Working Life

< It’s all about North Carolina today—the fight for better wages and the campaign to get a progressive person in the U.S. Senate, all of which is connected to my two guests today who represent the theme of the just-marked International Womens Day. The sad outcome of the push to raise the federal minimum wage […]

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PREPARED REMARKS: Sanders Speaks on the Urgency of Raising the Minimum Wage and Passing the American Rescue Plan WASHINGTON, March 5 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today delivered a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on the need to pass the American Rescue Plan Act and offered an amendment to raise the minimum […]

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Right before our eyes, in these very days and at this time of crisis, you can see so clearly this bankrupt system, defended and promoted by greedy CEOs and spineless politicians, but a system people are trying to rebel against and take down. And that’s the picture of two really important fights—the fight to get […]

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Yawn. That’s my reaction to this perennial debate about whether a progressive agenda is a winning agenda. Of course, it is—and that has a lot to do with how you define “progressive”. At least, on economics, it’s clear: what puts more money in peoples’ pockets, what makes it possible for people to make a decent […]

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As the New Year beckons, there’s good news and bad news on wages. The good news is something I’ve been able to talk about for the past few years at the end of each year—come January 1st, a whole lot of people are going to see their paychecks increase because of some state and local […]

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Working on in a hog processing plant is one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet—and it’s about to get a whole lot worse, evoking “The Jungle” of the early 20th Century. In a classic profits-over-people move, a new regulation is about to hit which would eliminate any speed restrictions on how fast hog […]

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I like the ring of The Stop Wall Street Looting Act, don’t you? True, it’s part of the business model of the joint, especially the private equity pirates. The Act is, in fact, aimed squarely at the private equity industry, who have stripped and destroyed hundreds of companies. I’ll talk about the Act with the […]

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I have to tip my cap to the conservative, anti-worker right-wing. That whole gang has been far more focused, in a laser-like way, on seizing power in places where it can matter a lot—the local and state political arenas. Progressives, until recently, just didn’t focus enough on state capitols and local races—letting the right wing […]

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It’s an action-packed, let’s-catch-the-thieves-in-the-act episode. The Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee just wrapped up its two-day secret June meeting without triggering a new cut in interests rates—and what does that mean? I unravel the state of play at the Fed—and ask the question why shouldn’t we change the basic structure of the Fed—with Dean […]

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I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently on the very bad deal made by New York and Virginia with Amazon to lure the company to build its new headquarters in those two states. Amazon is an important story because of the power it exercises over our economy—a power that grows every day. This week, […]

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