With comments straight out of President Reagan's "welfare queens" playbook, Paul Ryan is attempting to justify his proposed budgets cuts to various programs that help the poor, claiming the safety net "provides a powerful disincentive to get ahead." Never mind that since the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Welfare Reform Act, aka, "welfare reform," most of the remaining income assistance programs are both means-tested and work-based.
I recently published an article in response to a study of high-frequency trading (“HFT”) by Professor Charles M. Jones of Columbia Business School and an opinion piece he published simultaneously in Politico.
More and more Americans are spending their golden years racking up debt—a trend that if left unchecked could derail entitlement reform and alter the traditional pattern of wealth being transferred from older to younger generations.
For the past several decades, millions of senior citizens have been able to enjoy relatively safe retirements, in part due to a lifetime of savings, private pensions, Social Security, Medicare, and home ownership.
The company an employee works for makes all the difference. Over the course of a 40-year career, workers at some companies lose tens of thousands of dollars in 401(k) fees and earnings -- sometimes more than double the savings lost by workers at other firms, according to an exclusive analysis of about 2,300 company 401(k) plans by FutureAdvisor, an online financial adviser.
A few decades ago, students in most places could go to a state university for next to nothing. We all know that's now ancient history. But less appreciated is how much public tuition costs have increased in just the past few years, amid an epic state budget crisis. The chart below shows the huge spike in costs.
Lotteries are often competitions for something fun, like extra money or prizes. But for thousands of Tennessee residents who have escalating medical bills, their lives almost literally depend on a twice-yearly telephone lottery for people who need help paying medical bills, but while poor, do not quite qualify for TennCare, Tennessee's version of Medicaid. They must call a hotline so popular that its 2,500 call limit is reached in an hour or less. And that's only for requesting an application for the extra funding.
A new report by Professors Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels, and Jason Seawright presents the findings from one of the first studies of its kind—a study of the political clout and policy preferences of the wealth. Based on a pilot study of Chicagoans with a mean wealth of 14 million, "Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans" shows that the wealthiest Americans not only are the most politically active, but have a different set of policy priorities.
It's no secret that wealthy people have a lot more clout when it comes to politics and civic life. They are more likely to vote, contact their representatives, belong to advocacy organizations, and -- of course -- contribute to politicians, parties, and PACs. Compared to ordinary folks, many of the wealthy are "super citizens."
If the speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives gets his way, residents of his state will soon notice a barrage of advertisements promoting the benefits of marriage.
The number of Americans age 60 and over in debt is alarming. A recent report by the AARP’s Public Policy Institute and the research organization Demos revealed that Americans over the age of 50 carried substantially more debt on credit cards — an average balance of $8,278 — than those under 50, whose average balance was $6,258.
Sen. President Donald Williams and 23 other Democratic Senators were cross-endorsed in the 2012 election by both the Democratic party and a third party, but Williams proposed getting rid of the cross-endorsement system Monday because he says it causes confusion for voters.
He told the General Administration and Elections Committee that 44 states have no ability to cross endorse a candidate. He said it’s confusing for voters to have the same candidate appear on two lines on the ballot and could cause problems such as overvoting.
HARTFORD -- Connecticut lawmakers are considering allowing early voting during state elections and eliminating cross endorsements by minor parties.
Through testimony and remarks submitted Monday to the government administration and elections committee, early voting garnered considerable support, while eliminating cross endorsements drew sizable opposition.
What does $7.5 million buy you these days? If you’re Syngenta Corp, Cargill, or Monsanto it looks like it buys you a legislative rider called the “Monsanto Protection Act,” that strips federal courts of any authority to halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crops, regardless of any consumer health concerns. Not a bad return on the $7.5 million these companies have donated to members of Congress since 2009.
I've been writing about economic inequality for over a decade and, at this point, it's pretty hard to be shocked by new data. But David Cay Johnston has just crunched some numbers that will surprise even the most jaded observers of the widening gap between the Haves and everyone else.
Medicaid expansion for low-income Americans just can't catch a break, even with tentative support (or just giving in) from unexpected conservative corners, including Florida Governor Rick Scott. Yesterday, Representative Matt Salmon (R-Arizona), and five other lawmakers backed the Medicaid Expansion Repeal and State Flexibility Act, which would eliminate the Medicaid expansion included under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Research has shown that someone with a poor credit history is not automatically a poor job prospect. Nevertheless, millions of Americans who have emerged from the recession with medical debts or a record of late payments are at risk of being denied jobs by companies that use credit histories to screen applicants. Several states have placed limits on this practice. But until the federal government engages the issue more aggressively, employers will consign otherwise qualified applicants to a kind of pariah class that gets shut out of the job market.
The average retail sales job pays only $10.09 an hour, and some retail outlets—notably Walmart, the largest private employer in the world—pay as little as $8.00 per hour. But a handful of large retail companies have made generous compensation a key part of their business models, and it seems to be paying off.
The liberal Connecticut Working Families Party and the conservative Independent Party of Connecticut probably don’t share a lot of ideological common ground.
But they agree on one issue: ending the practice of cross-endorsements would be a bad idea. The two parties were part of a loose coalition of disparate political groups that spoke out at a public hearing at the legislative office building Monday on Senate Bill 1146, which would ban the practice.
