Gains in the labor market have stalled, according to today’s employment report. Payroll employment increased by just 18,000 jobs in June, the smallest increase in eight months, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent. Increases in private employment slowed sharply over the past two months, while government employment continued to fall.

In previous postings, we have looked at the median earnings of both men and women to explore their long-term employment and earnings trends. For men, we found that earnings have been on the decline because of stagnant wages and declining employment. For women, earnings have increased rapidly as more women entered the labor force armed with higher levels of education-able to command higher salaries.

This month we explore the trends in earnings and employment for America families, looking both at two-parent and single-parent families. Indeed, the question about how men or women are doing separately may not capture how the average family is doing. To help tell the full story we examined the earnings for households with children during the past thirty five years.

The numbers suggest that the typical American family is earning more, but almost entirely because parents are working more-not because they are earning more per hour. […]

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REIKJAVIK, ICELAND — Since 2008 the vast majority of the Western population dream about saying ‘no’ to the banks, but no one has dared to do so. No one except the Icelanders, who have carried out a peaceful revolution that has managed not only to overthrow a government and draft a new constitution, but also seeks to jail those responsible for the country’s economic debacle.

Last week 9 people were arrested in London and Reykjavik for their possible responsibility for Iceland’s financial collapse in 2008, a deep crisis which developed into an unprecedented public reaction that is changing the country’s direction.

It has been a revolution without weapons in Iceland, the country that hosts the world’s oldest democracy (since 930), and whose citizens have managed to effect change by going on demonstrations and banging pots and pans. Why have the rest of the Western countries not even heard about it?

Pressure from Icelandic citizens’ has managed not only to bring down a government, but also begin the drafting of a new constitution (in process) and is seeking to put in jail those bankers responsible for the financial crisis in the country. As the saying goes, if you ask for things politely it is […]

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Britain’s coastal waters are so overfished that they can supply the nation’s chip shops, restaurants and kitchens for little more than six months of every year, research has shown.

Overfishing has caused so much damage to fish stocks across Europe that the quantity landed each year to satisfy the public appetite has fallen by 2 per cent on average every year since 1993.

So great is demand that next Saturday, 16 July, has been dubbed Fish Dependence Day – the day on which imports would have to be relied upon because native supplies would have run out if only home-caught fish had been eaten since 1 January. Last year it fell on 3 August, almost three weeks later, and in 1995 it was six weeks later.

Other European countries consume fish at an even greater rate and the EU as a whole reached its Fish Dependence Day on 2 July, compared with 9 July last year, with fishermen estimated to have landed 200,000 tonnes less than a year earlier. Spain became dependent on non-EU imports on 8 May, Germany on 27 April, Italy on 30 April and France on 13 June.

The demands made on UK and European fisheries are making them less productive, […]

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Half of Americans who receive government aid in the form of social services believe that they have not ‘used a government social program.

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After months of tough talk, House Republicans ran away from defense cuts last week -and that spells more trouble now for deficit reduction talks at the White House, already beset by differences over taxes.

In three days of floor debate, even modest reductions at the expense of military bands or the Pentagon’s sponsorship of NASCAR races to promote recruitment were opposed by the majority of GOP lawmakers. And the $649.2 billion appropriations bill, including $118.6 billion for wars overseas, sailed through Friday with only a dozen Republicans in opposition.

When conservative freshman Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina proposed to freeze core Pentagon spending at 2011 levels, he was run over by almost three-quarters of his party. A bipartisan compromise, which would have preserved an $8.5 billion increase, fared no better, getting just 47 Republicans – less than half the number that voted to wipe out the entire

‘The military budget is not on the table,

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