Comparing the inflated cost of living today from 1938 to 2015: US Dollar losing an enormous amount of purchasing power since 1938.
People have a hard time understanding how inflation erodes their purchasing power. Little by little the cost of everything goes up and people simply assume this is normal in an economy. The $2 movie ticket becomes a $8 movie ticket. That can of tuna just got smaller but the price remains the same. The cost […]
Profits of doom: For-profit colleges are the resurrection of subprime mortgage lenders for the college industry.
At a time when the cost of a college education is being thoroughly questioned, there is one area we should all agree on. For-profit colleges are largely a distraction to fixing our higher education system and operate as the subprime lenders in college education. For-profit colleges claim they are trying to provide an education to […]
When working leads to food stamp usage and the rise of dollar stores: Food stamp usage is still near record levels even in the face of a dropping unemployment rate.
Food stamp usage surges when the economy enters into a recession. That is no surprise. In fact, this is the design of the program. A safety net when things get bad. But if we are to believe headline indicators, the economy is improving so we should see food stamp usage decline substantially. It has not. […]
The minimum wage economic recovery – 44 percent of jobs added since recession ended come from low-wage industries paying $10 an hour or less.
This has been a disjointed economic recovery. Most Americans are hearing about this Wall Street party yet look at their paychecks and wonder when the party is going arrive in their neighborhood. Looking back at the 2001 recession, the recovery during that time came largely by adding higher paying employment. That is not the case […]