Who did Sen. David Vitter think he was talking to when he said that:
“I hate to tell you, by Washington’s definitions that [Melancon]’s using, virtually everybody in this audience is the wealthy.”
I don’t make $250,000 per year. Do you? Most people in Louisiana, the state Vitter represents in the Senate, sure don’t make [...]
President Obama gives another great speech—great not just because he’s a compelling speaker but because he’s laying out so much about what’s wrong with the economy.
Excerpts:
I ran for President because for much of the last decade, a very specific governing philosophy had reigned about how America should work: Cut taxes, especially [...]
By Tara Sutton — Pennsylvania
This week marks my one year anniversary canvassing with Working America. As I reflect back on my year and the thousands of doors I have knocked on, I am reminded of the hard hitting reality of what initially attracted me to this organization.
The reality that all too often [...]
At Slate, Timothy Noah writes about what economist Paul Krugman calls “The Great Divergence” - the increasing disparity in US incomes:
It’s generally understood that we live in a time of growing income inequality, but “the ordinary person is not really aware of how big it is,” Krugman told me. During the late 1980s and the [...]
Some key excerpts from President Obama’s Labor Day speech.
I believe this with every fiber of my being: America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class, and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class — (applause) — a middle class built [...]
At a Labor Day event, President Obama proposed a measure to strengthen America’s network of roads, bridges, rail, and air travel.
– Rebuild 150,000 miles of roads and bridges while expanding capacity on some of them.
– Construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail lines, both high-speed rail and commuter lines. The plan also would “invest in [...]
UC Berkeley economist Brad DeLong provides excerpts from Christina Romer’s speech this week, her last as Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, in which she said:
The only surefire ways for policymakers to substantially increase aggregate demand in the short run are for the government to spend more and tax less. In my view, [...]
So, you’re asking, how do we pay for bridges and fire fighters and teachers and trains and health care for kids and sewers that don’t overflow all the time, without putting an unbearable tax burden on middle-class families or small businesses?
The answer is not hard and it’s been laid out a lot of times by [...]
As former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley used to say, “on account of the time factor”… some quick links on the August jobs report.
Meteor Blades at Daily Kos:
Two positive things can be said about today’s jobs report from the Labor Department. First, it was significantly better than the one for August 2009, and June and [...]
Anyone surprised by this news?
A new report concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies.
The report, from the Institute of Policy Studies, [...]
Working America’s Karen Nussbaum and Dan Heck were on Hardball last night, talking about what we’re hearing, our efforts to organize working people, and mobilizing jobless workers to vote.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
NPR:
For years, Americans have had their phone calls about credit card bills and broken cell phones handled by people in the Philippines or India. But American firms are starting to bring call centers back to the U.S. — and this time around, they are hiring more people to work in their own homes.
Ten years ago, [...]
From HuffPo:
Terminated workers are paying an average of $429 a month this year for individual HMO coverage, compared to $399 for the same coverage in 2009, according to a survey conducted by Aon Consulting. COBRA coverage for an entire family now costs an average of $1,251, up from $1,171 per month at this time last [...]
