Feb 20 Will your job exist in the future, or will a robot have replaced you? By Simone Pathe In the long view of history, technological advancement unleashed by the Industrial Revolution has come to be seen as a net positive for economic development and everyone’s well-being, even those workers who initially lost their jobs. There’s reason to wonder,… Continue reading
Feb 15 Watch 3:37 Is the economic impact of the labor disputes at West Coast ports just hype? By PBS News Hour A labor dispute between shipowners and longshoreman on the West Coast has been going on for months now. This weekend, the president dispatched labor secretary Thomas Perez to California to try to resolve it. For more, economist Christopher Thornberg joins… Continue watching
Feb 13 How the West got rich and modern capitalism was born By Sven Beckert "We need to qualify the fairy tale we like to tell about capitalism and free labor," argues Harvard historian Sven Beckert, author of the new book, "Empire of Cotton." In part two of his essay on Making Sen$e, he explores… Continue reading
Jan 01 Undisputed facts about the minimum wage By Simone Pathe The minimum wage is increasing in 29 states this year. Who are minimum wage workers? And what do they look like? We boil down the facts behind the minimum wage debate. Continue reading
Dec 23 Watch 5:07 Can the U.S. economy sustain its surprising momentum in the new year? By PBS News Hour The U.S. economy’s summer surge was even stronger than first estimated, expanding at an annual rate of 5 percent from July to September -- the best performance since the summer of 2003. Judy Woodruff talks to Nariman Behravesh, chief economist… Continue watching
Oct 07 Smart robots will take over a third of jobs by 2025, Gartner says By Joshua Barajas As industrial robots continue to acquire cognitive skills, machines will replace one in three human workers by 2025, Gartner analysts predicted Monday. Continue reading
Sep 18 Watch Why the typical worker is struggling to share U.S. prosperity By PBS News Hour The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows a pattern of uneven progress. While the poverty and unemployment rates have fallen, prosperity is no longer widely shared as the economy grows. Sheldon Danziger of the Russell Sage Foundation talks… Continue watching
Sep 15 Watch News Wrap: Shipwrecks off Malta and Libya kill more than 700 migrants By PBS News Hour In our news wrap Monday, more than 700 immigrants hoping to reach Europe from Africa and the Middle East were killed in two shipwrecks last week. The death toll reportedly equals all migrant deaths for the entire year of 2013. Continue watching
May 20 Forced labor still ‘hugely profitable,’ says UN report By Anya van Wagtendonk More than 60 years after the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights made slavery a worldwide crime, forced labor is a $150 billion industry, according to a new UN report published Tuesday. Continue reading
Jan 27 One Filipino town’s risky search for gold By Larry C. Price In the Philippines, people desperate to make a living dive into muddy waters in makeshift mines in search of gold. Continue reading