Media

The kids are not alright. So not alright, in fact, that about 45 percent of the nation’s unemployed are between the ages of 18 and 34, according to a recent report from Demos, a public policy organization. In addition to the more than 5.6 million young people who don’t have a job, there are about 4.7 million young employees who are underemployed or working in jobs for which they’re overqualified, the report found.

Once you get your hard-earned dollars into your 401(k), it’s painful to think they might not begetting you the highest return possible. Before you go any further, those who aren’t contributing regularly to a 401(k) or another type of tax-advantaged retirement account, such as a Traditional or Roth IRA, need to start now. While making that 10 or 15 percent contribution from your paycheck can be tough, there’s no excuse to not plan for supporting yourself in your old age.

In the past few years, there has been a disturbing push in a number of states toward limiting the right to vote and raising barriers to participation in democracy. Not in Connecticut. When it comes to ensuring an inclusive and fair democracy that guarantees every voice is heard, our state has been a real leader and taken important steps forward.

Massive fraud in the high-speed trading markets is escaping detection because regulators and exchanges are dithering on a powerful supercomputer to uncover the scams, The Post has learned.

And as retail investors begin dipping their toes back into stocks, now at record prices, the market watchdogs are asleep at the wheel.

It's hard to say exactly why the labor market grew at such a tepid pace last month, adding just 88,000 jobs - not nearly enough to make a dent in the millions of unemployed or even keep up with population growth. Overall, though, it seems clear that consumers are still tapped out, with their incomes flat for years, and many of the new jobs being created lately are low-wage positions that don't leave people with much spending money. 

This economy isn't out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.

Another month of weak job growth seems especially cruel after the greater-than-expected employment gains in February. But workers were already onto the trend, leaving the labor market in droves throughout March despite the anomaly of a statistical surge in hiring the month before.

Washington frets endlessly over the problems that Social Security and Medicare, both of which are projected to exhaust their trust funds in the coming decades, might cause the budget. But two new reports underscore the serious problems they might solve for the country.

Take Social Security. For years, pension experts have spoken of the “three-legged stool” of retirement savings: Social Security, employer pensions and private savings. In recent years, however, that stool has begun to wobble, and today, Social Security is basically the only leg holding it up.