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On December 28th Unemployment Benefits End for 1.3 Million Families — Merry Christmas from the

Dec 25, 2013
5 min

On December 28th Unemployment Benefits End for 1.3 Million Families — Merry Christmas from the

Three days after Christmas, unemployment benefits end for 1.3 million people who have exhausted their state unemployment benefits, but still can’t find a job. To be eligible for unemployment benefits, you have to be actively looking for a job. Virtually all of these people would rather work, but can’t find a job in today’s economy where there are three applicants for every job available. But when the budget deal was negotiated in Congress over the last several weeks, Republic

Income Inequality Didn’t Happen By Accident (Video)

Sep 13, 2013
1 min

Income Inequality Didn’t Happen By Accident (Video)

#economy #Unemployment #economicdisparity #EconomicCrisis #MiddleClass #RobertReich #Jobs

Across Generations, the Jobs Numbers Show We’re All in This Together

Sep 10, 2013
3 min

Across Generations, the Jobs Numbers Show We’re All in This Together

Richard (RJ) Eskow – Writer;Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future Posted: 09/10/2013 1:40 am We’re in the midst of the worst employment crisis in modern memory. Lackluster jobs reports like last week’s should remind us that the crisis will last a long, long time, unless we act. It would be tragic if superficial “improvements” created by discouraged workers dropping out of the labor force become an excuse for continued inaction – or worse. But buried in the discouragin

Syria and the Reality at Home in America

Sep 8, 2013
4 min

Syria and the Reality at Home in America

Robert Reich – Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley; Author, ‘Beyond Outrage’ Posted: 09/07/2013 4:08 pm While all eyes are on Syria and America’s response, the real economy in which most Americans live is sputtering. More than four years after the recession officially ended, 11.5 million Americans are unemployed, many of them for years. Nearly 4 million have given up looking for work altogether. If they were actively looking, today’

Why Republicans Want Jobs To Stay Anemic

Aug 12, 2013
2 min

Why Republicans Want Jobs To Stay Anemic

Robert Reich – Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, Former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration – August 3, 2013 Job-growth is sputtering. So why, exactly, do regressive Republicans continue to say “no” to every idea for boosting it — even last week’s almost absurdly modest proposal by President Obama to combine corporate tax cuts with increased spending on roads and other public works? It can’t be because Republicans do

Media Push Economic Inequality To The Backseat

May 14, 2013
2 min

Media Push Economic Inequality To The Backseat

ALBERT KLEINE – Media Matters May 14, 2013 Media outlets largely ignored economic inequality in discussions about the overall economy, despite mounting evidence suggesting that the problem has increased in recent years. While media have been quick to highlight ostensibly positive gains for the economy — notably that the Dow Jones Industrial reached 15,000 for the first time in its history, GDP grew by 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013, and unemployment for April edged

The Remarkable Renaissance of John Kasich

May 8, 2013
5 min

The Remarkable Renaissance of John Kasich

By Andy Kroll – Mother Jones May. 6, 2013 3:00 AM PDT John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, had hit rock bottom. It was March 2011, and Kasich was about to sign Senate Bill 5, the controversial anti-union legislation that curbed bargaining rights for cops, firefighters, teachers, and other public employees. Most Ohioans thought SB 5 was a terrible idea, and Kasich’s approval rating had sunk to a pitiful 35 percent. In a hypothetical revote, 55 percent of Ohioans surve

Wealth Inequality: Core Challenge for National Security

May 1, 2013
6 min

Wealth Inequality: Core Challenge for National Security

By Edward Corcoran / Ret. Strategic Analyst, U.S. Army War College / 04/30/2013 America prides itself on being the Land of Opportunity, and has made real efforts to be a land of equal opportunity. But it has never claimed to be a land of equal results. The driving force of the capitalist economic system is to get ahead with hard work and clever thinking, get ahead of the crowd in terms of assets and prestige. This is in stark contract to a socialist system focused more on le

