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Left Hook

What’s Different About Today’s Government Deficit and Debt?

As of today, the U.S. government’s current deficit and debt are indeed currently at unprecedented levels for peacetime—once we account for them appropriately.

Robert Pollin Jul 1, 2025

Left Hook

No Tax on Tips

Even the stand-alone No Tax on Tips Act would do far too little to better the lot of low-income workers, even tipped workers.

John Miller Jun 27, 2025

Left Hook

The Stealthy Strategy to Strangle Medicaid

Republicans want to make it even harder for low-income people to get health care.

Nancy Folbre Jun 25, 2025

Issue 342: May/June 2019

The Optimal Tax

John Miller

Mainstream economics supports a 70% top income tax rate (or higher). | Read more »
The Rocket Science of Sanitation

Abhilasha Srivastava

Understanding the plight of the Indian workers who are not considered workers. | Read more »
Why Is the Economy Doing So Well?

Arthur Macewan

First we should ask: Has the U.S. economy really been doing so well? | Read more »
Traditional Measures of Unemployment
Are Missing the Mark

Mark Paul

Puzzling through why, despite low unemployment, significant wage increases remain elusive. | Read more »

Available only in the print edition:

Surviving Academia and
Performing Sex Work

Jenny Heineman

A Look at Labor under Neoliberalism | Order this issue or subscribe.

Beyond the Myth and Through the Mexican Labyrinth

James M. Cypher and Mateo Crossa

Labor under the “New NAFTA,” the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement | Order this issue or subscribe.

the regulars

editor’s note Labor and Ideology
the short run
comment Shop & Stop Victory
in review James Bloodworth, Hired, and Heike Geissler, Seasonal Associate
economy in numbers State of the Unions
45th anniversary reprints From March 1984: Target—Labor’s Elite