The Making of Ferguson

By Richard Rothstein The American Prospect
Long before the shooting of Michael Brown, official racial-isolation policies primed Ferguson for this summer’s events.

When the Guy Making Your Sandwich Has a Noncompete Clause

By Neil Irwin The New York Times
American businesses are paying out a historically low proportion of their income in the form of wages and salaries. But the Jimmy John’s employment agreement is one small piece of evidence that workers, especially those without advanced skills, are also facing various practices and procedures that leave them worse off, even apart from what their official hourly pay might be.