It gets a little complicated, but we’re going to drill down into some new economic data from two new analyses, showing that contrary to what Mitt Romney and his economic hatchet man Paul Ryan claim, ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will not, repeat, will not hurt the economy or job growth.

The middle class is the great engine of the American economy, but that engine is sputtering. Today, the National Employment Law Project ( NELP ), the AFL-CIO and more than a dozen other worker advocate and economic research organizations are proposing “ 10 Ways to Rebuild the Middle Class for Hard Working Americans: Making Work Pay in the 21st Century .”

Young workers in the euro zone have been among the hardest hit by the global economic crisis, and now even those in regions like East Asia, where economies have remained strong through the recession, are struggling to get jobs, a new International Labor Organization ( ILO )  report  shows (click chart to enlarge).

Nearly one-quarter of America’s workers are in bad jobs—and the number is climbing, according to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research ( CEPR ). “Bad Jobs on the Rise” defines a bad job as one that pays less than $37,000 a year—the inflation-adjusted earnings of a typical male worker in 1979—and offers no health insurance or retirement plan (click on chart to enlarge).

Several new economic reports out in time for Labor Day point to long-term trends that are driving a declining standard of living for America’s middle- and low-income workers. Here’s a quick summary (click on chart to expand).

Trade deficits matter: 2.7 million U.S. jobs have been lost over the past decade due to our nation’s growing trade deficit with China, according to a new report out today (click on chart to expand).

“The China Toll” also shows that between 2001—when China was admitted into the World Trade Organization—and 2011, the U.S. trade deficit with that nation eliminated or displaced 2.1 million manufacturing jobs. Those jobs represent more than half of all U.S. manufacturing jobs lost during that time.

What’s your biggest worry about your job?

Some 40 percent of America’s workers say they fear their benefits will be reduced in the near future, according to Gallup’s annual Work and Education poll released today. That compares with 28 percent who are afraid their wages will be cut back and 28 percent who fear they will be laid off, a percentage that's still high compared with pre-recession levels. (Click on chart to enlarge.) In addition, 26 percent fear their hours will be cut back.

Mitt Romney likes to cite his experience as a businessman as qualifying him to be president.

A new website takes a close look at Romney’s participation in the corporate world—his many years as CEO of the hedge fund Bain Capital. The closer you look, the uglier it gets.

This morning in Carnegie, Pa., union activists and allies were on hand to greet Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan to protest his and Mitt Romney’s plan to end Medicare as we know it and shower even more tax breaks on the wealthy and corporations, with working families footing the bill.

A new study finds that when states raised the minimum wage in recent recessions, their economies suffered less job loss than those that did not (click on chart at left to expand).