Free Republic

President Obama has characterized income inequality as “the defining challenge of our time,” prodding Republicans to come up with “concrete plans” to reduce it. However, a new study by the Brookings Institute shows that the highest levels of income inequality in the U.S. are found in Democratic strongholds: the nation’s largest cities.

Economic study suggests we're heading for a Blade Runner future Earlier this month, a group of economists released the results of a massive study looking at the economic prospects of people from across the United States. What they found was that the U.S. is like a patchwork quilt of different countries, where some regions offer people the economic prospects of a typical developed nation — and other regions are more like a developing country. This study debunks a few myths about the United States, including the idea that wealthy nations have wealthy citizens. It's a powerful reminder that nations are...

Fiscal Policy: President Obama is putting all his political chips on raising the minimum wage to 10.10 an hour, but so far that issue isn't gaining much political traction. The 500,000 job losses confirmed last week by the Congressional Budget Office certainly were a mortal wound to the legislative push — as well they should be when we have nearly 20 million Americans already unemployed or underemployed. But most Americans have a much bigger concern than raising the minimum wage. Only about 5% of workers make that little (the average is well above $20 an hour), and most receiving the...

Wells Fargo cuts 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages declines.Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday that it is cutting 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages continues to shrink. The San Francisco-based bank said it notified affected employees Wednesday, and that almost all of them work at the Wells Fargo Home Mortgage campus in south Minneapolis. Some work elsewhere in the Twin Cities. The cuts follow scattered layoffs in the Twin Cities in January in which Wells Fargo laid off fewer than 30 mortgage-related workers. “We currently expect mortgage...

LYNN HAVEN, Fla. General Dynamics has sent letters to 730 of its employees at the ObamaCare call facility that they are being laid off. That's about half of the workforce at the facility in the old SalleMae facility at the Lynn Haven Industrial park. U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, II of Panama City says the loss of 730 Bay County jobs is a stark reminder of America’s transformation into a part-time, short-term society. The Congressman told NewsChannel 7, " I am saddened that these hardworking men and women are paying the price for the Obama administration’s unyielding pursuit of a job-crushing,...

Name the tea party wacko extremist who said this: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government's reckless fiscal policies." Who said that: Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin or Sean Hannity? Name the tea party wacko extremist who said this: "Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is...

CBO report says $10 minimum wage would zap 500,000+ jobs... The guaranteed way of holding the poor, the minorities  and the disenfranchised out of the mainstream is  if you price their original services too high..." -Art Laffer Although Rep Duncan Hunter (R-Ca) attmepted to floor a bill a couple years back that would have forced the (now politicized) US Labor Department to publish real unemployment numbers -ones that actually reflect the all-time-record number of Americans who have given up/left the labor force- we still can't believe a word from this vile regime, and have to settle for outside estimates...

Doug Reuhl, president and CEO of American since 1988, blamed an unforgiving economy, especially over the past five years, for the closure and said the company would begin a going-out-of-business sale Thursday to liquidate its entire inventory of furniture, electronics and appliances. "While this is a sad moment, it is also a proud moment," Reuhl said in a news release. "It's a moment to be proud of our efforts and to be proud of what we have delivered to the community." A switchboard operator at American TV refused to answer additional questions Monday or transfer a reporter to anyone else,...

Big Guy went to Sunnylands, the former Annenberg estate at Rancho Mirage, last week to command the oceans to recede faster in order to end California’s drought caused by global warming. He also called for more federal dollars for a "climate resilience fund" to pay for “research, preparation and infrastructure to deal with extreme weather and new conditions associated with shifts in the weather” (also known as “seasons”).“Yeah, I need about a billion dollars for snowplows in California.Know anybody who can do that?”It’s all part of his "Climate Action Plan" that Big Guy unveiled last summer, and if Congress won’t...

This week, a report from the Congressional Budget Office acknowledged that ObamaCare would reduce full-time employment by 2.5 million over the next ten years. And that is on top of news that 92 million Americans who could be working are not. What a devastating assessment for the unemployed or underemployed, particular millenials seeking to transition from internships and part-time jobs to career-building full-time jobs. Yet the predictable spin from the White House and major media outlets is that this is good news, liberating workers from the chains of employment. To quote President Obama, from the 2008 campaign, "You can put...

