Thom Hartmann, These Corporations Force Workers Onto Welfare…Then Lobby To Cut the Safety Net… Thom Hartmann, May 25, 2023.  David Card and Alan B. Krueger, Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (The American Economic Review, Sep 1994.  “On April 1, 1992, New Jersey's minimum wage rose from $4.25 to $5.05 per hour. To evaluate the impact of the law we surveyed 410 fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania before and after the rise. Comparisons of employment growth at stores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (where the minimum wage was constant) provide simple estimates of the effect of the higher minimum wage. We also compare employment changes at stores in New Jersey that were initially paying high wages (above $5) to the changes at lower-wage stores. We find no indication that the rise in the minimum wage reduced employment.”

Jane Slaughter, Emergency Decree Cuts Wages for Detroit School Workers. Labor Notes, Aug 2, 2011.

Kenneth Davis, The Blood and Sweat Behind Labor Day. CNN, Sep 2, 2011.  “Labor Day was born in a time when work was no picnic. As America was moving from farms to factories in the Industrial Age, there was a long, violent, often-deadly struggle for fundamental workers' rights, a struggle that in many ways was America's "other civil war." It was a war fought when 12-hour days and six-day weeks were routine. Wages were low; there were no sick days, pensions or holidays. There was certainly no unemployment insurance. Any attempts at organizing were met by the combined wrath of business and government. The business of America was business.”

National Low Income Housing Coalition, Hours at Minimum Wage Needed to Afford Rent. NLIHC, 2012.

John Schmitt, The Minimum Wage is Too Damn Low. Center for Economic and Policy Research, Mar 2012.

Caroline Fairchild, Minimum Wage Would Be $21.72 If It Kept Pace With Increases in Productivity: Study. Huffington Post, Feb 13, 2013.

Dylan Matthews, North Carolina Needed 6,500 Farm Workers. Only 7 Americans Stuck It Out. Washington Post, May 15, 2013.

Tali Kristal, How the Decline of American Unions Has Boosted Corporate Profits and Reduced Worker Compensation. Scholars Strategy Network, Sep 17, 2013.

Denmark is Considered the Happiest Country. You'll Never Guess Why. Huffington Post, Oct 23, 2013.  labor, health policy, gender equality

Mark Karlin, The Rage of the Angry White Male Continues Its Battle Against Equality. Truthout, Nov 22, 2013.

Pat Garofalo, What We Can Learn from Switzerland's CEO Pay Cap Vote. US News, Nov 25, 2013.

Peter Dreier, Walmart Workers Will Make History on Friday As America Confronts Growing Inequality. Truthout, Nov 27, 2013.

Sarah Kendizor, Charity is not a Substitute for Justice: Poor Americans Need Higher Wages, not Food Drives. Aljazeera, Dec 6, 2013.

Economist, Raising the Floor: Raising America's Minimum Wage Would Do More Good Than Harm. Economist, Dec 12, 2013.

Dale Belman and Paul J. Wolfson, What Does the Minimum Wage Do? W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2014.  This book attempts to make sense of the research on the minimum wage that began in the early 1990s. The authors look at who is affected by the minimum wage, both directly and indirectly; which observable, measurable variables (e.g., wages, employment, school enrollment) the minimum wage influences; how long it takes for the variables to respond to the minimum wage and the size and desirability of the effect; why the minimum wage has the results it does (and not others); and the workers most likely to be affected by changes to the minimum wage.

Cenk Uygur, Obama Sets Bear Trap, Republicans Walk Right Into It. The Young Turks, Jan 30, 2014.  On women's labor rights and the State of the Union address.

Richard D. Wolff, Obama's Economic Significance. Truthout, Mar 9, 2014.

Clare O'Connor, Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance. Forbes, Apr 15, 2014.

Conrad Hackett, Maternity Policies Around the World (Twitter, May 12, 2014)

Evan Soltas, Would Raising the Minimum Wage Help the Poor? Vox, Jun 5, 2014.

