Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
The CFPB has recently become “one of Washington’s most powerful and pugnacious regulators,” as The New York Times reported last month:
The bureau has overhauled mortgage lending rules, reined in abusive debt collectors, prosecuted hundreds of companies and extracted nearly $12 billion from businesses in the form of canceled debts and consumer refunds. In September, it exposed the extent of Wells Fargo’s creation of two million fraudulent customer accounts, igniting a scandal that provoked widespread outrage and toppled the company’s chief executive.
Minimum Wage:
- John Kasich Quietly Signs Measure Blocking Local Governments from Raising the Minimum Wage $8.15 per hour is not a living wage for a parent. 20.9% of Ohio’s children are being raised in poverty. A minimum wage raise would help.
Childhood Poverty:
- For Kids, Poverty Means Psychological Deficits as Adults One in five children in the United States lives in poverty. Where does that leave us?
Inequality:
The wealthy didn’t always take such a big share of the proverbial “pie.” In the 1970s, a decade generally seen as fairly prosperous, the top 1% of Americans earned just over 10% of all U.S. income (i.e. the “pie”).
Over time, the rich became more lucky — or more greedy. Today the top 1% take home more than 20% of all U.S. income.
As the wealthy earned more, someone else in America had to get less. The bottom 50% went from capturing over 20% of national income for much of the 1970s to earning barely 12% today.
The turning point started around 1980, as seen in the graph below. By the mid-1990s, the fortunes of the top 1% were clearly on the rise and those of the bottom half were declining rapidly.
It’s time for the bottom 50% to take back their fair share.
White Collar Crime:
Trade:
- Trump to Create A Manufacturing-Focused White House Trade Office Sounds promising.
Labor:
Policy:
- Why Democrats Should Just Treat the Middle Class Like the Extremely Poor Good insights into why the middle class can become infuriated by entitlement programs.
Healthcare:
- Obamacare Enrollments Exceed 6 Million, Outpacing Last Year’s Sign Ups
- Partial Obamacare Repeal Could Cost 13 Million Children their Coverage
- States Won by Trump Have Highest ‘Obamacare’ Enrollment
- State Alternatives to Obamacare, Expanded Medicaid to Get Tested
- Hospitalized Patients Treated by Female Doctors Show Lower Mortality Rate Interesting.