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Paul Krugman has a pretty straightforward plan to deal with the sequester that’s due to hit March 1. The New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist says, “The right policy would be to forget about the whole thing.” He bases his proposal on what Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen said in her keynote address to the Trans-Atlantic Agenda for Shared Prosperity conference at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Fiscal austerity, such as the sequester and the latest doomsday alert from the Bowles-Simpson duo, is the enemy of real economic recovery.
Five-Year Agreement Brings together Merged Utility Units in Vermont
"Fix the Debt" portrays itself as a nonpartisan group designed to convince government to do something drastic about the national debt, which it says is a significant danger to the country. And despite widespread evidence from economists that their proposals would hurt the economy, Fix the Debt's members are pushing for a set of policies based on tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans and benefit cuts to lifelines like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
The nation’s broken immigration system is creating a crisis for workers and employers in the Texas construction industry. A new study by the Workers Defense Project (WDP) and the University of Texas finds that as many as half of the Lone Star State’s construction workers may be undocumented. Says WDP Executive Director Cristina Tzintzun:Our immigration policies are broken. They’re not working for businesses, they’re not working for our workers and they’re not working for our state.
The president opened last week's State of the Union address, calling for "modest" changes to contain Medicare costs. One of the president's primary audiences, Congress, faces a series of deadlines in the coming months, including automatic spending cuts on March 1, expiration of the federal budget patch on March 27 and the impending debt ceiling this summer. Any one of these deadlines may force decisions about Medicare's future.
Linda Nguyen-Perez, a research/policy analyst at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), works to promote America's manufacturing jobs and create career pathways for historically disadvantaged women and men, and Michelle Knapik is the director of the Surdna Foundation’s Sustainable Environments Program. This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post.The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (aka L.A. Metro) needed new, clean buses. If L.A. Metro had simply followed current buying protocol, its single focus would have been on finding a company to deliver the lowest-cost buses. In all likelihood, this would have resulted in jobs going overseas (but for some final assembly jobs on U.S. soil).
As we continue this week’s launch of @Work, today we are spotlighting “People,” one of seven categories featured on the AFL-CIO’s new online hub.
As part of a six-day worldwide labor solidarity campaign, American union members protested outside the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., yesterday in support of greater trade union rights and protections in Mexico.
Right-Wing Policy Shop: Busted Budgets, Giveaways to the Rich Coming to a State Near You
Let's be clear, the "chained" CPI is a Social Security benefit cut. The younger you are, the bigger the benefit cut. AARP has a handy new calculator that helps you calculate how much you lose if Congress enacts a "chained" CPI. The tool also calculates veterans' benefits. Check out the AARP Chained CPI Calculator here.
