Features

I like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) a lot. I also really like brownies with gobs of vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. But I don’t have them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The EITC–a refundable tax credit that subsidizes the wages of low-income workers–is everyone’s darling. New Democrats love it. President Clinton expanded […]

The stage is set for Vice President Al Gore. There’s a lectern at center stage with the vice presidential seal. Off to the left is an antique television, which Gore will later tell us is a vintage 1946 model. This is in the auditorium of the Herbert C. Hoover Building, which houses the United States […]

With Bill Bradley out of the presidential race, Vice President Gore’s proposal to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) remains the one comprehensive proposal on the table in the presidential election to address the plight of the 44 million Americans who lack health insurance. But CHIP is far from an ideal foundation for expanding […]

Hazel Dews is slightly embarrassed when you ask about her salary. She pauses and then confesses that after 25 years cleaning the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington five nights a week, she makes barely $22,000 a year. That’s not what really bothers her, though. What irks her is that men who do the same […]

ACROSS: 1 DI(STANCE)S; 6 FOSSE (hidden rev.); 7 P(ROVER)B; 9 IGUANAS (anag.); 10 BE(N)DS; 11 HEBRON (hidden); 13 BRID(G)E; 16 FERRY (fairy hom.); 18 CHOW + DER (red rev.); 20 LOO + K-SEE (seek anag.); 21 E(MEN)D; 22 EGYPTIANS (anag.) DOWN: 1 DI(STUR)B (ruts in bid rev.); 2 STERN (2 defs.; ref. Howard Stern); 3 […]

ACROSS: 1 CIT(I)FIED (deficit anag.); 5 SWAP (rev.); 9 NINJA (hidden); 10 ACCRUAL (a cruel hom.); 11 REC(K)ON; 12 MEDI + C (dime anag.); 14 ON SAL + E (loans anag.); 16 INC + ‘OME; 19 GI(FT)S; 21 A + F,F + RAY; 24 E(CO)NOMY (money anag.); 25 NEIGH (nay hom.); 26 MARK (2 defs.); […]

One promising strategy for rewarding work seeks to create career ladders to enable low-wage workers to advance through a progression of higher-skilled and better-paid jobs. This approach requires several elements. Employers need to become more explicit about how they structure jobs and routes to career advancement. Workers need access to job-specific training. Institutionally, this endeavor […]

ACROSS: 1 STROVE (anag.); 4 BALL + OT (to rev.); 8 OVERL + AP (lover anag.); 10 TAC + KY (cat rev.); 11 AT SEA (anag.); 12 EXCE(R)PT; 13 CAN + DID + ATE; 17 FAR GONE (anag.); 19 PLANE (plain hom.); 21 I’M + AGE; 22 T(H)ICKET; 23 ERE + CTS; 24 A(S)IDES DOWN: […]

Last fall, Martha Jernegons got a raise. By the standards of the new dot-com economy, it wasn’t much–just $2.15 per hour. But for Jernegons, a 56-year-old home health care aide in Chicago, working for a private agency that is reimbursed by the city, it was a 40 percent increase, to $7.60 an hour. Though she […]