Journalists are fixated on union members' donations to the Los Angeles mayoral race to elect Wendy Greuel, Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor,  writes in a Los Angeles Times column . But one issue is being largely ignored: the working poor. 

"But if the discussion about the role of unions in the campaign is going to focus almost exclusively on money, shouldn't we talk about money in its entirety?" writes Durazo. "What motivates me and so many others in L.A. labor when it comes to money are the hundreds of thousands of our fellow workers in Los Angeles who don't earn enough of it."

The wrong way to greet our military veterans as they return to civilian life after defending the nation would be offering an  $8.81 an hour part-time job with little to no benefits.

Walmart CEO Bill Simon said this morning at the National Retail Federation conference that starting Memorial Day, Walmart would offer honorably discharged veterans jobs. Simon pledges to hire 100,000 vets over the next five years. Right now, it's unclear if these Walmart jobs would be full-time or offer adequate benefits. 

The jobless rate is dropping and the economy has been adding jobs every month for nearly three years. But far too many of those are low-income jobs that don’t pay enough to meet a family’s basic needs, according to a new report that finds that working poor families in the United States now account for 32% of all working families, up from 28% in 2007, the year the recession began.  

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

The U.S. Census Bureau released new measures of poverty in November. According to the New York Times , “All told 100 million people – one in three Americans – either live in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.”

When the U.S. Census Bureau retooled its formula for determining the number of poor people living in the United States, the number the bureau estimated to be living in poverty shot up from 46.1 million to 49.1 million. Now that reformulation is shining a light on the vast numbers of people who appear to be middle class but who actually fall into a category called the “near poor.”

How appropriate. We’re drowning in rain here in the nation’s capital, while outside the Beltway, America’s working families are drowning in one disastrous economic wave after another. A few recent nuggets.