Chris Faraone, The Last Stand for the Middle Class is Taking Place in a Parking Lot in Massachusetts. Esquire, Jul 29, 2014.  See also Shirley Leung, To Understand the Market Basket Feud, Head to Lowell. Boston Globe, Jul 31, 2014.  and Peter Olney and Rand Wilson, Viewpoint: Unusual Victory at Market Basket. Labor Notes, Sep 22, 2014.

Jared Bernstein, Wages Should Be Growing Faster, But They're Not. Here's Why. Washington Post, Oct 6, 2014.

Liz Alderman and Steven Greenhouse, Living Wages, Rarity for U.S. Fast-Food Workers, Served Up in Denmark. NY Times, Oct 27, 2014.  “That is because he earns the equivalent of $20 an hour — the base wage for fast-food workers throughout Denmark and two and a half times what many fast-food workers earn in the United States… Danish restaurants are less profitable. With fast-food wages in the United States so much lower than in Denmark, and the price of Big Macs in the two countries similar, Mr. Ashenfelter said, “It must be that U.S. McDonald’s are far more profitable.” The higher wages and the higher menu prices help explain why there are 16 McDonald’s per million inhabitants in Denmark, but 45 McDonald’s per million in the United States.”

Ishaan Tharoor, The Haunting Poetry of a Chinese Factory Worker Who Committed Suicide. Washington Post, Nov 12, 2014.

Damon Beres, Undercover Video Reveals Harsh Conditions Inside Apple Supplier Factory. Huffington Post, Dec 19, 2014.

Lawrence Mishel, Elise Gould, and Josh Bivens, Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts.  Economic Policy Institute, January 6, 2015.

Thomas E. Perez, All Labor Has Dignity: Dr. King's Other Legacy. Huffington Post, Jan 16, 2015.

Gregor Aisch and Robert Gebeloff, The Changing Nature of Middle Class Jobs. NY Times, Feb 22, 2015.

John Judis, Robots vs. the Underclass. National Journal, Feb 28, 2015.

The Economist, Innovations in Youth Hiring. The Economist, date unknown.

Nick Nanauer, Stock Buybacks Are Killing the American Economy. The Atlantic, Feb 8, 2015.  “Profits once flowed to higher wages or increased investment. Now, they enrich a small number of shareholders.”

Adam Davidson, Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant. New York Times, Mar 29, 2015.

John Oliver, On Paid Maternity Leave. Last Week Tonight, May 10, 2015.

Daniel Munoz, Highest Minimum Wage in Australia. RT, May 14, 2015.

The Daily Take Team, What's Good About the Guaranteed Basic Income. Truth-Out, Jul 3, 2015.

Lynn Stuart Parramore, 11 Jobs Where a Hard Day’s Work Only Results in Poverty. Salon, Jul 15, 2015.

Paul Krugman, Liberals and Wages. NY Times, Jul 17, 2015.  About how higher minimum wages actually produce more jobs.

Drew DeSilver, Five Facts About the Minimum Wage. Pew Research Center, Jul 23, 2015.

Dartagnan, Raped, Literally, by the Sharing Economy. Daily Kos, Aug 15, 2015.

John Nichols, Ben Carson is Wrong About the Minimum Wage. The Nation, Nov 11, 2015.

Roderick Benns, Economics Professor Says Evidence Shows Basic Income Grants Used Responsibly. Leaders and Legacies, Nov 11, 2015.

Jeff Nesbit, The War on Coal Exists, but Miners Are the Targets. US News & World Report, Jan 21, 2016.

Harold Meyerson, What CEO's Do For a Living. Prospect, Jan 28, 2016.

David Dayen, The Verizon Strike Signals a Larger Economic Battle. New Republic, Apr 15, 2016.

Michael Faye and Paul Niehaus, What If We Just Gave Poor People a Basic Income for Life? That’s What We’re About to Test. Slate, Apr 14, 2016.

Shruti Singh, Denied Breaks, U.S. Poultry Workers Wear Diapers on the Job. Bloomberg, May 11, 2016.

Paul Krugman, Obama's War on Inequality. NY Times, May 20, 2016.  On overtime pay, predistribution, cross-country comparisons on labor law.

