Those who doubt the impact of Social Security benefits on local economies should look to rural America, where 9.3 percent of total personal income in rural counties came from Social Security payments in 2009. That’s according to a study by the Center for Rural Strategies, as reported by the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI).

If this new Republican idea weren’t so scary, we would be laughing…hysterically.

As reported by the Washington Post 2chambers blog yesterday, Rep. Jeffrey Landry (R-La.) is proposing that working Americans—already battered bloody by the recession—be forced to give up some of their Social Security benefits if they “opt in” to receive a payroll tax cut. (So much for the Republican mantra that tax cuts pay for themselves.)

Since 2009, more than 1,500 employees of four Hyatt hotels in Chicago have been fighting for a fair contract. Now the company is threatening to strip away their health coverage if they don’t abandon their fight and call off their boycotts.

Workers in Washington State were cheering this morning’s announcement by the Boeing Co. and Machinists (IAM) District 751 that the company will build the 737 MAX—the next generation of Boeing’s best-selling jet—in Renton, Wash.

Relations between management and the 1,300 locked-out workers at American Crystal Sugar Co. reached a new low this week, as recordings were made public of company CEO David Berg likening the workers and their contract to a cancerous tumor.

When your job gets shipped overseas, you want help fast. You don’t want to decode reams of fine print to get that help.