On July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage rose to $7.25 an hour, the last bump of a three-step increase enacted in 2007 with bipartisan support. Five years later -- despite cost increases of 11% and record income inequality, and despite an unprecedented, nationwide push for higher wages in the streets, at the ballot box, in statehouses, and at businesses small and large -- it remains hopelessly stuck there due to Congressional indifference. read more
Rep. Keith Ellison plans to unveil legislation that would make unionization into a legally protected civil right, the congressman said on Saturday. read more
The growing enthusiasm for Warren may stem from liberal frustration with the Democratic establishment and skepticism about Hillary Clinton's progressive bonafides. While Clinton has spoken recently of "the cancer of inequality," she's also stumbled on questions of her personal wealth, which hasn't helped her attempt to embrace economic populism. read more
The general chairman for the union representing Long Island Railroad (LIRR) workers on Monday revealed that negotiations between his organization and New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) had broken down, setting the stage for a transit shutdown. Barring unforeseen circumstances, LIRR workers will go on strike shortly after midnight Sunday. read more
Five months after the United Auto Workers failed in its bid to unionize Volkswagen's Chattanooga, Tenn., manufacturing plant, the union is giving it another go. But this time, they're not bothering with the traditional election route. read more
Restaurant industry groups like the National Restaurant Association (NRA) argue that the average tipped worker makes a decent living, even in states with a significant tip credit. Yet a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) says otherwise. read more
In terms of sheer numbers, the port truckers' strike is not a major action. Only about 120 drivers walked off the job on Monday, when the strike began. Yet in terms of significance to the labor movement, this little workplace disruption is a national event. read more
Is growing political polarization between Democrats and Republicans creating more inequality? “The proximity of these trends is uncanny,” noted Princeton’s Nolan McCarty and Howard Rosenthal and the University of California San Diego’s Keith Poole back in 2003. read more
CENTRAL FALLS, Rhode Island — James Diossa was in college when the housing meltdown first hit his hometown. He was only an intern when Central Falls started careening towards bankruptcy. He was the youngest council member ever when the city’s mayor came under investigation for corruption. Now Central Falls is looking to Diossa for help. read more
Springfield, Mass. — Elizabeth Warren says inequality is a fundamental problem, and that it’s up to the government to do something about it. But her home state of Massachusetts — friendlier than most to an active and involved government — remains the site of some of the country’s starkest disparities. read more
When liberals complain about the 35-year rise income inequality, conservatives sometimes answer that unequal outcomes are the price America has to pay for bounteous economic opportunity. That argument has gotten harder to make in recent years, because it turns out that the U.S. lags most comparable nations — including France, Germany, and even Canada — when it comes to social mobility. read more
Among the many illusions swept away by Thomas Piketty’s surprise best-seller, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," is the long-held belief that deregulating the American economy brought about a democratization of capital -- at least from the investor’s point of view. read more
