Two of the most commonly cited reasons for the lack of more liberal policymaking in the United States are the decline in unions and the rising class bias in voter turnout. In the 2014 midterm congressional elections, the Democrats’ rout was largely attributed to a failure of their coalition to turn out at the polls. What is rarely examined, however, is the relationship between a decline in voter turnout and the dwindling number of union members.
Boosting the federal minimum wage would be great news for the workers who’d receive a higher paycheck. Not so much for those who’d be out of a job. That anxiety sums up much of the debate around increasing the minimum wage.
To prepare for “snowmageddon,” Ana Navarrete stocked up on diapers Monday afternoon. She and her ex-boyfriend, Pedro Blanco, perused the baby aisle of a CVS drug store, having left their two-month-old son with a babysitter.
As the snow piled up on Hillside Avenue, Navarrete thought about her imminent commute. She works nights, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., as a hotel maid on Long Island, about 25 miles east. She drives 60 minutes each way — much longer in the snow — for just $8.50 per hour, 25 cents below the state minimum wage. [...]
The holiday shopping season is the best time of the year for big retail chains across the United States. But not so much for the people who stock the shelves and ring up the Christmas sales.
As holiday gift-seeking shoppers return, retail businesses are hiring. But that does not necessarily mean employees are finding good jobs. In fact, if you find work in the slow-growing U.S. economy, it’s increasingly likely to be a low-wage job at one of our country’s retail giants.
That's the estimated number of Americans who would stand to benefit from raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.
And this year there were many signs that those who struggle the most have reason for optimism: 2014 has seen an explosion in activity around raising the minimum wage.
One of the issues that helped fuel last week's national fast-food workers strikes is the growing income disparity between rank-and-file workers and the chief executives in charge of those multi-billion-dollar companies.
Thousands of families in the United States are separated due to immigration laws that have affected hard-working immigrants who are just trying to support their families.
Branko Milanovic is a World Bank economist and development specialist. He's currently a visiting presidential professor at CUNY's Graduate Center and a senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center. His book, The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality, examines—as the title suggests—income inequality. Milanovic and Demos Research Assistant Sean McElwee recently discussed Milanovic's research and the major shifts within the inequality research field.
Nearly half of the nation's employers investigate job applicants' credit histories as a condition of employment.
As a result, New Yorkers struggling with debt -- medical bills, school loans or car payments -- are often shut out of jobs. This unfair barrier to employment can be dismantled by outlawing employment credit checks.
Democratic Council Members Brad Lander of Brooklyn and Debi Rose of Staten Island have introduced a bill that would ban such checks in hiring except when required by state or federal laws. The measure is supported by 40 council members.
The soaring pay of corporate chief executives is spurring efforts to pass laws to limit their compensation and close the widening gap in earnings between workers and top executives.
Such laws have been proposed in at least three states, including Massachusetts, as well as in Switzerland. Proponents have yet to succeed in enacting these measures, but they vow to keep pressing the issue. [...]
For a moment last week, it looked like Walmart CEOs were getting enlightened. The company promised to “end minimum-wage pay” for its lowest-paid sales workers and touted a plan to ‘”invest in its associate base” and maybe even offer more bonus opportunities.
Today, Vice President Biden and others from the Obama administration, are meeting with human-resource executives from companies that are part of the president’s effort to address the problem of long-term unemployment, including Citigroup Inc., CVS Caremark Corp. and Boeing
Six years after America sank into the deepest economic downturn since the 1930s, the jobless rate has fallen to 5.9 percent, the lowest since July 2008. But one demographic group — African-American men — seems to be stuck in a permanent recession.
Despite Friday’s unemployment rate dropping to 5.9 percent nationally, New York City is still home to the dead-end kids.
Half of the city’s 600,000 recent college graduates are either underemployed or out of work, according to New York Fed researchers.
Most of this 50 percent are working in jobs they are overqualified for — no college degree required — and that are often low-pay, part-time and without benefits. It’s a vast jobs wasteland out there for this Millennial generation. [...]
How bad a problem is inequality? Are working-class people getting screwed? Should we raise taxes on the rich? Is the United States, in short, a fundamentally unfair place? These are the questions that keep awake policy analysts and fuel endless dinner-party debates. But there's one group that is not losing very much sleep over them: rich folks.