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Immigration reform is likely to mean higher wages for workers at the bottom of the economic ladder—both foreign and native born. 

The reason is that the large number of undocumented workers in the U.S. exerts a downward drag on wages because employers routinely exploit such workers by paying them below the minimum wage and flouting other labor laws. 

Can some types of debt cause the blues? Why are people approaching retirement age carrying credit card debt? This column shares results from recent research about credit card debt among older Americans. [...]

When employers check credit as part of their hiring it creates a vicious cycle: out-of-work Americans can’t pay down their debts because they don’t have a job, but they can’t get a job because would-be employers hold their consumer credit history against them.  

Today the Supreme Court put another nail in the coffin of the withering body of consumer rights. In the Italian Colors case, the Court held that a plaintiff cannot bring a class action to a court or arbitration when it has agreed to a boilerplate contract waiving its right to litigation or class arbitration, even where the cost of bringing the case as an individual is so prohibitive as to preclude the vindication of important statutory rights. 

NEW YORK -- At a gathering of state leaders in Baltimore, Maryland, last week, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley made a strong case in support of the growing movement to rethink and re-orient how we measure economic performance and social progress, which he argues is a crucial step forward in meeting twenty-first century economic challenges. The “GPI in the States Summit” was organized by Demos and brought together public officials, researchers, and advocates representing twenty states from Maine to Hawaii.

In a keynote address last Friday in Baltimore, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley broke down the reasons behind his administration’s decision to make Maryland the first state in the union to employ a Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), a quantitative assessment that integrates both the costs and the benefits of economic development into a monetary measure of whether growth is truly enhancing the welfare of individuals and communities.

One of the most pernicious myths of the past half century is that guaranteeing healthcare for all Americans would strike a mortal blow against this country's system of free enterprise.