Posts filed as “US work & careers”
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.
Pensions? Always someone else’s problem
Detroit's workers are not the first to see their retirement finances suddenly reduced – they are only the most recent
If a city declares bankruptcy and its current and retired workforce ranging from librarians and sanitation men to police officer and fire fighters are forced to take permanent reductions to their promised monthly pension benefits, will anyone care besides the impacted employees and the unlucky retired workers dependent on that income?
Thanks...Read more.
Pensions? Always someone else’s problem
Detroit's workers are not the first to see their retirement finances suddenly reduced – they are only the most recent
If a city declares bankruptcy and its current and retired workforce ranging from librarians and sanitation men to police officer and fire fighters are forced to take permanent reductions to their promised monthly pension benefits, will anyone care besides the impacted employees and the unlucky retired workers dependent on that income?
Thanks...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.
Unemployment is killing America’s economically vulnerable women early
Americans are living longer than ever but average lifespan of white, female high school drop-outs has plunged dramatically
Is a lack of jobs killing some of America's most economically vulnerable women?
That's one of the provocative conclusions of Jennifer Karas Montez, a researcher at Harvard University, and author with Anna Zajacova, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wyoming, who set out to explain why the average lifespan of a...Read more.
Saving for retirement: the key is to start small
If the powers that be want people to save more, they first need to encourage them to save for smaller splurges
When it comes to convincing people of the need to save money, it might be time to downplay the pressure to set aside retirement savings and the need to fund a 401(k).
What? We know we're in terrible fiscal shape for our retirements, and the younger we are, the worse...Read more.
American retail workers need more than $10 an hour
The more workers are earning low wages, the less likely the economy will reach escape velocity
The retail sector has been a star of recent jobs reports. May's numbers from the Department of Labor say it was responsible for adding 28,000 positions to the overall economy. It's on an upward trend – the monthly retail employment number has averaged 20,000 for the past year.
Considering one in nine Americans work in, for...Read more.
American retail workers need more than $10 an hour
The more workers are earning low wages, the less likely the economy will reach escape velocity
The retail sector has been a star of recent jobs reports. May's numbers from the Department of Labor say it was responsible for adding 28,000 positions to the overall economy. It's on an upward trend – the monthly retail employment number has averaged 20,000 for the past year.
Considering one in nine Americans work in, for...Read more.
Internships: why paying for experience is bad business
It's no longer enough to be willing to work for free – now you need to pay for the privilege of working for no salary
Psst. Want a job working for Miami Heat basketball star LeBron James? There's a nice internship in online marketing and another in content development currently being advertised on his website. If you are interested, you best get on it quick. Applications are due Tuesday.
Salary? Funny you...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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