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As we reach the climax of the great battle over trade with China, it’s worth taking a closer look at the main sticking point of this and every other major global agreement likely to arise in future years. There’s widespread acceptance of the need for “global labor standards” and “global environmental standards.” But apart from […]

ACROSS: 1 SEA + R; 3 WORTHIES (anag.-e); 8 NIL + E; 9 RE(BELLE)D; 11 EX(ONE + RAT)ES; 14 MO + ROSE (OM = interior of tOMb); 15 SPA + RED; 17 CORPUSCLES (anag.); 20 REBUTTAL (anag.); 21 LAKE (2 defs.); 22 W + ATERBED (debater anag.); 23 (b)AS IS DOWN: 1 SUNBEAMS (anag.); 2 […]

Tracey Hunt, a 28-year-old single mother living in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, did not want to go back on welfare. She had been there before, about five years ago, while she was pregnant with her second child. Back then, the problem was not a lack of work; it was that the work (waiting tables at a […]

ACROSS: 1 off ice; 4 sh(r)ift; 8 to(te ba)g (abet rev.); 10 refer (palindrome); 11 ad(h)oc (coda rev.); 12 u + pended; 13 treadmill (anag.); 17 termini (anag.); 19 newel (hidden); 21 knell (nell hom.); 22 tizzies (hidden on outside); 23 resume (2 defs.); 24 edit(o)r (tired anag.) DOWN: 1 outla + w (a lout […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Cabinet met with the president in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on a sultry day in the summer of 1996. Many of us recommended that he not sign the welfare bill that the Republican Congress had sent him (the third one it had sent, only slightly less punitive than the first two, […]

ACROSS: 1 SO-S + O; 3 TE(THERE)D; 8 RâS + V.P.; 9 ENTRAINS (anag.); 11 PERS(UAS + I)ON (USA anag.); 14 IN + SECT; 15 S(I)MILE; 17 BEL(L)YACHES (by Chelsea anag.); 20 FUR + LOUGH; 21 LIAR (rev.); 22 RIGHTING (writing hom.); 23 A(GE)D (e.g. rev.) DOWN: 1 SERAP + HIM (spare anag.); 2 S […]

I’ve always wondered where the money goes when I pay extra to the U.S. Post Office for a sheet of breast cancer stamps, when I buy daffodils from the American Cancer Society, or when I pledge a donation to someone running a race for the cure. Or, for that matter, when I give money to […]