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

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

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

Regardless of the rationale behind these credit checks, this practice can be discriminatory, say Daniel Garodnick and Amy Traub in the New York Daily News. For instance, "African-American and Latino households are disproportionately likely to report poor credit, a finding some attribute to the nat

Big businesses, such as Wal-Mart and McDonalds, get a bad wrap for providing low-wage jobs. But, Americans may be surprised to know that they're funding a low-wage labor pool larger than both of these companies combined do, a new report by Demos, a public policy organization, shows.

Even with a freeze on basic pay rates and unpaid leave days and repeated attacks on the federal workforce, being a federal employee means you have a good, though as of late, a less-lucrative job. That can’t be said by everyone in the federal workplace.

For several years, Walmart has placed or tied for last among department and discount stores in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The situation for the workers is even less satisfying. Hundreds went on strike on Black Friday last fall. With the backing of the United Food and Commercial

The vacuous, cheerful expression of the Walmart smiley face has long been associated with the paradoxically dark reality of low-wage work. With the recent fast-food worker walkouts in New York, the golden arches may go down, too, in the annals of class-war symbology.

The entire social and fiscal debate ignores this monster of an issue, but it’s only a matter of time. The kids are moving back home when they graduate and can’t find work. Soon, grandma and grandpa are going to be moving in, too. There’s a reckoning ahead that policymakers and the news media haven’t

The average unemployment rate in the first quarter of this year was 7.7 percent. But for African-American workers that rate was 13.6 percent. For Latinos, it was 9.5 percent. And among those who do have jobs, wages are not rising.