There is no way that the Republican-controlled Senate would support a substantial increase in spending on social programs, even if the House approved it.
Rates of wage growth aren’t spectacular, but the increase is a positive sign. The unemployment rate had been on a downward path since 2010, as the economy was recovering from the Great Recession.
The recent rise in the unemployment rate for Black men will turn out to be a statistical quirk, but there is enough evidence that we have to take seriously the possibility that it is real.
We live in a society where children’s well-being as adults is overwhelmingly determined by the incomes of their parents. Inequality was not a natural outcome of the market and technology.
The length of the recovery has allowed the unemployment rate to fall to 3.7 percent, the lowest rate in almost 50 years. And the tighter labor market has also meant rising wages for those at the middle and bottom of the income ladder.