The nation’s economy added 162,000 new jobs in July and the jobless rate dropped to 7.4% from June’s 7.6%, according to figures released this morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

William Spriggs, AFL-CIO chief economist, said today’s job numbers “continue to show a very mild recovery, but they fell below expectations and are disappointing.”

President Obama continued his visits to different parts of America to discuss the economy. This is his attempt to use the Bully Pulpit of the Presidency to direct a national dialogue. The president said, “There are no simple tricks to grow the economy. What we need is a serious, steady, long-term American strategy that reverses the long erosion of middle-class security and gives everyone a fair shot to get ahead.”

The Economic Policy Institute has released important research about the economy in the past few weeks. Here's a look at some of the key pieces it uncovered about the U.S. economy.

At least 117 bills introduced in 2013 fuel a "race to the bottom" in wages, benefits and workers' rights and resemble "model" bills from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), according to a new analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of ALECexposed.org.

This week, President Obama kicked off a series of talks to America's working families on the economy. He started in Galesburg, Ill., where he succinctly described a solution to our economic troubles: making the middle class the engine of American prosperity. Obama said:

I care about one thing and one thing only, and that’s how to use every minute of the 1,276 days remaining in my term to make this country work for working Americans again.

Doctors work hard to find medical options for their patients. Corporations work hard to award stock options (the right to buy shares in the future, usually at a steep discount) to their top executives. Which effort would you like your tax dollars to support?

Middle-class wages have been stagnant for more than 30 years. Stagnant wages are due to many factors, including the decline in unionism, the decline in the value of the minimum wage, rising health care costs and the need to cut non-fixed cost, i.e., labor, because of global competition.

Trade union leaders from G20 countries are meeting this week at the Labor 20 (L20) Summit in Moscow to tackle the world's biggest problems, including rising unemployment, alarming levels of youth unemployment and the overall lack of jobs. 

Last week, the White House announced changes in projections for fiscal health. In June, the government will have a surplus and the projected deficit for this year will be $214 billion less than originally projected. That means the deficit will be 4.7% of GDP (the nation’s total income), down from the original forecast of 6%.  Moreover, the deficit will be below 3% of GDP by 2017. Now it is time for the follies to begin.

China has long been known as the globe’s biggest currency manipulator. China undervalues its currency—the yuan or the renminbi— and that raises the price of U.S. exports and suppresses the price of Chinese imports into the United States. This artificial price advantage is a major factor that encourages U.S. businesses to shut down operations here and manufacture in China instead, costing the U.S. millions of manufacturing jobs and is a major reason for the massive U.S. trade deficit.