Jeff Faux, Distinguished Fellow at the Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ), joined us here today at the AFL-CIO to discuss his new book, The Servant Economy: Where America’s Elite is Sending the Middle Class . The event launches the AFL-CIO summer book series , which includes discussions with noted economists who will talk about their new books on jobs, inequality and the U.S. financial crisis. (Get details and RSVP here .)

In his last book,  The Global Class War , Faux in 2006 correctly predicted the permanent decline of our debt-burdened middle class at the hands of our off-shoring executives, out of control financiers and their friends in Washington. So we asked Faux a few questions about what his latest analyses and predictions in The Servant Economy.

Young worker households—those between ages 35 and 44 and age 35 and younger—saw the steepest drop in their net worth between 2007 and 2010, according to an Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ) analysis of last week's Federal Reserve report .

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 .”

The following is by John August, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. Read the full version of his column at L&M Partnership .

It’s no secret that our economy is changing profoundly for millions of workers. But a Dec. 30, 2011, New York Times article, “ Factory Jobs Gain, but Wages Retreat ,” deserves special attention.

Maybe a lot has changed in the past decade–back then we didn’t have YouTube to bring us hours of enjoyment of cute babies and kittens–but working men and women today are taking home about the same size paychecks we did back then.

This is a cross-post from the Campaign for American Progress . David Madland and Nick Bunker parse the latest figures to show states with weak unions also share another trait—a weak middle class.

New state income data released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau shows the importance of unions to boosting incomes for all middle-class households—union and nonunion alike. The 2010 income data makes it clear that strong unions are a critical factor in creating a middle-class society. Restoring the strength of unions would go a long way toward rebuilding the middle class.

Of last year’s 100 highest-paid U.S. corporate chief executives, 25 took home more in CEO pay than their company paid in 2010 federal corporate income taxes, according to a new report  from the Institute for Policy Studies ( IPS ).

So, Congress this week passed a budget bill that did nothing to address the nation’s jobs crisis.

It’s not enough that Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder took away basic democratic rights of cities and towns by imposing a “financial martial law” that can virtually abolish a local government in favor of an unelected Snyder appointee.

It goes like this—“We’re going broke we can’t afford it.” It’s almost a mantra from the crowd of lawmakers and policy “experts” who are loudly and continually claiming the nation must make drastic cuts in family-help government programs; cut wages, pension and health care for public-sector workers and who also suggest working families should be satisfied with three decades of stagnant wages.