Martin Hart-Landsberg is a professor of economics and director of the Political Economy Program at Lewis and Clark College, and adjunct researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences at Gyeongsang National University in South Korea. His areas of teaching and research include political economy, economic development, international economics, and the political economy of East Asia.
It seems certain that the political economy textbooks of the future will include a chapter on the experience of Greece in 2015.
No wonder two proposed trade agreements are said to have negative consequences for working-class people.
The majority of Americans—both liberal and conservative—want taxes to be progressive, but they're actually quite regressive.
According to an analysis of 64 different studies.
Other countries are pushing legislation forward that would reduce the hours employees work in an effort to improve quality of life and increase productivity.
Are you any better off than you were after the last recession?
Almost one-fourth of all children in the United States are now living in poverty, an increase of three million kids since 2005.
The net worth of the median household fell from $87,992 in 2003 to $56,335 in 2013, for a decline of 36 percent.
Although declining in real terms, the United States' military budget remains substantial and a huge drain on our public resources.
A recent study by the National Employment Law Project gives job creators a failing grade.
There are few developed countries in the world where people spend more time working than the U.S.—and it's costing us lives.
Growing inequality in America has been matched by a surge in security guards—for gated communities, upscale residential buildings, and more. That trend—more inequality, more guards—is matched across industrialized countries.
Embracing a system based on maximizing the returns to private owners of capital is a mistake for the great majority of working people.
Profits are being used to boost management earnings and pay dividends to stockholders, not improve worker wages.
Why the next few years will look—unfortunately—a lot like the last few years.
A whole lot more than $7.25 an hour.
You already know it helps to have money if you want to make money. But things have gotten so bad over the past 10 years that more than our pocketbooks could be at stake. Worse: It may be too late to do anything about it.
One of the biggest differences between this recovery and others that came before is the contraction of government spending and employment.
Just look at the ratio between the increase in profits and the increase in investment to see how things have changed over the last 40 years.
A full 95 percent of all of the new income generated during the 2009-2012 recovery went to a very small group of individuals.
Non-government employees are making even less per hour than they were when the recession officially ended.
Consumer spending is up, but we still have far fewer jobs than when the recession started.
The White House needs to push new policies and trade agreements.
Private-sector workers in the U.S. receive 10 days of paid vacation per year on average—but none of them are guaranteed.
We celebrate education as the answer to almost all of our economic problems. At the same time, we largely ignore the enormous debt many American students are forced to acquire and the great difficulties they face in landing a job that makes it possible for them to pay it off.
If the country's total wealth were distributed evenly among adults, we would all be worth more than $260,000.