America in Denial

Sep 25, 2012
3 min

America in Denial

Tavis Smiley – PBS talk show host, PRI radio host Posted: 09/24/2012 10:00 am Americans seem to be in a perpetual state of denial. About our past, our present and our future. A friend of mine teases that even Americans who don’t live in a state of denial, tend to be frequent visitors. What are we in denial about? Most things, but especially the state of our union. It seems that without regard to who occupies the Oval Office, come January we hear that predictable refrain in th

How We Cured “The Culture of Poverty,” Not Poverty Itself

Mar 15, 2012
5 min

How We Cured “The Culture of Poverty,” Not Poverty Itself

Barbara Ehrenreich – New York Times bestselling author Posted: 03/15/2012 9:44 am – Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com It’s been exactly 50 years since Americans, or at least the non-poor among them, “discovered” poverty, thanks to Michael Harrington’s engaging book The Other America. If this discovery now seems a little overstated, like Columbus’s “discovery” of America, it was because the poor, according to Harrington, were so “hidden” and “invisible” that it took a crusadin

Machiavelli Never Lied

Mar 1, 2012
5 min

Machiavelli Never Lied

As Miles Sees It We’ve had such an overwhelming response to our post – “Santorum’s Wrong: There Is Such a Thing as a ‘Liberal’ Christian. His Name Was Jesus” by Brian Normoyle that I felt compelled to repost a contribution from our old friend Miles Thirst from 2006. We had and counting over 3,500 hits and the conversation that it has generated is quite interesting. As we pit ourselves one against the other and debate who is the most righteous and “what would Jesus do” may

The Republican Myth of Obama’s “Entitlement Society”

Feb 6, 2012
2 min

The Republican Myth of Obama’s “Entitlement Society”

Robert Reich – Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy University of California at Berkeley. Wednesday, February 1, 2012 One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.” In his standard stump speech Romney charges Obama with creating a nation of dependents. “Over the past three years Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society.” Gingrich calls

Flat-Lining the Middle Class

Oct 7, 2011
6 min

Flat-Lining the Middle Class

Andy Kroll – Staff writer, Mother Jones magazine Posted: 10/6/11 04:55 PM ET Economic Numbers to Die For – Cross-posted from TomDispatch.com Food pantries picked over. Incomes drying up. Shelters bursting with the homeless. Job seekers spilling out the doors of employment centers. College grads moving back in with their parents. The angry and disillusioned filling the streets. Pan your camera from one coast to the other, from city to suburb to farm and back again, and you’ll

The New GOP: Anti-Kids, Anti-Jobs, Anti-Business… And Anti-Republican

Sep 11, 2011
4 min

The New GOP: Anti-Kids, Anti-Jobs, Anti-Business… And Anti-Republican

Richard (RJ) Eskow – Consultant, Writer, Senior Fellow with The Campaign for America’s Future – Posted: 9/9/11 03:21 PM ET This is not your father’s (or mother’s) GOP. During a time of national crisis, the president has submitted an urgently-needed jobs bill that is well within the mainstream for Republicans as well as Democrats. But today’s Republicans are a new breed, dedicated not to their country or even an ideology. Who could best express the absurd lengths these politi

Welfare Reform Leaving More In Poverty

Aug 23, 2011
9 min

Welfare Reform Leaving More In Poverty

Janell Ross: Janell.Ross@huffingtonpost.com Become a fan of this reporter Sasha Mandel says she never imagined going on welfare. But her plans for a career and the independence she craved ran headlong into a pair of unforeseen developments — an unplanned pregnancy at 18, and the worst job market since the Great Depression. In April 2009, freshly unemployed and devoid of savings, Mandel reluctantly walked into a state office in Phoenix to apply for welfare. Her caseworker was

It’s Still the Economy, Stupid

Jun 20, 2011
10 min

It’s Still the Economy, Stupid

by Bill Clinton June 19, 2011 Fourteen million Americans remain out of work, a waste of our greatest resource. The 42nd president has more than a dozen ideas on how to attack the jobs crisis. 14 WAYS TO PUT AMERICA BACK TO WORK Next week in Chicago, the Clinton Global Initiative will focus on America for the first time, inviting business and political leaders to make specific commitments in support of the former president’s jobs blueprint, which he details below. 1. SPEED THE

The Non-Mandated Society: Why Obama’s Mortgage Programs Fail

Apr 5, 2011
7 min