Working Life

  I am watching the parade of outraged leaders–especially Democrats–who are railing about the AIG bonuses and, to be honest, I’m far more disgusted by the outrage then the chump change being argued over. Because the outrage masks this fact: virtually our entire political and economic leadership has turned a blind eye, and actually endorsed, […]

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  Yes, that is the underlying message delivered today by one of the world’s leading financial publications. For many of us, this is no surprise: you had to be truly ignorant to pretend like the economic system was a success just based on the growing divide between rich and poor over the past decade, and […]

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Every day, there is another example of the conspiracy of silence that pervades the traditional media’s description of the current economic crisis. Sure, de-regulation, greed and pure stupidity has a lot to do with it. But, in truth, the underlying reason for the collapse has been a persistent war on the wages of American workers. […]

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   Well, duh. We needed a group of economists to tell us what we already know and felt for a long time. And you have to wonder: were they asleep since it took them until now to tell us that, by their reckoning, the recession began a year ago. From the Financial Times: Evidence of […]

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   It’s enlightening to read the economic data popping out from the various number crunchers. Guess what? Productivity climbed beyond anyone’s expectations, according to this story on The Wall Street Journal’s website this morning: Nonfarm business productivity jumped 4.3%, at an annual rate, in the second quarter, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s almost double […]

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   I’ve always been a bit skeptical about the ability of government statistics, economists and prognosticators–pretending to be in the last cateogry myself sometimes–to accurately portray what is actually happening to people. Government stats like Gross Domestic Product don’t tell you much other than stuff is being made–it doesn’t really give you a good picture […]

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    A few days ago, I got a copy of a report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) that looks at some global employment trends. The report has got some good data–but, memo to the folks at the ILO, it is really written way too boringly (spice it up!!!). Do you want people to read […]

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Just a couple of days ago, I was musing about the disconnect between wages and productivity. That is, productivity was racing ahead yet wages were pretty dismal. That’s not the way the deal is supposed to work—if workers are laboring their little tushes off in the workplace so that every hour worked is a more […]

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I see the Consumer Price Index and the reality of workers wages are giving out more signs of the increased pressure on the average worker. My friends at the Economic Policy Institute point out that prices are rising faster than wages. For the 11th consecutive month, prices have risen faster than wages (click the image […]

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