The National Academy of Social Insurance, a Washington-based organization of academics and policymakers who are experts on Social Security and other parts of the Social Security Act, released a recent survey of what Americans think about Social Security and how to “fix” it. Their report that came out last week is very telling of why Americans feel so disconnected from Washington.

Yesterday, the AFL-CIO hosted the first Youth Economic Forum in its Washington, D.C., headquarters. Young leaders in the labor movement gathered with leaders of youth organizations to discuss ways to improve the economic reality faced by the millennial workforce. The goal of the forum is to produce a shared economic policy platform for the millennial generation.

AFL-CIO's chief economist William Spriggs appeared on the Thom Hartmann show with Karen Nussbaum of Working America and author Stewart Acuff to talk about the big picture of labor in America.

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."

Friday's employment numbers showed a reasonable gain of 165,000 jobs added to the payroll in April. These are preliminary numbers, as today’s report also shows that the numbers for February and March have now been adjusted upward. So, there is some hope that things may be better than they appear. A separate survey also was released today, based on a survey of households, from which we learned that the overall unemployment rate edged slightly down to 7.5%.

The nation’s economy added 165,000 new jobs in April while the jobless rate dropped to 7.5% from March's 7.6%, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The Washington Post today published a special section—in print and on the Web—about what some say is a resurgence of “Made in America” manufacturing.

In the section’s anchor piece, Brad Plumer writes that some U.S. firms have “reshored” their manufacturing operations in the United States and that even some Chinese companies have located new plants here. He cites a narrowing wage gap between U.S. workers and their foreign counterparts, lower energy and transportation costs and automation as key drivers in moving manufacturing to the United States.

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.

While most attention in the Boston tragedy is rightfully focused on the victims of last Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon, the damage done by the terrorist attacks didn't end with the explosions or the subsequent shootout that led to additional deaths. Much of the city shut down during the manhunt for the terror suspects; and while most salaried employees could take the day off without losing pay, low-wage workers did not have that luxury. Other workers were forced to work long hours or brave dangerous conditions to get their jobs done.