Working Life

   A lot of the voices on our side repeat the absolute truth: the Republican Party is simply not telling the truth about the seeds of the economic disaster we are dealing with and that it is in fact the government–our government–that prevented things from getting a lot worse AND we would be in much […]

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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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   For many months, I have argued that the greatest crisis we face is the lack of good-paying jobs–not the deficit. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom took hold in Washington and stymied the president from taking the action that was needed during the debate over the stimulus bill, which came in at $787 billion–and too small […]

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While I do not agree with the way in which the president took on health care and the mess we ended up with, he was absolutely right to understand that health care reform was essential to ensure a strong (and, need I say, moral) economy AND job growth. I think it is unfortunate that too […]

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   In one sense, this is a good thing: In the strongest employment report since the recession began nearly two years ago, the government said Friday that the nation’s employers had all but stopped shedding jobs in November, taking some of the pressure off of President Obama to come up with a wide-ranging jobs creation […]

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This is the truth about the economy–not the truth embodied in the "green shoots" that various people are trying to look for. The truth of the real lives of real people: two jobs just doesn’t make enough work to survive. Actually, it’s plenty of work–way more work–than a single individual should have to do. But, […]

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   The unemployment numbers are out–and we have the worst picture for jobs in quite a long time: For Americans who wake up each morning thinking about their job hunt, Friday’s unemployment report offered little reassurance that their search would soon pay off, even as the broader economy showed signs of strengthening. The United States […]

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   Let’s start with a basic premise: anyone who tries to get what is happening in the economy by looking for "green shoots" or the "recovery" does not understand what is happening to real people. Almost one out of 5 Americans–ONE OUT OF FIVE–do not have decent, meaningful work. Forget the media reports about unemployment–as […]

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   On a plane here soon this morning so just a quick post…you will recall that I am a skeptic about the "recovery" rhetoric, largely because people are just hammered so hard now, after years of no real wage increases, that the concept of when the "recovery" comes will be mostly relevant for government statisticians […]

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