A while ago, researchers at Oxfam set out to answer a question: if we compare labor laws in the US to peer nations, how does the US stack up? We figured the answer would be “not so great.” We didn’t anticipate just how poorly the US is doing.
It turns
As the global economy continues to weather high inflation, energy prices and interest rates, majorities of adults in 18 of 24 countries surveyed by Pew Research Center this spring rate their nation’s economic situation poorly. A median of 70% of adults across these countries say their nation’s economic situation is bad. Just 29% offer positive
If there’s anyone who should be talking about economic inequality it’s Jerome Powell, a man who as Fed chair has aimed a spotlight on the issue and put the Fed on an intentional trajectory toward reducing it through policy.
Yes, but: Pressed for answers on how the central bank’s policies have impacted wealth and income inequality among
Racial inequality, be that in housing, education, jobs, or our justice system, is holding back our economy and limiting the realization of the American Dream. Too often, gridlock on Capitol Hill does not address these challenges head-on, allowing them to grow into more significant problems. State governments, our laboratories of democracies, have a much-needed role
President Donald Trump regularly promotes the soaring stock market as a barometer of the economy’s health, tweeting again on Monday that it’s a key reason he should be reelected. But investors aren’t sharing the wealth.
The reality is that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans own 50 percent of the value of stocks held by individual
Adrian Perkins still remembers the feeling of not having enough. How it feels to gargle water dashed with salt and pepper instead of visiting a doctor for a sore throat. How his feet would dangle from the chairs in the building where his mother worked a second job cleaning offices after he finished school. If
E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class relates the story of a Manchester silk weaver who, in 1835, complained of being subjugated to the urgent demands of the market. This skilled artisan observed how capitalists determined the pace at which they worked, while workers faced externally imposed timelines. “Labour,” the weaver lamented, “is always
As ordinary people around the world suffer from the health and economic impacts of the pandemic, billionaires have actually seen their fortunes expand. According to Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Forbes data, the combined wealth of all U.S. billionaires increased by $821 billion (28 percent) between March 18, 2020 and September 10, 2020, from
Like countless state and local governments, the 574 federally recognized American Indian tribes across the U.S. are struggling to respond to the public health crisis caused by COVID-19 — and the resulting economic devastation. Despite the $11 billion in direct relief Congress earmarked for tribal governments last spring, the funds have been slow to reach
America is once again engaged in the process of rebuilding its economy from a devastating recession. The United States cannot afford another feeble and prolonged rebound, in which the gilded chambers of the economy recover faster than all the others, and it need not have one. But it may be slipping into that trap again,
America is in principle a democracy, in which every vote counts the same. It’s also a nation in which income inequality has soared, a development that hurts many more people than it helps. So if you didn’t know better, you might have expected to see a political backlash: demands for higher taxes on the rich,
World governments did not learn the right lessons from past outbreaks of disease, and we’re paying for it now as we cope with COVID-19. We have invested too little in public health and disease prevention, particularly in poor countries, given the potential economic (as well as human) costs of pandemics.
The outbreak of the coronavirus named
Not all problems are purely about numbers. But try to take on a single large-scale issue in the country and world today without specific detailed information. It doesn’t matter what side of a question you’re on.
Legal abortion? Then you need to consider how poor people as well as wealthy can get access. Oppose it?
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by researchers who worked on the atomic bomb. It publishes research on “manmade existential threats such as nuclear war, climate change, and disruptive technologies.”
And lately, it’s been a little bit, well, doomsaying. Its famous extinction clock has hovered for the last few
As lifespans lengthen around the world, men and women are: delaying when they marry and have children; returning to school as adults to gain skills and working beyond traditional retirement age. In countries as dissimilar as Japan and Morocco, they’re marrying five to 10 years later on average than their parents did. In the United
Many emerging countries were under foreign colonization in the last century. This partly explains why these countries have been slow to protect workers. Colonial priorities were seldom about workplace safety.
In the 21st century, the world has known rapid development of internet technology and digitalization. The globe is becoming like a small village where much information
The latest estimate from the World Bank puts global GDP at roughly $80 trillion in nominal terms for 2017.
America’s economic system is a mix of free-market capitalism with government actions and controls. It evolved along with our nation. Many of us came to believe this system rewarded hard work and was fair. Globalization and technological change challenged this belief.
Increasing economic rewards to “knowledge workers” — people who work with their minds, not their
Why are people poor? Conservatives and liberals offer very different explanations.
Conservatives point to a “culture of poverty” and suggest that much deprivation is the result of flawed choices and behavior by the poor themselves. They point to a strong correlation between poverty and a failure to follow the so-called success sequence: finish school, get a
