Almost half the global workforce - 1.6 billion people - are in "immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed" by the economic impact of Covid-19, the International Labour Organization has warned.
Corporate debt among non-banks exploded to $75 trillion at the end of 2019, up from $48 trillion at the end of 2009. There is increasing alarm that companies in the energy, hospitality and auto sectors won't be able to make their bond payments.
Millennials are already in debt and without savings. After the next downturn, they’ll be in even bigger trouble.
The longer Donald Trump persists in his trade war, the greater the chances are of an outright slump developing. That is what the financial markets are telling us, also the implicit message from the Federal Reserve.
The US trade deficit is the result of a conscious globalization strategy by large multinational corporations. This strategy has greatly paid off for them. They have been able to use their mobility to secure lower wages, reduced regulations and lower taxes.
If you’re a woman over the age of 50, finding work has statistically gotten harder since 2008. Economics correspondent Paul Solman sat down with Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist and the author of the new book, “How to Retire with Enough Money,”to talk about how age discrimination and assumptions about the worth of women’s labor affect the job and retirement prospects of “older” women workers.
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).
This downturn and recovery have been different than others, and workers of all types have suffered.
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"Workers increasingly serve businesses that do not officially 'employ' the worker — a distinction that hampers organizing, erodes labor standards and dilutes accountability," said Catherine Ruckelshaus, general counsel for the National Employment Law Project, which advocates on behalf of low-wage workers. A recent Federal Reserve study showed that nearly 7.5 million people who are working part time — contract workers included — would rather have full-time jobs.
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