By Don Todd Walmart is the nation’s largest private employer.  It is a non-union business.  It may surprise many than the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union has no interest in organizing Walmart employees. Who says so?  They do. This, despite the fact that UFCW has […]

By Don Todd Both the United Food and Commercial Workers ( UFCW ) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are strong proponents of raising the minimum wage.  For instance on July 18, 2012, Mary Kay Henry the President of SEIU emailed her members the following: “Together with organizations like the National […]

By Robert Romano Slower growth, flattening wages, bottoming interest rates, lower inflation expectations, less borrowing, and slowing job creation have all become staples of Allianz chief economic adviser Mohamed El-Erian’s oft-quoted “new normal.” El-Erian’s “new normal” hypothesis in 2009, when he was still with Pimco, anticipated “coming out […]

By Rick Manning In many ways, the economy is better going into 2015 than it was a year ago, but in many others, the trend lines are troubling at best. The labor participation rate is at lows not seen since Jimmy Carter was president in the late […]

By Robert Romano The Disability Insurance Trust Fund is set to run out of funds in 2016 according to the Social Security Trustees , having lost $113.1 billion since 2009 alone. One might think the shortfall has come about due to the two-year payroll tax holiday that was enacted in 2010. However, little reported has been the fact the holiday was completely offset by reimbursements from […]

By Robert Romano “Somehow, Senate Republicans in their push to reclaim the majority in 2014 failed to inform voters of their apparent intention to raise taxes on gasoline by 12 cents, a 65 percent increase from the current 18.4 cent federal gas tax.” That was Americans for […]

By Robert Romano “The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will provide new market access for Made-in-America goods and services.” That is the U.S. Trade Representative’s description of a new proposed trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam, which the White House is asking Congress for fast track authority to […]

By Robert Romano While the headline 5 percent real growth annualized in the third quarter has garnered much of the attention from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ latest report published last week, it may be premature to proclaim that a robust economic expansion is upon us. When the 2.1 percent contraction in the first quarter is taken into account, the economy has only grown at a tepid 2.7 percent rate in the […]

By Robert Romano Most rational observers should agree that in order to create jobs and boost wages, the economy must grow. That is certainly true. However, because government spending is included as a part of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, […]