Working Life

I think it is always useful to see the threads connecting what might seem to be things that happen independently. The big picture is this: we live in a dysfunctional economic system which has created the greatest divide between rich and poor in a hundred years–and that is a global point. Here, for your consideration, […]

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   It is not surprising, given an astonishing level of underemployment, that we learn this: The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls “food insecurity” 14 years ago, the Department of Agriculture […]

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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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   I believe that we can fix the economy–but it will take a focused and entirely different approach. For a long time, I’ve maintained that the government statistics on economic growth often don’t match the reality regular people face. Today, we learn: Spending by Americans took a big tumble in September, as they lost a […]

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   If you read this blog regularly, you know that I have been a skeptic about the talk about the "green shoots" in the economy–the signs that somehow the economy is getting "better". I based most of my skeptical argument about the "green shoots" on a simple fact: until working people see that they have […]

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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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   Bob Herbert asks the right question today: The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging. The Beltway crowd and the Einsteins of high […]

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   The official news for New York City is grim: Continuing layoffs on Wall Street drove New York City’s unemployment rate to 10.3 percent in August, a 16-year high that underscores the need to retrain former financial services workers for other jobs, state officials said Thursday.    Note that I said the "official" news. Because, […]

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   I’ve made the point a lot that productivity has, over the past 30 years, soared while wages have remained flat in real terms over that period of time. That is important because when people are more productive at work that, in theory, should translate into wage increase.    Well, here is a productivity number […]

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   I’ve been banging this drum for many weeks–we cannot take seriously the talk about "recovery" when the vast crisis of unemployment and under-employment is not being dealt with. Bob Herbert picks up this theme today: The official jobless rate is now more than twice as high — 9.4 percent — and even more wildly […]

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