California Governor-elect Schwarzenegger’s predecessor has left him a poison pill that he has no alternative but to swallow. The Health Insurance Act, signed by Gov. Gray Davis in the twilight hours of his administration, mandates every California company with more than 20 employees to provide employee health insurance. The cost, according to Aaron Yelowitz, a health and labor economist at the University of Kentucky and the […]

It's 10 minutes to midnight for Gov. Gray Davis. As judgment day approaches, measures that were once, or twice, vetoed on grounds of cost or even national security have become law with a flourish of the governor's pen. No surprise, then, that he signed a bill Sunday that requires every employer with more than 20 employees to provide employee health coverage that will cost Golden State […]

This Labor Day, America faces a profound choice over the fate of its low-skilled work force. We can follow a crowd of prominent Democrats including Howard Dean, John Kerry and Dick Gephardt, who are teaming up with Old Deal liberal warrior Sen. Edward Kennedy to promote an increase in the federal minimum wage by 29 percent. Or we can move forward on the path first […]

America's unemployment rate is now 6.4%, a nine-year high. For many Americans, rising unemployment is an unwelcome change from the long economic boom of the 1990s. But for some, the average rate hides a bigger story. A new study by the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) identifies 397 counties and cities -- each with a population of over 10,000 -- that had unemployment rates of 9% or above in […]

It’s official. The unemployment rate in Illinois continued its steady upward march to 6.3 percent last month. One hundred forty thousand Illinois workers have joined the jobless lines since April 2000. But for 800,000 Illinois residents, the statewide increase masks a more troubling story. A new study by the Employment Policies Institute identifies 18 Illinois cities and counties with a population of 10,000 or more […]

If San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez has his way, outbound traffic on the Bay Bridge is about to get much worse. Cars carrying workers to new jobs in Oakland will follow the large trucks carrying what’s left of the city’s beleaguered business community to the friendlier confines of neighboring cities. The exodus will result from Gonzalez’s ill-conceived plan to hike the minimum wage to $8.50. […]