Scott Santens, The Progressive Case for Replacing the Welfare State with Basic Income. Medium, Sep 8, 2016.

Elise Gould, Austerity At All Levels Has Created a Teacher Shortfall. Economic Policy Institute, October 7, 2016.

Elise Gould, A Women’s Economic Agenda for the 45th U.S. President: Investing in the Infrastructure to Support a 21st Century Economy. Economic Policy Institute, October 26, 2016.

Gretchen Morgenson, Portland Adopts Surcharge on CEO Pay in Move vs. Income Inequality. NY Times, Dec 7, 2016.

Sam Becker, The $70,000 Minimum Wage Experiment Reveals a Dark Truth. CheatSheet, Jan 26, 2017.

Matthew Yglesias, The Case for Immigration. Vox, Apr 3, 2017.  from an economic growth standpoint

Alanna Petroff, Ontario Launches Guaranteed Income Program for 4,000 Residents. CNN, Apr 24, 2017.

Michael Grabell, Sold for Parts. ProPublica, May 1, 2017.  re: Case Farms' use and abuse of immigrant labor

Dave Jamieson, Trump Repeals Regulation Protecting Workers From Wage Theft. Huffington Post, Mar 27, 2017.  Re: fed govt contract requirements

Paul Roserberg, Al Franken's Grilling of Gorsuch Exposes the Heartless Cruelty Behind Conservative Legal Philosophy. Salon, Mar 22, 2017.

Jeff Desjardins, Visualizing the Real Value of the Minimum Wage. Visual Capitalist, Aug 30, 2017.  Excellent charts state by state, etc.

Alan B. Krueger and Eric Posner, Corporate America Is Suppressing Wages for Many Workers. NY Times, Feb 28, 2018.

Julia Carrie Wong, Tesla Workers Say They Pay the Price for Elon Musk's Big Promises. The Guardian, Jun 14, 2018.

Eric Sherman, How Many Workers Must Live In Poverty For McDonald's CEO To Make $21.8 Million? Forbes, Jul 12, 2018.

Jeff Desjardins, Which College Degrees Get the Highest Salaries? Visual Capitalist, Jul 25, 2018.

Public Citizen, Penalties for Corporate Violations Plummet by Double Digits Under Trump. Public Citizen, Jul 25, 2018.  See full report by Rick Claypool, Taylor Lincoln, Michael Tanglis and Alan Zibel, Corporate Impunity: “Tough on Crime” Trump Is Weak on Corporate Crime and Wrongdoing. Public Citizen, Jul 2018.  and summary by Rick Claypool, ‘Law and Order’ Trump Is Soft on Corporate Crime and Wrongdoing. Corporate Presidency, Jul 2018.

Janine Jackson, There’s an Alternative to the Hierarchical, Top-Down Capitalist Corporation. FAIR, Aug 15, 2018.

Franklin Foer, Elizabeth Warren's Theory of Capitalism. The Atlantic, Aug 28, 2018.

Hayley Petersen, Missing Wages, Grueling Shifts, and Bottles of Urine: The Disturbing Accounts of Amazon Delivery Drivers May Reveal the True Human Cost of 'Free' Shipping. Business Insider, Sep 12, 2018.

David Leonhardt, American Capitalism Isn’t Working. New York Times, Dec 2, 2018.  "Not so long ago, corporate leaders understood they had a stake in the country’s prosperity."

Christopher Ingraham, Politicians Have Caused a Pay 'Collapse' for the Bottom 90% of Workers, Researchers Say. Washington Post, Dec 17, 2018.  "While many economists pin much of the blame for wage stagnation on impersonal market forces, such as free trade and technological change, EPI’s Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz contend that specific policy decisions — including efforts to weaken unions, the decay of the minimum wage and monetary policy that prioritizes low inflation over full employment — are responsible for tilting the balance of power away from workers and toward their employers."

