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 ).

Job growth in April rose by 115,000, above the 100,000 needed to keep up with new job entrants. The unemployment rate improved a tad, from 8.2 percent in March to 8.1 percent in April, as did the number of jobless, which declined from 12.7 million in March to 12.5 million in April, according to U.S. Department of Labor  data  released this morning. Some  14.5 million workers  remain unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work.

So much for Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) stewardship of the Wisconsin economy and his promise that eliminating collective bargaining rights for public employees and massive budget cuts would turn the Badger State into a job growth miracle. A report today from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that Wisconsin is the only state in the nation to suffer “statistically significant” job loss during the 12 months from March 2011 to March 2012.

The surest route to returning to the productivity, economic growth and employment the United States experienced in the post-World War II era and again in the late 1990s requires a substantial increase in public investments, a new report from the Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ) finds.

But the biggest obstacle facing any significant boost to public investments, writes EPI Economist Josh Bivens is “how myopic the economic debate about budget deficits has become in the United States.”

A little more than a year ago, under the guise of wrestling with state fiscal challenges, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and his Republican allies in the state legislature launched an all-out attack on public-sector workers, claiming teachers, nurses, firefighters and snow plow drivers were the cause of the state’s financial problems and were impeding job growth. Doug Hall, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ), looks at the state's job figures and separates Walker's fiction from the facts. 

Last year, despite some twisted political maneuvering and trickery by New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien (R), he and other anti-worker lawmakers and their out-of-state backers could not override Gov. John Lynch’s (D) veto of a "right to work for less" bill. With a new legislative session under way, they’re back at it again.

In response to protests by foreign students exploited in a factory subcontracted by the Hershey Company and advocacy by the AFL-CIO and our allies, this week the U.S. State Department announced that it will make major revisions to a guest-worker and cultural exchange visa program and barred participation by a major player in the program, the Council for Educational Travel, USA (CETUSA).

If you want to prepare yourself for the inevitable election year discussions/arguments with your right-wing uncle or tea party neighbor about the nation’s economy and how we got into the ditch that we’re finally driving out of, check out Failure by Design: The Story Behind America’s Broken Economy .

More evidence that backers of Indiana’s  ”right to work” for less (RTW) legislation are wrong when they claim so-called right to work promotes economic growth.

A new report out moments ago from the Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ) finds that if a “right to work” law was adopted in Indiana it would be far more likely to reduce workers’ wages and benefits. It follows the release this morning of similar findings by University of Notre Dame economic professor Marty Wolfson.

In 1965, when the U.S. economy was humming, the average CEO collected $24 for every $1 earned by a worker. Today, as the economy struggles, that ratio is $243-to-$1. It sounds bad and as the chart shows, looks even worse. The Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ) shows the trend here .