
If Treasury securities become, well, less secure, the United States will have to pay investors more to buy them. Hence higher interest rates on new debt that is issued.
Where does the corporate bottom line end and the public interest begin? Through the voodoo economics of federal contracting, Washington's "partnerships" with private corporations have drained the public trust straight into the pockets of top corporate executives.
Just because the government has shut down doesn’t mean Congress will cease its central function of making Americans’ lives miserable. While everyone watches the legislative back-and-forth on the budget, the House may vote this week to thwart a key new Labor Department protection affecting $10.5 trillion in retirement funds. Basically, House Republicans want to allow the financial services industry to continue to steal from your 401(k) and IRA plans. And far too many Democrats want to help them.
Low-wage workers followed members of Congress to the World War II Memorial on Wednesday to protest a federal government shutdown that had entered its second day.
The two-dozen protesters, organized by a labor group called Good Jobs Nation, work in federal buildings affected by the shutdown. The group has organized several small strikes and protests to draw attention to the estimated 2 million workers directly or indirectly employed by the federal government for low wages.
The federal lawsuit filed to block North Carolina’s restrictive new voting laws is set to test the government’s ability to protect voting rights in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision gutting the Voting Rights Act.
The student loan default rate is soaring, and it's flying highest among for-profit schools.
The U.S. Department of Education reports that across the nation, the share of borrowers who default within two years after college loan payments become due has risen nearly a full percentage point to 10 percent, while the rate for people who default within three years is up to 14.7 percent.
For some recent college graduates, this fall’s back-to-school season marks the beginning of the back-to-living-at-home stage of their lives. But with careful financial planning, that stage doesn’t have to last long, advisers say.
Delano Wingfield, 22, has been grilling up food and cleaning dishes at Roti Mediterranean Grill in Washington D.C.’s Union Station for almost a year. Struggling to get by on $9 an hour, he started encouraging coworkers to strike with him. His manager found out, he said, and slashed his hours.
“It was hard with 35 hours, and now I don’t know what I’m about to do with the 20 hours they gave me,” he said Wednesday. “I’m out here to make myself and everyone else more money.” (Wingfield’s manager did not respond to a request for comment.)
In a speech last July, President Obama vowed that “whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I’ll use it.” On Wednesday, an estimated 175 workers who serve food, sell mementos or do maintenance work in federal buildings in Washington D.C. went on strike for the day. Instead of showing up at their jobs, they showed up in front of the White House, where they urged President Obama to live up to his word.