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.

Before a packed crowd at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said the way to ease the economic crisis in the United States is to create more jobs through increased public investment, raising wages and restoring workers’ ability to bargain collectively. Austerity policies are the last thing we should be doing. The event was part of AFL-CIO's Book Club series. Krugman discussed major themes in his book End This Depression Now!, which was just released in paperback.

The New York Times posted an editorial today highlighting the need for high-paying American jobs, a shift from austerity to investments in our infrastructure and economy and strengthening workers' rights to collectively bargain for a voice on the job. The Times is publishing a series of editorials "on what President Obama and Congress should tackle in the next four years.” Other editorials can be found here. 

MAD magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman was always shown with a grin on his face, captioned, “What, me worry?” Well, now it is time to worry. 

Outside of hardcore trade policy wonks, few in the United States or Canada have ever heard of the impending Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (commonly referred to as TPP) or know much about it—and it's time that changed. The TPP is a trade agreement based around the current "P-4" (Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore). 

After the election, Congress will make some high-stakes decisions about jobs and taxes that could have serious consequences for working families and the economy. A new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) should serve as the working families’ guide to the post-election debate.

Here are some of the decisions facing Congress when they return: the federal unemployment benefits program expires at the end of December. The Bush tax cuts also expire automatically and Congress will have to decide whether to extend them for the middle class or also extend them for the richest 2% of Americans.  Thanks to last summer’s debt ceiling agreement, across-the-board budget cuts are scheduled to take effect in January 2013.  If Congress makes the wrong calls on these high-stakes decisions, we could have another recession in 2013.