Portside

New data shows no change in the poverty rate in most states for the past two years. Only two states have poverty rates below their 2007 level, before the state of the Great Recession. However, the data suggest that the lack of real income growth over the past decade and a half has been even more pronounced for households at the bottom of the income scale. Click below to see where your state stands (or doesn't).

Historically, the public sector has served as an equalizing institution through the expansion of job opportunities for minority workers. This study examines whether the public sector continues to serve as an equalizing institution in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Results point to a post-recession double disadvantage for Black women: they are concentrated in a shrinking sector of the economy, and they are substantially more likely be without work.

When an economist confidently tells us that the unemployment rate can't get below 5.4 percent, 5.2 percent, or 5.0 percent without causing the inflation rate to spiral upward, why should anyone have confidence in this assessment?

How the minimum wage hurts us all. Is $15 an Hour a Realistic Goal for Fast-Food Workers? -- Even the Wall Stree Journal says YES -- If all workers earned at least $15 an hour, there would be a ripple effect through hundreds of occupations.

On Friday, the jobless rate dropped to 5.5%, the lowest in seven years. But youth unemployment is rising – and some young people need all the help they can get

African-Americans are disproportionately likely to be poor, they are only a quarter of Americans living in poverty; whites make up about 41% of the poor. Those white Americans who don't want to help the poor because they'd be helping people of another race are actually screwing over white people big time. The wealth gap between /white and African-American families tripled between 1980 and 2009.

When President Obama took office, there were five million Americans at home all day who are now, sadly, not at home