The "chained" CPI cost-of-living formula—which would result in a painful cut in benefits for Social Security recipients—was touted as good policy by White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling in an "Ask Me Anything" Reddit chat yesterday. 

Across-the-board budget cuts—called sequestration—will cost more than 750,000 jobs this year alone and many more jobs over the next decade. There is a simple solution to make this problem go away: repeal sequestration.

It's that simple.

Join working families on March 20 for a national day of actions at congressional offices and in our communities.

Find an event near you.

Democratic Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), Keith Ellison (Minn.), Alan Grayson (Fla.) and Raul Grijalva (Ariz.) will demand action on a one-sentence bill introduced by Conyers called the "Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013."

You can watch the press conference live at 12 p.m. EDT here or in this blog. 

The Portland City Council approved unanimously a measure today to allow employees to earn paid sick time off. 

For today's health care read, check out these new stories from Think Progress and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP):

CBO May Have Undershot Medicare’s Future Deficit Reduction By Over $300 Billion

Projected Medicaid Spending Has Fallen by More Than $200 Billion

Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board ridiculed the absurd notion from the Missouri state Senate that somehow union members (teachers, nurses, secretaries, pothole fixers and home health care workers) are to blame for the state's economic woes. "Oh, please," the board responds. 

It's back. The Ryan–GOP budget that gives seniors "coupons" to pay for health care and guts Medicaid and public investment to enrich millionaires and billionaires was once again proposed by the House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) today. 

In 2012, the pay gap between women’s and men’s median weekly full-time earnings increased from 2011, reported the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) in new analysis. 

Are people really living longer? That depends...how much money do you have?

Media pundits and Washington elites love to point to their own lives and say, "Hey, we're living longer, why not raise the Social Security retirement age and Medicare eligibility age?"

What they fail to realize is that large gains in life expectancy are closely related to how wealthy a person is. Just look at the case of the two counties in Florida that Washington Post reporter Michael A. Fletcher examined in Research Ties Economic Inequality to Gap in Life Expectancy.

It's budget season and talk show hosts and media pundits are gleefully predicting a "Grand Bargain" between Republicans and Democrats that would cut lifelines like Social Security and Medicare in the name of reducing the deficit. Salon writer Alex Pareene points out the faulty logic here: