Working Life

Along the road of the past 30 years, productivity has been soaring (and technology has been a minor part of that) while wages have been flat–thanks to de-unionization and a simple corporate decision to cut wages even when profitable. And, despite that assault on wages, the main line of concern was over outsourcing–that is, jobs […]

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Every single day that I campaign, someone comes up to me in the streets and says, "can you get me a job?". On one day this past weekend, I got literally a couple of dozen of those questions. The desperation in peoples’ voices is more urgent than I have heard in a long, long time […]

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   I have, for a very long time, been very skeptical about every pronouncement of the good news about the "recovery" that seems to be around the corner each time a snippet of data comes out that political leaders grab on to to try to reassure an angry and frustrated citizenry. You can’t say that […]

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   This was predictable: This year is shaping up to be even worse than last for the millions of high school and college students looking for summer jobs. State and local governments, traditionally among the biggest seasonal employers, are knee-deep in budget woes, and the stimulus money that helped cushion some government job programs last […]

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   If Democrats wonder why more than half the people in the country think that the party of FDR cares more about the concerns of big corporations, no need to look any further than this: House leaders cut the cost of the package by roughly $44 billion, in part to address complaints from Blue Dog […]

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   A lot of pain is going to continue to wash across the country. Witness this info on the continued lag in the construction industry: Construction is a big employer and one of the better-paid sectors for men who lack a college degree. The sector has shed 2.1 million jobs from its peak in March […]

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The danger in a blip of good news is that it’s simply that: a blip. It is certainly a good thing that the data shows that 162,000 jobs were added in March. But, the truth is that this is not much to celebrate. And it actually should be a siren to move dramatically to embrace […]

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   Bob Herbert makes a point that I’ve been making repeatedly for many, many months: Those who think some kind of robust recovery is hiding around the corner, just waiting to spring a pleasant surprise on us, are deluded. Too many families and individuals are tapped out. They’re struggling from week to week and month […]

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   Here is a contrast: the Congress passed a $15 billion jobs bill that could charitably be called pathetic–it *might* create a couple of hundred thousands new jobs, when we need almost 11 million jobs just to get back to pre-crisis levels. On the other hand, any health care reform bill that seems like it […]

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  It is not easy, under our current "free market" economic rules, to push corporations to do the right thing when the overriding imperative of every CEO is to maximize their own massive pay packages. But, every year, the federal government spends billions of dollars in our tax dollars–our hard-earned money–to buy services. Here is […]

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