Posts filed as “US economy”
The curse of student loan debt: owe while you’re young, live when you’re old
Student debt and dead-end jobs have put many young Americans in dire circumstances outside their own control
Once upon a time, we invested in our young people so that they could enter the world without debt. Now, we turn them into deadbeat debtors before they're old enough to legally buy a drink, left far behind their financial betters.
The truth this week came courtesy of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and...Read more.
President Obama’s Amazon jobs pitch is hard to buy with one click
Weak job growth, low pay and Amazon's hypocrisy undermine the administration's story about new opportunities
President Barack Obama inadvertently foreshadowed July's mediocre employment numbers when he picked a new Amazon warehouse in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a speech last week about the need to improve the quality of American jobs.
Calling for stable middle class jobs from an Amazon warehouse is like announcing a fitness initiative in a grocery store's snack aisle,...Read more.
Toils and troubles of a new housing bubble
The real estate market in southern California, like in many parts of the US, is hot again – but we should know better this time
It was while I was standing in the living room of a beach bungalow located about a mile from the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles' Venice Beach neighborhood, that I heard the phrase "It's just like 2006" uttered twice in a 10-minute span of time by...Read more.
All the president’s deja-vus
Thursday's speech on the economy was just like all the others – it sounded great, we got excited, then poof! We moved on
This week Barack Obama remembered the middle class.
You know them. The people who will suffer in retirement if our Social Security retirement benefits are given a "tweak" as he phrased his own effort at entitlement reform last year. They are the people whose incomes have continued to fall...Read more.
All the president’s deja-vus
Thursday's speech on the economy was just like all the others – it sounded great, we got excited, then poof! We moved on
This week Barack Obama remembered the middle class.
You know them. The people who will suffer in retirement if our Social Security retirement benefits are given a "tweak" as he phrased his own effort at entitlement reform last year. They are the people whose incomes have continued to fall...Read more.
Want to fix the US student loan crisis? Put colleges on the hook
Some colleges have higher default rates than graduation rates, proof that we should evaluate institutions' risk as well
The question of student loans is taking on an increasing urgency everywhere but Washington.
Rates on federally subsidized loans doubled to almost 7% on July 1, thanks to Congressional bickering and dithering. The latest attempt to roll back the rates failed to get out of the Senate earlier this week, when sponsoring...Read more.
Want to fix the US student loan crisis? Put colleges on the hook
Some colleges have higher default rates than graduation rates, proof that we should evaluate institutions' risk as well
The question of student loans is taking on an increasing urgency everywhere but Washington.
Rates on federally subsidized loans doubled to almost 7% on July 1, thanks to Congressional bickering and dithering. The latest attempt to roll back the rates failed to get out of the Senate earlier this week, when sponsoring...Read more.
CEOs and the rest of us: a tale of two economies
CEOs earn 273 times more than their employees – a pay disparity which is having an increasingly corrosive effect
Congratulations CEOs! You've been having a great time of it. Salaries are up, and up in a major way. The Economic Policy Institute says you brought home an average $14.1m in 2012. The New York Times, looking at slightly different numbers, claims the news is even better, saying the median...Read more.
CEOs and the rest of us: a tale of two economies
CEOs earn 273 times more than their employees – a pay disparity which is having an increasingly corrosive effect
Congratulations CEOs! You've been having a great time of it. Salaries are up, and up in a major way. The Economic Policy Institute says you brought home an average $14.1m in 2012. The New York Times, looking at slightly different numbers, claims the news is even better, saying the median...Read more.
Student loan debt is stealing our future
The current student loan set-up is not good for our long-term financial health, as a generation in debt weakens our economy
Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren debuted her inaugural legislative effort, a bill intended to stop the cost of federally subsidized student loans from doubling from 3.4% to just under 7% on 1 July. Warren's solution? A one-year temporary fix that would allow students and their parents to borrow money for...Read more.
About Helaine Olen
I am the voice of The Bills, a column about the intersection of money and life, at Slate. At Inc., I contribute to the Spread the Wealth personal finance column. My work on politics, economics, workplace culture and women’s issues has been published in numerous other print and on-line publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, Pacific Standard, and The Los Angeles Times, where I wrote and edited the popular “Money Makeover” feature.
I'm the author of the critically acclaimed book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, and The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be so Complicated, which I co-wrote with Harold Pollack.
What else? I’m a passionate bibliophile, a fan of 1970s pop music and a lover of rummage sales. I live in New York City.
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