The U.S. government is getting a new borrowing cap Friday, almost four months after Washington defused October's government shutdown and debt crisis. The new cap on borrowing is expected to be about $17.2 trillion. It means Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew will have to employ bookkeeping maneuvers to keep the government functioning until Congress further raises the borrowing limit. Lew warns he has less maneuvering room now than he had last year, when such "extraordinary measures" bought five months of time for the government to keep borrowing while at the previous $16.7 trillion debt ceiling. Lawmakers temporarily suspended the borrowing limit...

Democrats are increasingly employing a new tack in the battle over a projected reduction of two million jobs due to Obamacare, saying the decline is actually the result of people not being required to work anymore when they don't want to -- a concept labeled "job lock.""Yesterday, the CBO projected that by 2021 the Affordable Care Act will enable more than 2 million workers to escape 'job-lock' – the situation where workers remain tied to employers for access to health insurance benefits," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office said in a news release.The release continued: "In addition to being...

If you could go back and live in America during the 1970s would you do it? Has the United States become a better place to live over the past 40 years or have things gotten worse? Without a doubt there are arguments that can be made both ways. For example, who really wants to go back to a time when you actually had to “dial” a phone or rewind a cassette tape in order to find your favorite song? On the other hand, wouldn’t it be nice to live at a time when virtually everyone could find a good job,...

The government said GDP rose 3.2% in the last three months of 2013 -- one of the fastest rates since the end of the recession, though slower than the third quarter's 4.1%. Still, that sounds good, until you remember this: Employers only added 74,000 jobs in December -- one of the worst months in nearly three years. Stronger economic growth is supposed to equal more jobs. So what gives? It does appear that the normal relationship between jobs and GDP has broken down. In the first half of 2013, for instance, GDP growth was at 1.9% and employers added an...

The economic picture is looking brighter these days. The federal government announced Thursday that economic growth had picked up to its fastest pace in two years, while employment growth over the past five months has averaged a healthy 185,000 new jobs. But as evidenced by a report out Thursday from the Corporation for Enterprise Development, nearly half of Americans are living in a state of “persistent economic security,” that makes it “difficult to look beyond immediate needs and plan for a more secure future.” In other words, too many of us are living paycheck to paycheck. The CFED calls these...

Before we get to that,… just what the hell is this Hip-Hop-Nevo-Nazi-Fux-Ilimuniati-New-World-Order Salute???Anyway, Thank you Allen West:Alas, this week we’ve found the theme upon which President Obama and the progressive socialist Left will now stake their claim: equality....Shall we turn to Lebron James and tell him he doesn’t deserve any more in income or compensation, than the 12th listed person on the Heat roster? Shall President Obama and his pay czar decide what the base level compensation must be across the NBA? Will the Obama administration turn to Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, and instruct him on team salary...

On Sunday, Hunter Lewis, Founder and former CEO of Cambridge Associates, told Breitbart News Executive Chairman and host Stephen K. Bannon that, "We are in a depression." Lewis delivered his assessment of the U.S. Economy on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot radio channel 125. He explained that part of the reason the economy is in such a shambles and the political system is in such a shambles is bad economic policies that have fed special interest groups, instead of supporting the middle class and the poor. And those same policies have given us crony capitalism. Hunter, ....has served...

Under Obama, Youth Misery Index Hits All-Time High A Youth Misery Index that measures young Americans’ woes has skyrocketed under President Barack Obama and hit an all-time high. The index, released Wednesday, was calculated by adding youth unemployment and average college loan debt figures with each person’s share of the national debt. While it has steadily grown over the decades, under Obama the figure has shot up dramatically, from 83.5 in 2009 to 98.6 in 2013. The index has increased by 18.1 percent since Obama took office, the highest increase under any president, making Obama the worst president for youth...

Friday's December jobs report, showing the economy added just 74k jobs last month was itself a major disappointment. Economists had expected the economy to add around 200k jobs. Looking into the details of the report, however, reveals an even bleaker picture of the labor market. Well over half the jobs added in December, 40k, were in temporary employment. The biggest sectors to see job growth in December were retail and wholesale trade, in addition to temporary services. Together, these sectors added over 100k jobs, meaning the rest of the economy shed jobs last month. Temporary jobs are obviously just that...