While government statistics offer some useful insight into jobs, employment and poverty, they also miss a lot, and can underestimate poverty and unemployment levels.
Increased militancy after pandemic sacrifices and tighter labor market contributed to impressive contract deals in the last year.
A POLITICO analysis shows that pandemic-era policies reversed the trend toward a widening income gap. The move away from them threatens those gains. Which way will Biden turn?
Dilbert's race problem, how COVID affected the labor market, and more cultural crackups
In April, 8.3% of disabled Americans were unemployed, compared with 3.1% of those without a disability.
Child care and elder care investments provide U.S. families more options and better lives. The added effect of boosting expectations of labor supply growth means that now would be a great time to undertake them to fight inflation.
Kandist Mallett argues, "Our pre-pandemic lives are not sustainable. They weren’t good for our health or this planet. Let’s evolve past capitalism, past working our lives away, past destroying the planet for profit’s sake."
A lot has changed since 1966, when watermelon workers in the South Texas borderlands walked out of the melon fields in a historic strike to protest poor wages and appalling working conditions. What hasn't changed is the work: It's as brutal as ever. Workers are vulnerable to getting cheated by growers and crew bosses. Texas — with the third-largest population of farmworkers after California and Florida — has some of the lowest agricultural wages in the country.
"The people at the bottom are going to be continually squeezed, and I don't see this ending anytime soon," said Harvard economist Richard Freeman. "If the economy were growing enough or unions were stronger, it would be possible for the less educated to do better and for the lower income to improve. But in our current world, where we are still adjusting to globalization, that is not very likely to happen."
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