"A smart look at the American economy. . . .explains the importance of an economy that puts people first and ensures a fair shake for all." — Senator John EdwardsAll Together NowSo said American patriot Tom Paine. He, like the other Founders, saw this country as a unique opportunity to build a society that valued the wellbeing of all of its people over the interests of the few.In the past 230 years, we've lost sight of Paine's vision. Our g...

An " engrossing collection of rigorously researched articles" from Elizabeth Warren, Jared Bernstein, William Julius Wilson, and more ( Publishers Weekly).Can the wealthiest nation in the world do anything to combat the steadily rising numbers of Americans living in poverty—or the tens of millions of Americans living in "near poverty"? In this book, some of the country's most prominent scholars, businesspeople, and community activists answ...

Is Social Security really going bust, and what does that mean to me? If I hire an immigrant, am I hurting a native-born worker? Why does the stock market go up when employment declines? Should I give that homeless guy a buck? What’s a “living wage”? How much can presidents really affect economic outcomes? What does the Federal Reserve Bank really do? And even when some pundits say the economy’s sound, why do I still feel so squeezed? If you’d like some straight answers, premier economist J...

The State of Working America, 1996-97 presents a statistical portrait of the standard of living of America's working families based on the most recent data available. By thoroughly analyzing areas such as family income, taxes, wages, jobs, wealth, and poverty, Mishel, Bernstein, and Schmitt show how the current economy is reflected in the lives of American workers. The new edition will update all statistical data and add a chapter on regional differences.

As the new century unfolds, we face a host of economic and social challenges--jobs lost to "off shoring," a huge and growing number of Americans without health insurance coverage, an expanding gap between rich and poor, stagnant wages, decaying public schools, and many others. These are difficult and complex problems, but our government's strategy for dealing with them has been essentially not to deal with them at all. Over and over, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, we're told that we're ...

Is Social Security really going bust, and what does that mean to me? If I hire an immigrant, am I hurting a native-born worker? How much can presidents really affect economic outcomes? Why does the stock market go up when employment declines? What's a "living wage?" Why do I feel so squeezed?If you'd like to know the answers to these questions, premier economist Jared Bernstein is here to help. In Crunch, he answers these as well as dozens of other questions he has fielded from wor...

It’s time to rewrite the rules—to curb the runaway flow of wealth to the top one percent, to restore security and opportunity for the middle class, and to foster stronger growth rooted in broadly shared prosperity.Inequality is a choice.The United States bills itself as the land of opportunity, a place where anyone can achieve success and a better life through hard work and determination. But the facts tell a different story—the U.S. today lags behind most ...

The vast majority of Canadians are blissfully unaware that every man, woman and child in Canada now owes a $35,000 share of government debt and must pay this back, with interest! Make no mistake, this debt will change our country and affect every single Canadian in the decades to come. You may think you have planned for your retirement and are safe, but the government must find a way to recover this borrowed money, and they can only do that by raising your taxes and reducing your hard-earn...

What Charles Darwin can teach us about building a fairer societyWho was the greater economist—Adam Smith or Charles Darwin? The question seems absurd. Darwin, after all, was a naturalist, not an economist. But Robert Frank, New York Times economics columnist and best-selling author of The Economic Naturalist, predicts that within the next century Darwin will unseat Smith as the intellectual founder of economics. The reason, Frank argues, is that D...

The fact that our global economy is broken may be widely accepted, but what precisely needs to be fixed has become the subject of enormous controversy. In 2008, the president of the United Nations General Assembly convened an international panel, chaired by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and including twenty leading international experts on the international monetary system, to address this crucial issue.The Stiglitz Report, released by the committee in late...

How government can implement more successful policies, more oftenFrom healthcare to workplace and campus conduct, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. Ineffective policies are caused by deep structural factors regardless of which party is in charge, bringing our government into ever-wors...

The wealth derived from natural resources can have a tremendous impact on the economics and politics of producing countries. In the last quarter century, we have seen the surprising and sobering consequences of this wealth, producing what is now known as the "resource curse." Countries with large endowments of natural resources, such as oil and gas, often do worse than their poorer neighbors. Their resource wealth frequently leads to lower growth rates, greater volatility, more corruption,...