Media

Federal taxpayers employ more low-wage workers than Wal-Mart and McDonald’s combined, a new study calculates.

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.” 

Murphy suggested two ways out of this trap. One is crowd-sourced fundraising, which is already occurring over the Internet. Murphy stated that his Senate campaign raised $4 million of its $10 million total from donors giving online. That meant he did not have to call wealthy donors to raise 40 percent of his campaign haul.

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.