Natalie Kitroeff and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Planned Parenthood Is Accused of Mistreating Pregnant Employees. NY Times, Dec 20, 2018.  subtitled "Employers that champion women face accusations of discriminating against their pregnant workers, showing how widespread the problem is in American workplaces"

Peter Whorisky, As a Grocery Chain is Dismantled, Investors Recover Their Money. Worker Pensions Are Short Millions. Washington Post, Dec 28, 2018.  demonstrates how financial obligations are structured

Valerie Wilson, Before the State of the Union, a Fact Check on Black Unemployment. Economic Policy Institute, Feb 1, 2019.

Danielle Ofri, The Business of Health Care Depends on Exploiting Doctors and Nurses. NY Times, Jun 8, 2019.  we treat health care professionals as an infinite resource

Matthew Desmond, In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to Start on the Plantation. NY Times Magazine, Aug 14, 2019.  “The uncompromising pursuit of measurement and scientific accounting displayed in slave plantations predates industrialism. Northern factories would not begin adopting these techniques until decades after the Emancipation Proclamation. As the large slave-labor camps grew increasingly efficient, enslaved black people became America’s first modern workers, their productivity increasing at an astonishing pace.” 

State of Working America Podcast, America’s Racist Economy. Economic Policy Institute, Oct 15, 2019.  indicators that show racial disparities in wealth and wages

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Matt Stoller: Obama’s “Catastrophic Response” to Financial Crisis. Rising | The Hill, Nov 8, 2019.  Interviews Matt Stoller, Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. Simon & Schuster | Amazon page, Oct 2019.  See also Matt Stoller, How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul. The Atlantic, Oct 24, 2016.  “In the 1970s, a new wave of post-Watergate liberals stopped fighting monopoly power. The result is an increasingly dangerous political system.” Concentrated wealth in America produces political swings between culturally elitist signalling on race without actual change for working class people, authoritarian populism in reaction, and economic populism.

Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Good Economics for Hard Times. Public Affairs | Amazon page, Nov 2019.  won the 2019 Nobel prize in Economics; multi-country analysis finds that people work at the same rates regardless of high taxation or income subsidies; labor is relatively immobile (in the U.S., labor mobility is half of what it was in 1948); immigration does not reduce labor wages. See also interview by Lawrence O’Donnell, Bill Gates, Elizabeth Warren On Same Side Of Wealth Tax Debate. The Last Word | MSNBC, Nov 12, 2019.

Jena McGregor, Delta Workers to Receive Profit-Sharing Payouts Worth 2 Months’ Pay. Washington Post, Jan 21, 2020.  demonstrates the power and potential of employee profit-sharing agreements

Dexter Roberts, The Myth of Chinese Capitalism: The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World. St. Martin’s Press | Amazon page, Mar 2020.  See also Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, How Multinational Corporations Partner with China to Exploit Workers. Rising | The Hill, Mar 15, 2020.  China exploits migrant workers, who were additionally vulnerable to COVID-19.

Linsey McGoey, Bezos, Billionaires and the Problem with Big Philanthropy. Institute of Art and Ideas, Mar 16, 2020.  “Just look at Microsoft: the source of famed philanthropist Bill Gates’s wealth, the tech giant was and remains a king of subcontractor labour. From the 1980s on, the company has been at the forefront of hiring legions of ‘permatemp’ workers who have few labour rights or protections, including sick pay. This helped to normalize an immoral way of treating a workforce, and for all we hear about billionaire philanthropy, large companies are not treating their workers any better today. If anything, the precarious gig economy has gotten worse, while government austerity in wealthy countries over the past decade has left many households even worse off than they were in 2000 (the year the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was established).”

Second Thought, America's Stunted Political Spectrum. Second Thought, Apr 24, 2020.  Explains the two axis model (economic cooperation vs. laissez-faire competition) and political (authoritarianism and libertarianism) and gives a short, pithy rebuttal of the right-wing claim that Hitler’s fascism comes from the left.

Matt Bernico, Wage Against the Machine. Sojourners, May 17, 2021.  Reflects on labor shortages, fair wages, and biblical commands to pay fair wages

Zephyr Teachout, Break ‘Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. MacMillan Publishers, Jul 2020.  in chapter 4, argues that worker wages stagnated when laws changed permitting companies to buy back their own stocks

Alicia Adamczyk, Minimum Wage Workers Cannot Afford Rent in Any U.S. State. CNBC News, Jul 14, 2020.  In 95% of counties, to be precise. Summarizes a report, Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing. National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2020.

