Media

No matter where you are on the political spectrum, you should be able to agree that the IRS needs to be rigorously neutral in its oversight of the nonprofit sector. 

The retail and restaurant sector – two primary employers of low-wage workers – receive larger public subsidies than the fossil fuel industry in the form of public assistance for the working poor.

Fast food workers have organized a series of one-day strikes in cities across the country, calling for better pay and union representation. 

Previous research has found that the majority of the jobs added to the economy since the end of the recession pay low wages. Middle-wage and high-wage jobs haven’t seen nearly the same rate of growth, meaning that the economy has traded comfortable jobs for those that merely allow workers to scrape by.

At the very least, argues a recent report from Demos, the American government owes employees on its payroll a livable wage. Demos, a research and policy center focused on economic stability, defines low-wage work as “a job paying $12 an hour or less, equivalent to an annual income of about $24,000 for a full-time worker. Nationwide, a family of four trying to subsist on $24,000 a year hovers near the poverty level.

This week has delivered two economic surprises that illustrate the right way and the wrong way to respond to the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

First, the euro zone economy shrank more than expected in the past three months, moving France back into a recession. That's what happens when you implement an austerity policy that serves to undermine economic demand. 

The IRS is under siege for investigating conservative political groups applying for tax-exempt status. But the real problem wasn’t that the IRS was too aggressive.

With Jamie Dimon under growing fire from shareholders of JP Morgan Chase, one possibility is that he may relinquish his role as chairman of the board but remain as CEO. That raises an interesting question: Why does Dimon hold both jobs to begin with? 

A JP Morgan Chase shareholder insurrection threatens to split the roles of Chairman and CEO, stripping Jamie Dimon of the chairmanship. People with reputations for wisdom and good judgment like Rupert Murdoch and Hank Paulson have rushed to defend the dapper and aggressive Dimon claiming that he is unworthy of such cruel and unusual punishment.