Issue 285: 35th Anniversary Issue

Zapping Labor: The Sharp Rise of Income Inequality Initiated in the Early 1980s

How Federal Reserve policies, the recession they triggered, and broader political and economic changes weakened workers’ power and helped usher in an era of extreme inequality.

The Left Wave That Swept Democratic Primaries

A string of primary victories by DSA-backed candidates and other progressives—from New York to Michigan to Florida—is giving the Democratic left new leverage while putting its ambitious economic agenda back at the center of the party’s debate.

Thirty-Five Years of Economic Indicators

By Katherine Faherty and Alejandro Reuss

A look back at key economic indicators from 1974, the year that Dollars & Sense was founded, until today. Read more »
That ’70s Crisis

By Alejandro Reuss

What can the crisis of U.S. capitalism in the 1970s teach us about the current crisis and its possible outcomes? Read more »
Have the Rich Won?

By Sam Pizzigati | October 28th

Today’s super rich are doing fantastically better, both before and after taxes, than when D&S was founded 35 years ago. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income, and paid just just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax. Read more »
35th Anniversary Retrospective

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Recession

By the d&s Collective | December 1979

A friend once told us that when he first took economics courses, he thought the constant discussion of “the Fed” referred to people who had enough to eat. He kept waiting to hear about “the Unfed.” If he had been starting economics this semester, he could easily have gone on to conclude that the Fed’s goal is to increase the ranks of the Unfed. Read more »

Available only in the print edition:

features

Putting the “Global” in the Global Economic Crisis

By Smriti Rao

We now know what crisis looks like in the age of globalization, and it is not pretty. | Order this issue or subscribe.

the regulars

the short run Gandhi Bling | I’m Louvre’in It!
ampersand Save Me, Keynes!

See the whole ‘toon
two cents Health Care Feedback
making sense State Budget Blues
up against the
wall street journal How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Deficit
ask dr. dollar The Dollar and the Price of Oil

The Political Economy of Palestine