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The Continuing Relevance of Class
Politicians always seem to be talking about the middle class. They need some new focus groups. According to the Pew Research Center, over the past four years the percentage of adult Americans that...
View ArticleThe Role Of Government In The Economy
A big debate is underway about fiscal multipliers. Sounds esoteric but it is not—it reveals that economics is far from an exact science and the outcome appears to confirm what most working people...
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The Jobs Gap
There is growing talk that the economy is finally on its way to recovery—“A Steady, Slo-Mo Recovery”—in the words of Businessweek. Here is how Peter Coy, writing in Businessweek, explains the growing...
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Scaling The Fiscal Cliff
With the election over, the news is now focused, somewhat hysterically, on the threat of the fiscal cliff. The fiscal cliff refers to the fact that at the end of this calendar year several temporary...
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The Social Safety Net Under Attack
One of the subthemes of current discussions about how best to reduce our national debt is that we must reign in out-of-control spending on federal safety net programs. The reality is quite different....
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Cutting Through The Budget Nonsense
The media continues to direct out attention to deficits and debt as our main problems. Yet, it does little to really highlight the causes of these deficits and debts. The following two figures from...
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The Austerity Agenda and Public Employment
While some austerity advocates really fear (although incorrectly) the consequences of deficit spending, the strongest proponents are actually only concerned with slashing government programs or the use...
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Profits And The Economy
The economist Ed Dolan sums up the current state of the U.S. economy in a recent blog post with the following headline: “Latest US GDP data show economy weak at year’s end but corporate profits near...
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Capitalist Dynamics And Labor
The recent International Labor Organization (ILO) Global Wage Report examines trends in the distribution of income between labor and capital. It finds that: An outpouring of literature has provided...
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The Continuing Unsatisfactory Economic Expansion
Media and policy-makers seem anxious to convince us that the economy is in strong recovery mode. Therefore no further significant policy interventions are needed. Their optimism appears to rest...
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The Student Debt Explosion
We celebrate education as the answer to almost all our economic problems. At the same time we largely ignore the enormous debt students are forced to acquire gaining a college degree and the great...
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A Bleak Future
Any improvement in living and working conditions in the United States is going to require far more than tinkering at the margins. The fact is that U.S. economic dynamics have undergone a major...
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The Deteriorating Labor Market
Despite the declining rate of unemployment—-it fell to 7.4% in July, the lowest level since December 2008—it is clear that economic trends, especially the rate and nature of job creation, are far from...
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Globalization And Inequality
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) recently examined the causes of rising inequality in developing and developed countries. In what follows I discuss its analysis of the...
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Unhappy Labor Day
As the Wall Street Journal reports: Four years into the economic recovery, U.S. workers’ pay still isn’t even keeping up with inflation. The average hourly pay for a nongovernment, non-supervisory...
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The Shrinking Labor Force
The government announced that the unemployment rate fell in August, down to 7.3 percent from 7.4 percent in July. But there is little reason for cheer. As Business Week explained: The worrisome part...
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Real Unemployment
The Federal Reserve Bank has said it will maintain its stimulus policy as long as the economy remains weak. One of its key indicators for the strength of the economy is the unemployment rate. The...
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Stagnation and Financialization
The dominant firms in the U.S. and other major capitalist counties are happily making profits. They just aren’t interested in investing them in new plant and equipment. Rather they prefer to use...
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For A Stronger Public Sector
The current economic recovery officially began June 2009 and is one of the weakest in the post-World War II period by almost every indicator except growth in profits. One reason it has offered working...
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Worries About Inequality
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about income inequality. What follows is a chart from the article which shows that average income for the bottom 90% of families actually fell by over...
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