Blair Fix, Stocks Are Up. Wages Are Down. What Does It Mean? Economics from the Top Down, Sep 4, 2020.  utilizes Jonathan Nitzer and Shimshon Bichler, Capital as Power. Bichler & Nitzan Archives.  to assert that the stock market reflects property rights, especially at the expense of labor’s share of earnings. See also Jonathan Nitzer and Shimshon Bichler, Capital as Power. Routledge | Amazon page, 2009.

Second Thought, Are You Really “Free” Under Capitalism? Second Thought, Sep 18, 2020.

David Sarokin, CEO Compensation in the US Vs. the World. Chron, Oct 9, 2020.  very helpful data by country, by industry in the US, comparisons to workers.

Micharl R. Strain, A $15 Minimum Wage Would Hurt Biden’s Economy. Bloomberg, Oct 23, 2020.  See also Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Joe Biden is Doubling Down on Raising the Minimum Wage to $15 an Hour Despite the Economic Downturn. It Could Bump Paychecks for Over 27 Million Workers. Business Insider, Oct 25, 2020.

Second Thought, America Compared: Why Other Countries Treat Their People So Much Better. Second Thought, Oct 30, 2020.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Uber and Lyft Spend Hundreds of Millions Trying to Defeat Worker Ballot Initiative. Rising | The Hill, Nov 3, 2020.

David Doel, Cori Bush Gets Personal In MSNBC Appearance After Big Win. The Rational National, Nov 10, 2020.  On $15 minimum wage, referencing Lawrence Mishel, Elise Gould, and Josh Bivens, Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts. Economic Policy Institute, Jan 6, 2015.

Krystal Ball, Time to Admit Affirmative Action Failed. Rising | The Hill, Nov 19, 2020.  gives important commentary on why the CA ballot initiative failed in 2020, a brief history of policies like it, and why class, income, and work concerns would be a better path forward. Politically, as well, it would be easier to unite a multi-racial working class. See also Matthew Yglesias, Minimum Wage Wins, Affirmative Action Loses. Slow Boring Nov 17, 2020.

Chuck Collins, Omar Ocampo, and Sophia Paslaski, Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Wealth Windfalls, Tumbling Taxes, and Pandemic Profiteers. Institute for Policy Studies, Nov 2020.  Summarized by Yawu Miller, Billionaires Profit, Workers Struggle. Bay State Banner, Nov 25, 2020.

Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Boosting Wages for U.S. Workers in the New Economy. Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Jan 14, 2021.

Second Thought, The Minimum Wage Debate Explained. Second Thought, Jan 22, 2021.  helpful stats and data visualization from American history prior to labor unionization and the New Deal legislation

David Doel, Democrats Introduce Embarrassing Minimum Wage Bill. The Rational National, Jan 26, 2021.  has great stats on minimum wage, the debates of tagging it to inflation or to productivity, and political tactics. Cites Dean Baker, If Worker Pay Had Kept Pace With Productivity Gains Since 1968, Today's Minimum Wage Would Be $24 an Hour. Common Dreams, Jan 21, 2021.  “In such a world, a full-time minimum wage worker would be earning $48,000 a year in the United States.” And also Elise Gould, State of Working America Wages 2019. Economic Policy Institute, Feb 20, 2020.  “A story of slow, uneven, and unequal wage growth over the last 40 years”

Dan Price (Twitter, Feb 1, 2021) threads multiple articles together on CEO pay, worker pay, and corporate law which allows for corporate stock buybacks while firing workers during the COVID pandemic

Philip Hammond, Virtue Hoarders: Our Scolding Elites. Spiked, Feb 1, 2021.  “How the professional-managerial class presents its power over the working class as moral superiority.”

Cody Johnston and Katy Stoll, How Republicans Lie About The Minimum Wage. Some More News, Feb 2, 2021.  starts with the New Deal and moves forward in history. Reagan in 1981 refused to increase the federal minimum wage from $3.35, and made the minimum wage part of a culture war issue, rather than a bipartisan agreement.

