This is a cross-post from the Transport Workers (TWU) blog. 

The rain couldn’t stop TWU Local 525 members as they kicked off informational picketing last week about their fight for a fair contract with G4S GS at the Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County, Fla.

Jeff Faux, Distinguished Fellow at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), joined us here today at the AFL-CIO to discuss his new book, The Servant Economy: Where America’s Elite is Sending the Middle Class. The event launches the AFL-CIO summer book series, which includes discussions with noted economists who will talk about their new books on jobs, inequality and the U.S. financial crisis. (Get details and RSVP here.)

In his last book, The Global Class War, Faux in 2006 correctly predicted the permanent decline of our debt-burdened middle class at the hands of our off-shoring executives, out of control financiers and their friends in Washington. So we asked Faux a few questions about what his latest analyses and predictions in The Servant Economy.

According to a Cornell University study of janitors and security guards, when service sector jobs are outsourced, even within the United States, workers in those jobs are paid lower wages and receive fewer health benefits.

This is a cross-post from MomsRising.org and the Labor Project for Working Families.

When Annie Bolgiano was growing up, her mother, a forest firefighter, told her daughter she could become anything she wanted. Then Annie went to college and learned another lesson:

You can go into whatever profession you want, but you are statistically unlikely to make a salary equal to your male counterparts.

Most recent young college graduates are carrying a heavy debt load for their education, and they face a harder time paying it off because their wages have plummeted as well—part of a decade-long decline, according to a new Economic Snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

A few days ago, economist Joseph Stiglitz said something quite provocative: "We've been shaping our society to create people who are more selfish."

The eye is drawn to the last part, "...create people who are more selfish." My takeaway message is at the beginning, "We've been shaping our society...."

Latina workers face marked disadvantages in the workplace and the job market, according to a report released yesterday during the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) Trabajadoras Awards Luncheon honoring Latina leaders who have paved the way for working women to have a better quality of life. The report, “Trabajadoras: Challenges and Conditions of Latina Workers in the United States,” examines economic and social issues affecting Latina workers, conditions of Latina immigrants, the role unions play in providing economic security and issues facing Latino children and youths.

Here’s a classic example of good news/bad news. First, the good news: The wage gap between what men earn and what women earn narrowed last year to its closest point ever, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). The bad news? Women still earn an average of 17.8 percent less than men. More bad news: The gap only closed because wages for men have fallen further than for women.

This is a cross-post from Jared Bernstein’s blog, On the Economy. Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and, from 2009 to 2011, was the chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

I’ve always thought the national minimum wage is a lot more important than most people tend to think. By definition, it sets a floor on the low end of the job market, though to their credit, many states now set their minimums above the federal level of $7.25 (Washington State clocks in at a cool $9.04). So it’s a floor, not a ceiling.

Today, nearly three-fourths of children live in homes where the adults who care for them work outside the home. Workers in jobs that have paid holidays and vacation time often cobble together those benefits in order to take care of a newborn or other family members. But low-wage workers whose employers don’t offer any paid leave, say the study’s authors, are at risk for falling out of the workforce and onto public assistance rolls when family members require their care.