The way the media, corporations and the 1% talk about the economy is not only inaccurate, it is a means to maintain power for the wealthiest among us and keep working families powerless, delegates to the AFL-CIO convention in Los Angeles declared today.The latest resolution passed at the convention describes the scope of the problem and announces a concrete plan to change the conversation.
The Economic Policy Institute has released important research about the economy in the past few weeks. Here's a look at some of the key pieces it uncovered about the U.S. economy.
A new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) of the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows that there was a decline in April for job openings to a total of 3.8 million, while the number of unemployed workers seeking jobs was around 11.7 million. April's level of job openings is more than 16% below where it was in the months before the recession began.
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shatters several bits of conventional wisdom embraced by the media and many in Washington, D.C., including the oft-repeated Republican mantra that lower corporate taxes boost the economy. The analysis found no evidence that changes in the statutory or effective tax rate on corporations are correlated with economic growth.
AFL-CIO's chief economist William Spriggs appeared on the Thom Hartmann show with Karen Nussbaum of Working America and author Stewart Acuff to talk about the big picture of labor in America.
A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows the country needs to increase union membership significantly, create universal health care, a universal retirement system (beyond Social Security), expand college attainment and achieve gender pay equity to create more "good" jobs in the United States.
Economic forecasters exist to make astrologers look good. Most had forecast growth of at least 3 percent (on an annualized basis) in the first quarter. But we learned this morning (in the Commerce Department’s report) it grew only 2.5 percent.
On Monday, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told a packed crowd at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., that the United States is paying a high price for the growing inequality facing the country. But, despite the long-thought idea that we have to choose between growth and equality, he said that the two are complements and that we can have both a strong, growing economy and equality.
As a nation, we need to face that fact that austerity simply does not work; our nation’s infrastructure will continue to crumble if we do not invest in its repair, and our economy will continue to stagnate if we do not expand our infrastructure to meet the needs of our growing population.
AFL-CIO will be hosting two powerful Book Club events in Washington, D.C., that will help explain the current state of the U.S. economy, income inequality and the politics of austerity. On Monday, April 15, Nobel Prize-winning author Joseph Stiglitz will be discussing his book The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future . On Tuesday, April 16, Robert Kuttner will talk about his book Debtors' Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility .
It’s been four years since low-wage workers got a raise. Sign the petition to tell Congress it’s time to raise the minimum wage.
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