The Economist, The Minimum Wage: Does It Harm Workers? The Economist, Feb 5, 2021.  a history from New Zealand’s base pay law, to the comparison in the 1990s between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. David Card and Alan Kruger’s study observed that NJ had higher wages and higher employment. Employers are monopsonies, and higher wages attracts people to the labor market. This led to a focus on empirical results rather than theoretical ones. Should we track jobs or individuals?

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Briahna Joy Gray: The Real Reason Progressives Didn't Fight On $15 Minimum Wage. Rising | The Hill, Mar 24, 2021.  the Biden administration

Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati, Pandemic Pay Plunder. Institute for Policy Studies, May 2021.  See summary by Jake Johnson, Report Reveals How Big Corporations Rigged Rules to Boost Pandemic Pay of CEO’s as Workers Suffered. Alternet, Common Dreams, May 11, 2021.  How the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act could address this by tethering CEO pay to lowest worker pay to a ratio of 50 to 1. Companies that do not will be subject to major corporate tax penalties.

Ryan Grim and Emily Jashinski, Art Laffer Claims Minorities, Young People Not Worth $15/Hour. Rising | The Hill, Jun 10, 2021.  Grim and Jashinksy critique Reagan economist Art Laffer and the Laffer Curve, which assumes that unemployment rises inversely with wages; points to how this is a policy failure, as automation and productivity could be structured to benefit the workers, who could work less hours for more pay. See also Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Top GOP Economist Says 'Poor, Minorites' Not Worth $15/Hour. Breaking Points, Jun 10, 2021.  explain how influential Art Laffer (and Larry Kudlow, Stephen Moore, and Larry Sommers) are because of their media presence on Fox News, even though their scholarship has been discredited. Krystal recalls Florida’s $15 minimum wage on the 2020 ballot, showing that the conservative base, politically, want more economic populism.

Hayley Vaughn and Rima Abdelkader, 'We All Quit': Burger King Staff Leaves Note to Management on Store Sign. NBC News, Jul 13, 2021.  See also David Doel, Burger King Sign Goes Viral After Employees Quit Over Harsh Conditions. The Rational National, Jul 15, 2021.  

Paul Constant, Kroger Closed Grocery Stores Rather Than Give Workers a $4 Raise. Now It's Padding Shareholders' Pockets With a $1 Billion Stock-buyback Scheme. Business Insider, Jul 16, 2021.  

Anna Coobin and Juliana Kaplan, People Didn't Rush Back to Work When Their Unemployment Benefits Were Cut Early, a New Study Finds, Despite What Some GOP Governors Predicted. Business Insider, Jul 23, 2021.  “In the 12 states that cut the benefit on either June 12 or 19, employment was largely flat in the weeks after, Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, found during an analysis of US Census Bureau data. Twenty-six states, mostly led by Republican governors, have said they will cut — or have already cut — the federal government's $300 weekly top-up for unemployed Americans ahead of its planned September 6 expiration. Dube's analysis focused on the impact of cutting the $300, as well as states that cut other pandemic UI programs.” Could be workers looking for a good or better job fit, but also workers stressed out by lack of child care or schooling options.

Gareth Hutchins, Lift the Minimum Wage and Employment Still Rises? How to Anger the Establishment and Win a Nobel Prize. ABC Australia, Oct 12, 2021.  explores historical examples such as the PA-NJ difference in minimum wage in restaurants. “In 1996, Australian Council of Trade Union economists Grant Belchamber and Tim Harcourt summarised the intellectual fallout this way. "In the natural sciences, when mounting experimental evidence fails to accord with theoretical prediction, the theory is questioned and is ultimately discarded," they wrote. "In economics and theology, where orthodox theory is widely taken to be self-evident truth, it tends to be the contrary evidence which is discarded. "However, the evidence and argument assembled by Card and Krueger is so meticulous, exhaustive and well documented that it cannot be ignored by a discipline that proudly claims to be committed to rational thought.””

