One of the ugliest side effects of the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression is the continuing practice among many employers of refusing to consider applications of job seekers who are unemployed.  

But the New York City Council yesterday overwhelmingly (44-4) passed a bill that prohibits discrimination against the unemployed in hiring.

This is the first of a four-part series describing what went wrong with America’s economy and how to fix it. See Part 2 tomorrow—and please leave a comment to tell us what you think. (Click the chart to enlarge.)

The Great Recession  officially ended more than three years ago , but working families know there’s still something wrong with the U.S. economy.  If we want to fix our economy, we first have to understand what’s wrong with it. (Click chart on the left to enlarge). 

Starting today, in a series of four posts and infographics, we’ll spell out what we see as the short-term and long-term causes of our economic problems and we’ll point to specific solutions.

Republicans in Congress and the Beltway pundits who parrot them like to say the nation's unemployment crisis is in large part due to workers' lack of skills.

Once again , a new report shows they are wrong.

Data out yesterday show that although the number of jobs is increasing, there still are far fewer jobs per worker available.

Many U.S. workers don’t have jobs—nearly 13 million. Less known, however, is that many more don’t have good jobs— fewer than one-quarter of America’s workforce, according to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research ( CEPR ). The center defines a good job as one that pays at least $18.50 an hour, or $37,000 per year, equal to the inflation-adjusted earnings of the typical male worker in 1979.  A good job also includes employer-provided health insurance and a retirement plan (click on chart at left to expand).

The lack of available good jobs is not new. As CEPR finds, compared with 1979, the U.S. economy has lost about one-third (28 percent to 38 percent) of its capacity to generate good jobs.

But why?

Whether a blip or a (bad) new trend, data showing the number of U.S. job seekers is rising, compared with jobs available, should light a fire under Republicans in Congress to move a jobs creation package.

New data released today show the Job-Seekers Ratio increased in April to 3.7 workers for every 1 job from March’s ratio of 3.4 workers for every one job. 

In the midst of a terrible jobs crisis, there are those in North Carolina who seek to cut assistance for those who have lost their jobs. That’s just plain wrong.

Currently, North Carolina’s Chamber of Commerce seeks to restrict unemployment benefits by reducing the maximum weekly income from $506 to $350. In addition to the monetary cut, the time allowed to receive benefits could be reduced from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. The restriction of unemployment benefits will devastate hundreds of thousands of families who are actively looking for work.

"For Most Graduates, a Grueling Job Hunt Awaits," The Wall Street Journal writes today . Over the weekend, the New York Times sounded the alarm about employers' growing use of unpaid internships in fields that typically have never exploited free labor.

So, how bad is it for young workers?

Moments ago, we launched the 2012 AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch site—now called CEO Pay and the 99% —which includes the most comprehensive data accessible on 2011 executive pay. All of the data available is searchable by industry, by state and by the top 100 highest-paid CEOs.

More confirmation that the extremely rich are getting richer and those without jobs are suffering even more. In 2009 and 2010, the first year of the current “recovery,” the 1 percent captured 93 percent of U.S. income growth. Repeat: 93 percent of income growth went to the 1 percent.

First, multimillionaire Mitt Romney told a group of jobless workers he’s also “unemployed .”

Next, Romney thought there was no problem in stating publicly that he likes to “ fire people .”