economics

The U.S. Forest Service is in the business of preventing fires, not starting them. Yet the agency set off alarms in Congress and state capitols across the West by citing the automatic spending cuts as the basis for demanding that dozens of states return $17.9 million in federal subsidies.

The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for the other 93 percent of U.S. households, says a report released Tuesday.

Increasing the minimum wage is as no-brainer of a policy as it can get. One, it is extremely popular with the public. Two, it would impact millions of workers—more than 30 million workers would receive a raise if the minimum wage was increased.

Wages used to go up as productivity went up, but in the 1970s they decoupled. Productivity kept going up but wages stagnated.

The average American’s living standard would be much, much higher today if wages had not decoupled from productivity gains – with the gains all going to the 1 percent instead of being shared by workers. If wages had kept pace we wouldn’t feel the terrible squeeze that everyone in the middle class is feeling.