The left and right will never agree on many economic questions -- like how government can best stimulate growth -- but when you get down in the weeds there are places for a real conversation. At least with a smart guy like Michael Strain, who's a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a chapter on reducing unemployment in the new conservative manifesto, Room to Grow.
At the McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting on May 22, CEO Don Thompson claimed that his company “has a heritage of providing job opportunities that lead to ‘real careers.’”
This is the face of today's fast food workers -- 70% of whom are over the age of 20, nearly 40% have children and a third of them have spent some time in college, according to U.S. census data. [...]
Public policy group Demos says CEO compensation in the industry just since 2000 quadrupled to $24 million, while average fast food worker's wage only increased 0.3%.
Fast food CEOs also make 1,000 times more than the average worker in the industry.
It was certainly a nice theory that the Founders had: make Congress more responsive to the people by putting members of the House up for re-election every two years. With so many state elected offices also up for the grabs, and the staggering of Senate terms, midterm elections became even more consequential over time than the Founder probably ever imagined.
The media shouldn't be scaring students away from going to college, because the alternative of not going is worse. Unfortunately, our move to a debt-for-diploma system is doing a good enough job of that itself.
President Obama's big speech at West Point today on America's role in the world is getting lots of attention from foreign policy wonks, but anyone interested in domestic policy should also be paying keen attention. Why? Because how the U.S.
The conservative populist playbook has a timeless power, and two of its key strategies are especially potent: 1) Attack faceless government bureaucrats that are meddling in people's lives; and 2) Attack people who look different and are changing things.
Irresponsible spending habits are not a cause of credit card debt in U.S. households, according to a new report, The Debt Disparity: What Drives Credit Card Debt in America.
The national survey of working age low- and middle-income households by public policy organization Demos finds that they accrue credit card debt due to lack of insurance coverage, expenses for children and unemployment.
The sylvan silence of McDonald’s suburban Chicago corporate headquarters provides executives of the world’s largest fast-food corporation a retreat far from its 860,000 U.S. workers—who face a schedule of days defined by sizzling grease, fast-paced work and low wages.
Put simply, how do we square that “college is worth it” from the increasing body of evidence that student debt is not necessarily good debt? The unsatisfying answer, of course, is that it depends.
McDonald’s shareholders voted this morning to approve a $9.5 million compensation package for CEO Donald Thompson, including $7.8 million (82 percent of the total) in stock awards and incentive pay intended to reward company performance and align the interests of the Chief Executive with shareholders at the firm.
With another stroke of his pen, President Obama can authorize an Executive Order mandating paid sick leave for the same federally contracted workers whom he just gave a raise to.
On Tuesday, Tea Party challengers received a drubbing by establishment GOP candidates. And today, a group of conservatives published a manifesto with practical ideas meant to woo the middle class entitled Room to Grow. I guess extremism in defense of liberty might be a vice after all.
Signed into law on May 22, 2009, the Credit CARD Act has benefited millions of households in ways that directly affect their monthly budgets. Demos’ 2012 National Survey on Credit Card Debt of Low- and Middle-Income Households finds that the Credit CARD Act empowers Americans to take control of their finances by increasing the transparency of credit card statements and dramatically reducing unfair and excessive fees and
penalties.1 New estimates show that the CARD Act has saved U.S. consumers $50.4 billion, or $12.6 billion a year, in fees alone.
At first, the University of Chicago economist didn’t think credit card regulation could possibly work. “I went into the project with this sort of conventional wisdom that well-intentioned regulators would force down fees and that other fees and charges would increase in response,” explained Neale Mahoney, of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
College is the gateway to the middle class for most young people, but the price has never been higher. And a new study shows that New Jersey has actually exacerbated the student debt crisis by shifting the costs of college onto students and families.
According to the national think tank Demos, funding for higher education in New Jersey has dropped by 17 percent since 2006. That has forced every public college and university in the state to raise tuition and fees, far outpacing financial aid packages.
