US May Consider Wages in Awarding Government Contracts

This proposal aims to give more contracts to companies with generous pay plans. Should government uses its influence to strengthen the middle class and promote higher labor standards?

Unemployment from Jan 2007 through Dec 2009 [Flash]

Watch the United States employment picture fade to black in this time lapse Flash piece animating the unemployment picture in the United States from January 2007 through December 2009.

[Updated 25 February 2010]

Do Safety Standards Matter?

Young Indian workers who grind the gemstones that go into jewelry work one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The grinding process creates clouds of silica dust, which the workers breathe in, condemning them to early painful deaths of silicosis.

Reebok Pays Workers 10¢ per $80 NFL Jersey

An EG452 student found this AFL-CIO post when researching for an assignment. Is it fair that a worker earns only 10¢ for an $80 jersey—about 1/10 of 1 percent of the retail price? More information is available in this PDF.

International Wages – Bengladesh

The legal minimum wage in Bangladesh is just 12 cents an hour for helpers and 25 to 32 cents for junior and senior sewing operators.  [Nonetheless, ] at least half the factories in Bangladesh violate the legal minimum wage.  Unions are still outlawed in the free trade zones. (May 2008)

If the American retailers paid only 25 cents more per garment, the total in Bangladesh would be $898 million- more than eight times current US aid.

http://www.nlcnet.org

Welfare Recipients Forced to Sell Food Stamps to Buy Basic Necessities

Story

Who Needs a Strong Dollar?

A strong dollar in the  US means a resident can buy more imported goods and services, but it also makes it more expensive for other countries to buy US wares, and there’s the rub.

New Books

I posted a couple of new book links on the Recommended Reading page. Keynes: Return of the Master is on the policies of John Maynard Keynes as put forth by his biographer, Robert Skidelsky. The other is an offering by a Australian economist, Steve Keen, Debunking Economics in the neo-Classical vein.