As former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley used to say, “on account of the time factor”… some quick links on the August jobs report. Meteor Blades at Daily Kos: Two positive things can be said about today’s jobs report from the Labor Department. First, it was significantly better than the one for August 2009, and June and July 2010 were not as bad as had been previously calculated. The stock market apparently loves the report... 

Anyone surprised by this news? A new report concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies. The report, from the Institute of Policy Studies, found that the 50 layoff leaders received $12 million on average in 2009, compared with an average compensation …  Read More →

Working America’s Karen Nussbaum and Dan Heck were on Hardball last night, talking about what we’re hearing, our efforts to organize working people, and mobilizing jobless workers to vote. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy  Read More →

From HuffPo: Terminated workers are paying an average of $429 a month this year for individual HMO coverage, compared to $399 for the same coverage in 2009, according to a survey conducted by Aon Consulting. COBRA coverage for an entire family now costs an average of $1,251, up from $1,171 per month at this time last year. With COBRA costs on the rise and the average unemployment check totaling less than $300 a week, a growing number of jobless... 

Harold Meyerson writes about Working America in the Washington Post : In an April speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Trumka affirmed that “working people are right to be mad at what has happened to our economy and our country.” Our political leaders, he continued, need to validate that anger — and remedy its causes — if they are to keep that anger from turning into racial, religious and homophobic hatred.... 

By Kimberly McMurray — Philadelphia “We have to laugh about it, you know? Because if we didn’t, we would spend all of our time crying.” The truth is, this member meeting has been full of laughter, even as their stories break my heart. I am sitting with Angela and Carmen in Angela’s apartment in suburban Pennsylvania. They are sisters. Both unemployed, both single mothers, both waiting for a break. Angela and Carmen have always... 

From USA Today: Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand. More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007. The increase in the food stamp program is even more dramatic:... 

BP: It’s not just the Gulf it’s been harming. TEXAS CITY, Tex. — While the world was focused on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP refinery here released huge amounts of toxic chemicals into the air that went unnoticed by residents until many saw their children come down with respiratory problems. For 40 days after a piece of equipment critical to the refinery’s operation broke down, a total of 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals,... 

If that’s the question you’ve been asking yourself, in one form or another, over the course of the past year or two, believe me you are not alone. Whenever the subject comes up people seem to respond with that instant sense of recognition and a one word accompaniment: “Right?” By now it’s clear that a sizable consensus of all but the most wackadoodle economists think that the stimulus measures in the original Recovery... 

To roads being turned to gravel , senior year of high school being made optional, public bus systems being shut down and libraries being closed, add another effect of state and municipal budget crises: firehouse brownouts. Fire departments that can’t keep all their units open at any one time are instituting “rolling brownouts,” in which today the firehouse down the block from me might be closed and tomorrow it will be open while the one in... 

Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, the Republican co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, who is known for having a long-time bias against Social Security, sent an email to a prominent women’s rights advocate early this week, which said in part: “I’ve made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know ‘em too. It’s the same with... 

If you want to know how the health care reform law affects you, Healthcare.gov is one of the best places to go. And now they’ve made it possible to look up coverage options for your situation and your location. Check it out: http://www.healthcare.gov/widget/healthcare_widget.html  Read More →

Tim Eriksen performs “Granite Mills.” The song tells the story of a mill fire in which workers were killed because they were locked in. It’s a story that’s been lived out too many times—and, as Tim Eriksen and Riley Baugus noted while playing the song in a recent concert, though this song is historical, the practice of locking workers in is unfortunately not left far enough in the past. They pointed to the 1991 Hamlet chicken processing... 

Sam Seder has a great new video now featured on StrengthenSocialSecurity.org on what working people think about the attempts to weaken Social Security while giving tax breaks to the rich. Rather than extending tax breaks for those who already have plenty of money and cutting Social Security, a fair tax approach could actually strengthen and expand Social Security. That’s exactly what EPI economist Monique Morrissey proposed earlier this year,... 

We’ve all heard the mantra of how the long term unemployed are lazy bums who should “go get a job at McDonalds.” The wealthy folk who blame the unemployed for their plight also seem to believe that there are unlimited job openings available at the McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain. A number of job seekers in northern Nevada and California recently discovered that there the job openings at the chain are actually finite:...