Media

The President’s attention in his proposed budget to the challenges faced by unemployed young workers is encouraging. His proposal for a “Pathways Back to Work Fund” would make $12.5 billion available to create and/or subsidize jobs for younger as well as older unemployed workers. 

It’s been a good week for the 23,000 people who work for one U.S. retail chain. Even as the national economy continued to plod along and the unemployment rate remained disturbingly high, Hobby Lobby announced it is upping its minimum hourly wage to $14 for full-time employees and $9.50 for part-time workers.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Corporate Reform Coalition calls on newly confirmed SEC Chair Mary Jo White to act now to require disclosure of corporate political spending.  A record-breaking 500,000 investors and members of the public have submitted comments supporting the rule, demonstrating the importance of this issue.  Chair White should seize this pivotal opportunity to safeguard shareholders by providing them with information necessary for their investing decisions.

After a bruising election in which their standard-bearer became a symbol of wealth and privilege, Republicans are emerging as born-again champions of the common people. The latest proposal in the House, the “Working Families Flexibility Act,” is billed as a pro-worker proposal that will let mom bank comp time so she can take a family vacation later. But for such a worker-friendly idea, the bill has attracted support from strange quarters.

WASHINGTON -- The number of public comments submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on a rulemaking petition to require corporations to disclose political spending to shareholders has now topped 500,000, according to the Corporate Reform Coalition.

The Department of Labor (DOL) just lifted a national order that disallowed new enrollments in the Job Corps that had been in place since January.

A new report from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) is advocating a 36 percent interest cap rate that would alleviate the personal debt crisis in the United States.

Three developments in finance cropped up in the last days that must be read as a single story.

One of the main arguments used to justify fracking is that due to the increased supply of natural gas, the price of natural gas is falling and electricity generation is shifting towards using natural gas and away from using coal. Fracking proponents also point to a decline in overall greenhouse gas emissions as a result of natural gas use. But, if natural gas really is so cheap and we are producing more of it, why aren’t electricity prices decreasing?