Jon Stewart, Inequality of the Economy: Interviewing Secretary Yellen. The Problem With Jon Stewart, Oct 28, 2021.  discusses the structure of corporate incentives to underpay labor, where Walmart exemplifies the extreme: labor relies on government welfare benefits because of Walmart’s low wages

Erin Blakemore, Why Many Married Women Were Banned From Working During the Great Depression. History.com, Nov 8, 2021.

[Francis] Perkins wasn’t the only one who was suspicious of married women in the workplace. The 1930s would see a spike in policies and laws that discriminated against, even forbade, women to work when they were married. During the Great Depression, discrimination against their employment even became law.

“Nine states had marriage [work ban] laws prior to the Depression,” writes historian Megan McDonald Way, “and by 1940, 26 states restricted married women’s employment in state government jobs.” As women around the country struggled to make ends meet during the nation’s deepest economic crisis, they became an easy scapegoat for people looking for someone to blame.

Arguments about married women’s work often centered on the idea of “pin money.” Originally coined to refer to the small amounts of money women spent on fancy items, it had become shorthand for all women’s work by the 20th century.

Thom Hartmann, Can Child Labor Solve Labor Shortage? The GOP Thinks So... Thom Hartmann Program, Dec 2, 2021.  14 year olds; also gives highlights of government intervention on behalf of labor and citizenry

Second Thought, How American Workers Are Losing Billions. Second Thought, Dec 10, 2021. focuses on wage theft, and to some degree the prohibitive cost of suing one’s own employer.

Amanda Mull, Omicron Is Making America’s Bad Jobs Even Worse. The Atlantic, Jan 14, 2022. Service sector jobs had already been understaffed and underpaid. Add to that: lack of access to paid sick leave, the expiration of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the limitations of the FFCRA to companies under 500 people, the lack of COVID tests to demonstrate sickness, the CDC reducing isolation guidelines from 10 days to 5 days,

Kathryn Anne Edwards, Worker Mobility in Practice.  Economic Policy Institute, May 12, 2022.  Part of the Unequal Power Project.

Max Alvarez, The Chronic Understaffing Running Workers Into the Ground.  Breaking Points, Jul 10, 2022.  Cost-cutting and poor working conditions have led to workers not accepting jobs.  Stories abound of people working alone, which is a health and business risk; backlogs of work; empty chairs or soundbites made to represent workers at corporate meetings; etc.  Alvarez samples from retail workers, teachers, nurses, transportation logistics, etc.  

Juliana Kaplan and Madison Hoff, We Were Wrong About the Great Resignation. Workers Are Still Powerless and the Looming Recession Will Make It Worse. Business Insider, Jul 17, 2022. 

CNBC, Why Americans Aren’t Paid Enough. CNBC, Jul 19, 2022.  Wage growth adjusted for inflation.  Considers another measure of inflation in which wage growth is statistically higher.  Possible solutions considered include:  PRO Act strengthening labor; strengthening position of labor in the gig economy; promote more remote work.

Robert Reich, American Children Are Working Hazardous Jobs – and It’s About to Get Worse.  The Guardian UK, Mar 31, 2023. 

More Perfect Union, We Uncovered the Corporations Bringing Back Child Labor in America.  More Perfect Union, Apr 3, 2023.  “Iowa’s extreme child labor bill began in the office of Gov. Kim Reynolds and was written by top corporate lobbyists.  The bill would allow kids young as 14 to work in meatpacking plants and on construction sites. Our investigation sheds light on its corrupt origins.”

Kaitlin Henderson, Where Hard Work Doesn’t Pay Off: An Index of US Labor Policies Compared to Peer Nations.  Oxfam America, May 3, 2023.

Thom Hartmann, These Corporations Force Workers Onto Welfare…Then Lobby To Cut the Safety Net… Thom Hartmann, May 25, 2023.  

Thom Hartmann, Alarming New U.N. Report Proves Feminists Right - Want to Know What Men Really Think About Women???  Thom Hartmann, Jun 12, 2023.

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Shock Poll: $20 Minimum Wage Backed By Overwhelming Majority.  Breaking Points, Jun 15, 2023.

