Labor & Economic News Blog

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Stanford study finds blacks and Hispanics typically need ...

Stanford study finds blacks and Hispanics typically need ...

Researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education have found that black and Hispanic families effectively need much higher incomes than white families to live in comparably affluent neighborhoods. As a result, middle-income black and Hispanic households are much more likely to live in poor neighborhoods – which tend to have weaker schools, more crime and bigger social problems – than whites or Asians who earn the same amount of money. This segregation may be constraining the upward mobility of black and Hispanic children compared with their white and Asian peers.

 

Start-Ups Finding the Best Employees Are Actually Employed

Start-Ups Finding the Best Employees Are Actually Employed

Some on-demand companies are rejecting the practice of using independent contractors, like Uber drivers, and are hiring people they can train and hold accountable.

 

House Approves Trade Bill’s Expansion of Worker Aid

House Approves Trade Bill’s Expansion of Worker Aid

The measure extends assistance like retraining and health care to workers displaced by global competition.

 

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

A quarter of Americans are one emergency away from financial ruin

A quarter of Americans are one emergency away from financial ruin


Despite feeling better about their jobs, workers are still struggling to keep extra money in the bank, studies show.

 

Fewer Poor Uninsured, Study Finds in Health Law

Fewer Poor Uninsured, Study Finds in Health Law

Significant declines in the proportion of uninsured Americans are documented as the Supreme Court nears a ruling on Affordable Care Act subsidies.

 

Friday, June 19, 2015

California labor regulators blast a big hole in Uber's 'sharing economy' dodge

California labor regulators blast a big hole in Uber's 'sharing economy' dodge

 Sharing economy" firms like the car services Uber and Lyft have always been based on something of a sham: the idea that the drivers are working for themselves, not for the bosses.

 

Sharing economy gets a wake-up call with Uber ruling

Sharing economy gets a wake-up call with Uber ruling

Silicon Valley has created a new breed of American worker: neither employee nor contractor, indispensable to the company but free to work as much or as little as they please — with no real boss.

 

Monday, June 15, 2015

Right-to-Work Takes Us in the Wrong Direction

Illinois

Right-to-Work Takes Us in the Wrong Direction


State and local governments are moving to enact right-to-work laws that harm all workers, regardless of union status, and do not result in the job growth promised by proponents. Policymakers can help working families by pursuing policies to uphold workers’ ability to join together in unions.

 

11 stunning facts about how Kansas treats the poor

11 stunning facts about how Kansas treats the poor

11 stunning facts about how Kansas treats the poor
This is what a “real-live experiment” in red-state governance looks like in Kansas.

 

Colo. court: Workers can be fired for using medical marijuana in off-hours

Colo. court: Workers can be fired for using medical marijuana in off-hours

Colo. court: Workers can be fired for using medical marijuana in off-hours
The justices said that even though medical marijuana is legal in the state, it’s illegal on the federal level.

 

Labor’s Might Seen in Failure of Trade Deal as Unions Allied to Thwart It

Labor’s Might Seen in Failure of Trade Deal as Unions Allied to Thwart It

The labor movement’s unusual cohesion across various sectors of the economy helped derail the trade deal in Congress.

 

America’s Seniors Find Middle-Class ‘Sweet Spot’

America’s Seniors Find Middle-Class ‘Sweet Spot’

Those between 65 and 74, supported by Social Security, pensions and investments, have fared better than most other groups outside the superrich.

 

First & Spring: Labor leaders' credibility slips in minimum-wage debate

First & Spring: Labor leaders' credibility slips in minimum-wage debate

 LA.'s decision to boost the minimum wage should have been the sweetest of victories for organized labor. Mayor Eric Garcetti helped union leaders and their allies achieve a long-sought goal Saturday, signing an ordinance that moves the city's hourly minimum to $15 by 2020. But for some partisans on each side of the debate, that historic moment has been tainted by labor leaders' last-minute push for an exemption for unionized workplaces.

 

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Oil workers lose jobs and hope after prices fall


Oil workers lose jobs and hope after prices fall

The oil and gas industry offered good pay to men with no more than a high school education, but those jobs disappeared when oil prices plunged from nearly $110 to about $45 a barrel.

 

What's happening to the middle class?

What's happening to the middle class?

Virtually everyone likes to think of themselves as middle class, but it just isn't so. Only about half of families in Massachusetts have incomes that ...

 

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

How the Recession Will Play Out in 2016

How the Recession Will Play Out in 2016

Because many Americans have yet to see the recovery reflected in their paychecks, the G.O.P. will play up a feeling of malaise.

 

Wednesday, June 03, 2015

One Last Task at Disney: Train Foreign Replacements

One Last Task at Disney: Train Foreign Replacements


American tech workers in Orlando found their jobs and desks transferred to immigrants brought in under H-1B visas by an Indian firm.

 

Creating Opportunity for All in Rural Communities

Creating Opportunity for All in Rural Communities

Rural America provides the vast majority of food and energy benefits for the rest of the country, is the source of nearly 90 percent of renewable water resources, and is home to important service sector and manufacturing hubs. Despite this critical role in our nation’s economy, too many Americans in rural areas are not sharing in our nation’s economic growth.

 

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

For the Poor, the Graduation Gap Is Even Wider Than the Enrollment Gap

For the Poor, the Graduation Gap Is Even Wider Than the Enrollment Gap

Overcoming odds in high school is just a start; poor students fall further behind affluent ones in trying to complete college.

 

Wal-Mart to raise wages for managers

Wal-Mart to raise wages for managers

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is raising the pay of more than 100,000 of its managers and employees in specialized departments.

 

Will Gawker go union?

Will Gawker go union?

As union membership declines, even modest unionization efforts take on symbolic importance. Each case seems like a sign of things to come. Success or failure at the individual level seems to portend success or failure for the broader movement.That's why supporters and opponents of organized labor snapped to attention when workers at Gawker — a popular, youth-driven news and gossip website that specializes in snarky commentary — announced the first-ever unionization drive at a major online media company. Gawker's 119 full-time staffers will vote Wednesday on whether to join the Writers Guild of America.

 

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