Yesterday's U.S. Census Bureau figures gave us a shocking dose of reality: Your family lost $7,000 from 2000 to 2012. 

Blogger Richard (R.J.) Eskow from Campaign for America's Future pointed out that on average, most median income families lost even more than that: $7,490. 

He writes, "That’s $624 per month. $144 per week. $20 per day."

Today, the AFL-CIO came out strongly in favor of reforms to the U.S. prison system that would have significant benefits to communities, people of color, correctional employees and inmates who are trying to reform their lives and rejoin society. In particular, the federation criticized the privatized prison industry that, in the name of bigger corporate profits, mistreats workers, creates inhumane conditions for prisoners and incentivizes the incarceration of more and more of America's citizens in order to make the wealthiest Americans more profits.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called on corporate America today to pay its fair share, saying, "At a time when the 1% have demanded so much sacrifice from working people in the name of deficit reduction, we must ask something of big corporations. That means “revenue positive” corporate tax reform that raises significant amounts of new tax revenue."

Last summer, a respected policy expert from the Brookings Institution spoke at a large meeting. He introduced himself, saying that he works with a lot of brilliant economists who can't understand why the recovery is so slow.

Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman has an explanation,"...corporations use their growing monopoly power to raise prices without passing the gains on to their employees."

In just about any small town that has lost a big factory, you'll hear it was the union's fault. I live in Mayfield, Ky., population about 10,000. A big Continental General Tire plant was our factory. It’s been gone for a half-dozen years.

If you have an iPhone, make sure you take a minute to download the new free app, BizVizz. BizVizz people track taxes, government subsidies and political campaign donations of major corporations. Once you download the app, simply enter a company’s name or snap a picture of its logo and then the company information pops up. Future developments include creating an Android version of the app and expanding the catalog of corporate information. 

States are engaged in economic warfare on each other and it's costing taxpayers billions of dollars. That's the message of a new report from Good Jobs First titled The Job-Creation Shell Game.

Mike Hummell says the men and women who made the iconic baked goods at Hostess Brands’ Lenexa, Kan., plant turned out quality products and “it was something everyone who worked there had a lot of pride in.”

That was until years of mismanagement coupled with unprecedented corporate greed bankrupted the company, stole the workers’ pensions and closed dozens of bakery plants’ doors in November. In this video, Hummell, a 14-year veteran of Hostess, and other members of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 218, say they want to set the record straight.    

This is a cross-post from the Alliance for Justice’s Justice Watch blog.   

In a series of 5 to 4 rulings, a majority on the United States Supreme Court effectively has rewritten the law to favor big business at the expense of the American people, according to a new documentary, "Unequal Justice: The Relentless Rise of the 1% Court," produced by Alliance for Justice (AFJ), which was released online Monday. “Today, as the Supreme Court begins a new term, the court will be ‘open for business,'” said AFJ President Nan Aron. 

The term is already packed with cases with the potential to restrict corporate accountability and limit everyday Americans’ civil rights and access to justice  The court’s decisions this term could have harmful consequences for the ability of consumers, victims of discrimination and others to get a fair day in court.

David Groves of The Stand, a project of the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) and its affiliated unions, sends us "‘Small’ NFIB Gets GOP Funders’ Big Bucks."

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) promotes itself as a “non-profit, non-partisan organization” that is “the leading small business association representing small and independent business.”

For a business group so focused on “small” it says it twice, the NFIB reportedly gets a lot of its funding from the biggest names in Republican politics, including Karl Rove and the Koch brothers. As for the “independent” part, the NFIB’s political and legislative agendas at both the national and Washington state levels align closely with the Republican Party and big—not small—corporate interests.