Siddarth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. St. Martin’s Press | Amazon page, Jan 2023. See interview by Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, "Cobalt Red": Smartphones & Electric Cars Rely on Toxic Mineral Mined in Congo by Children. Democracy Now, Jul 7, 2023.

Thom Hartmann, Why Republicans Want and Need a Permanent Economic Underclass. The New Republic, May 24, 2024. Ever heard of the “mudsill theory”? Well, it goes back to the slaveholding South. And it explains a lot.

“So far, three blue states (and two red ones) have made it harder for employers to exploit child labor, while eight red states have made it easier for children to get trapped in a cycle of work that often ends their educational progress and consigns them to a lifetime of manual labor. Eight other Republican-controlled states are currently considering legislation to weaken child labor laws, while 13 mostly Democratic-controlled states are in the process of tightening their restrictions.

Meanwhile, Republican-controlled states are waging war against universal quality public education for their children. The first shots were fired in efforts to strip schools of books and curricula referencing America’s history of slavery, Jim Crow, Native American genocide, and brutality against the queer community. Those were followed by often violent, threat-filled appearances at school board meetings by militia members and other white supremacists, “calling out” teachers and school administrators for “woke indoctrination.”

Most recently, multiple red states moved to kneecap public schools by removing their funding and reallocating it to families who can afford private academies, religious schools, and home schooling. Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, and West Virginia have all instituted universal or near-universal school voucher programs in the past few years.

Chuck Marr, Samantha Jacoby, and George Fenton, The 2017 Trump Tax Law Was Skewed to the Rich, Expensive, and Failed to Deliver on Its Promises. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Jun 13, 2024. See also Jean Ross, The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Failed To Deliver Promised Benefits. American Progress, Apr 30, 2024.

More Perfect Union, Alabama Is Generating Billions by Trapping People in Prison. More Perfect Union, Sep 3, 2024. Modern day convict leasing: AL takes a 40% cut from the wages earned by prison labor, about $450 million per year. AL grants parole in only 8% of cases, whereas comparison to other states suggests it should be as high as 80%. In 2022, citizens of AL voted to close the criminality loophole for slave labor in the U.S. 13th Amendment. Governor Kay Ivey went around it by executive order to heavily penalize encouraging a work stoppage. Black people make up a quarter of AL’s population, but over half of AL’s prison population. Black men are 25% less likely to get parole than White men.

Kyle Kulinski, MAGA Judge Blocks Overtime Pay For 4 Million. The Kyle Kulinski Show, Nov 18, 2024. Biden passed an overtime pay increase by raising the salary cap from $35k to $58k. But Trump-appointed Texas Judge Sean D. Jordan threw it out. Kulinski discusses the failure of the media and politicians to push Republican leaders on this.

Michael Burns, Getting Old In America is a Nightmare. Wisecrack, Nov 8, 2024.

Heather Cox Richardson, December 16, 2024. Letters from an American | Substack, Dec 17, 2024. “Today, President Joe Biden designated a new national monument in honor of Frances Perkins, secretary of labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The first female Cabinet secretary, Perkins served for twelve years. She took the job only after getting FDR to sign on to her goals: unemployment insurance, health insurance, old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, and abolition of child labor.”

Helen Santoro, The Dangerous Lie Behind On-Demand Nursing. The Lever, Dec 18, 2024. “Uber for nurses” is extracting profits and hurting health care, all to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. “On-demand nursing platforms including CareRev, Clipboard Health, ShiftKey, ShiftMed, and IntelyCare have collectively raised more than $850 million from private investors over the past few years, with Clipboard Health’s CEO claiming this model enables “facilities to fill shifts” while “empowering healthcare professionals to earn more and exercise greater control over their schedules.” Since 2023, ShiftMed, ShiftKey, and IntelyCare have also spent $730,000 lobbying on issues related to the classification of health care workers as independent contractors. Rideshare apps Uber and Lyft have been known to classify gig workers as contractors to avoid providing them benefits such as overtime pay, paid family leave, sick days, unemployment insurance, and the ability to collectively bargain.”