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Eighty years ago, in the 1930s, the auto industry -- a centerpiece of America's industrial economy -- was not yet unionized. Yet within twenty years, the big carmakers and the United Auto Workers would be effectively sharing power in Detroit, and building cars had become a reliable path into the middle class for workers with only a high school diploma, or not even that. 

The Dow may be at a record high, leaving many traders and CEOs elated, but as the New York Times reported Monday, the share of national income going to American workers is near an all time low.

Emmett Pinkston served in the military for 30 years, first in the Marines, then in the Air Force, then in the Army. He helped coordinate security for President George W. Bush during the G8 Summit on Sea Island, Ga., in 2004, and worked as an intelligence analyst in Iraq from 2005 to 2007, some of the deadliest years of the war.

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A new bill introduced today by Senator Tom Harkin and Rep. George Miller would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, and more importantly, peg it to inflation so that it would automatically adjust. The proposed wage hike is higher than the $9 per hour proposed by President Obama and is closer to what the minimum wage would be now if it had kept up with the rate of inflation. The bill also increases the tipped wage, which has not risen in twenty years.

The debate over inequality tends to focus on things like tax policy, unions, corporate greed, and globalization. Scholars are well aware that technology has been a major driver of inequality -- by allowing the owners of capital to make more money with lower labor costs -- but policy types don't tend to have much to say on this issue. 

Does it matter whether or not America is actually a "center-right" country, as conservatives argue, if its elected leaders think it is? Or is the only factor that matters the size of a voter's bank account?

NEW YORK, NY—While much of the country’s attention is focused on the need for job growth, a new report released today by national public policy organization Demos reveals the ways in which the use of credit history in hiring acts as a significant barrier to employment and may lead to discriminatory hiring practices, particularly for people of color and the long-term unemployed.

Every time Washington confronts one of the imminent fiscal crises that seem to be normal operating procedure these days, my mind flashes back to an absurdist scene in the Saturday Night Live spinoff “Wayne’s World 2.”

When Wayne and his sidekick Garth happen upon a group of men hauling watermelons and chicken crates, they speculate that they’ve wandered into an outdoor market. On the contrary, the laborers inform them, their job is simply to stack their goods in one spot, then move them a few minutes later.

The wealthy are remarkably adept at feeling vicitimized, despite their unprecedented income gains over the past few decades and their unparalleled level of political clout in a democracy where money equals free speech.