The precariat is the growing class of insecure workers whose wages and working conditions do not provide economic stability. It ought to be getting more attention in American political discourse. I have urged mainstream journalists covering labor issues to use the term, which is increasingly being used in Europe. Several reporters have told me […]

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(Source: CNNMoney) The Republicans are giddy after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a new report suggesting as many as 1 million jobs might be lost if the federal minimum wages goes from $7.25 per hour to $10.10, as proposed by President Barack Obama. Indeed, that sounds like a lot. Why focus on wages when […]

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(Source: The Gazette) Back when I first studied economics, we “proved” in class that a minimum wage causes unemployment. You just draw supply and demand curves for labor, add a horizontal line for a wage above the “market clearing” competitive equilibrium wage, and—bingo!—a gap appears between labor supply and labor demand. Employers routinely violate current […]

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The attack on the Affordable Care Act by conservative Republicans after the release of the Congressional Budget Office’s new report was desperate. Bravo to much of the media for setting the story straight almost immediately. But so strong is the anti-government bias involving social policy that critics hardly stopped to think. No, businesses were not […]

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The football game part of the Super Bowl was a non-event, but there was serious controversy over one of the commercials: Actress Scarlett Johansson was appearing in an ad for SodaStream, a maker of carbonated beverage dispensers whose main factory is in the West Bank, Palestinian territory that has been occupied by Israel since 1967. […]

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