“We are on strike today to have respect and dignity at work,” says Walter Melendez, one of approximately 40 Los Angeles port truck drivers who walked off the job at 5a.m. morning in protest of alleged unfair labor practices. The strikes featured the rolling “ambulatory pickets” that the truckers have excelled at—chasing down trucks as they leave the port and setting up picket lines in front of them.
In the past week, both a senior editor at Fortune magazine and the liberal think tank Demoshave made similar proposals for how Walmart could greatly increase worker wages without harming its business prospects.
There are few better ways to uncover fraud in an industry than to incentivize insiders to blow the whistle on wrongdoing. And a little known part of Dodd-Frank did just that for the securities industry, creating a new whistleblower program run by the SEC that can bestow huge rewards on anyone who brings to light evidence of fraud that results in a settlement.
If asked, Americans of all political persuasions will say overwhelmingly that they prefer “tougher rules” for Wall Street. But what does that actually mean?
Black veterans weren't able to make use of the housing provisions of the GI Bill because banks generally wouldn't make loans for mortgages in Black neighborhoods, and African-Americans were excluded from the suburbs by a combination of deed covenants and informal racism.
The events of yesterday nicely summed up American economic life: a tiny sliver of people, mostly tech and finance insiders, got fabulously wealthy from Twitter's IPO while 64 people were arrested protesting the poverty wages paid by the largest U.S. employer, Walmart.
The third quarter GDP numbers were released this morning, which show a GDP increase of 2.8 percent, an increase from the 2.5 percent reported for the second quarter. Among other factors, increases in personal consumption and state and local government spending helped contribute to the increase in GDP. Of course, the state and local spending was offset by a negative contribution from federal government spending.
Scrooge has come early this year. We’re kicking our Tiny Tims. This holiday season, kids in America’s poorest families are going to have less to eat.
November 1 brought $5 billion in new cuts to the nation’s food stamp program, now officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Congress resolved the shutdown and debt ceiling crisis (for now) by agreeing to hash out a budget agreement by mid-December. Already, hopes are dim. Budget experts say that if any deal at all is worked out to replace the deep budget cuts that went into effect in March, the most likely outcome will be a short-term plan involving slightly less severe spending cuts—but with no new revenue, a big Democratic priority.
Washington is in its usual state of hysteria this week -- now over the Obamacare rollout -- so, as usual, few people in power are talking about the biggest problem facing the country: a still-stagnant labor market that has stranded millions in a jobless hell, with real unemployment rates for some groups at Great Depression levels.
Wal-Mart Stores is the country’s biggest private employer. Its low wages have incited labor protests and congressional criticism, and have created a cottage industry of public policy research.
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."