Media

From The Washington Post, “Federal taxpayers employ more low-wage workers than Wal-Mart and McDonald’s combined, a new study calculates. The report from the consulting firm Demos, set to be released Wednesday, estimates that taxpayer dollars fund nearly 2 million private-sector jobs that pay $24,000 a year — about $12 an hour — or less.”

Here's an obvious point that often gets forgotten: Who you know makes a big difference in getting a job, and white people are far more likely to have social contacts that lead to employment. 

Here's a new one: Two Republican state legislators in Tennessee are pushing legislation which would penalize parents whose children have less than satisfactory grades by reducing their government assistance up to 30%.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor really cares about working families. He favors “common sense legislation to protect workers and make life work for more people” and wants to “help working parents who are juggling responsibilities at home and on the job.” 

The class of ’13 has no luck at all.

As the graduates take to the streets with their six-month grace periods before their student loan debt bills begin arriving, they face a horrific job market.

“At 16.2 percent, the March 2013 unemployment rate of workers under age 25 was [roughly] twice as high as the national average,” in the words of a recent report on young people entering the work force.

Young people starting out are normally at a disadvantage because they are trying to establish themselves in a profession.

In the constant race to be the best America is falling behind other large, wealthy nations in at least one major category: Employing the nation’s youth.

The Heritage Foundation has a new report out looking at the cost of immigration reform. The report puts the cost of immigration reform at a whopping $6.3 trillion. I won’t go into all the reasons they list but let’s say it seems they believe that as soon as undocumented workers become citizens, they will immediately claim means-tested benefits.

Panelists at the annual Corporate Crime Reporter Conference in Washington, D.C. Friday said they were concerned that the Justice Department is abandoning full criminal prosecutions of financial industries in favor of Deferred and Non Prosecution Agreements (DPAs and NPAs), which usually involve a fine and a set of conditions that must be followed. The company in exchange does not get prosecuted for criminal activity.

The good news in the April unemployment numbers delivered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday finally spilled over to people under 25, who saw their unemployment rate drop last month even as their labor force participation rate increased.