President Obama has given little indication of the strategy for his upcoming trip through Chile, Brazil, and El Salvador. Will "the great listener" promote cooperation and understanding, or carry on the Bush administration’s approach of fighting against r

Save for a few brief mentions (New York Times, Associated Press), the major English language media has all but ignored the news that – as reported by Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste – four CEP members may never have signed the document affirming the Coun

The Honorable Richard Shelby
304 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Shelby:

During a recent breakfast at the Institute for Education, you said that Social Security is actuarially unsound, that the next generation of workers would receive little or nothing from Social Security and that there is no proof that your sons would get much at all. This is badly mistaken. You should know, both for your own personal finances, and more importantly for your actions as Senator, that under any plausible set of circumstances you and your sons can anticipate a substantial Social Security benefit.

You reached the national retirement age for Social Security in 1999. While I don’t know your precise earnings history, your pay as a senator made you eligible for the maximum benefit if it were sustained for 35 years. The Social Security Trustees Report and likely your own personal finances show that a maximum wage earner retiring in 1999 receives an annual benefit of $21,674 in 2010 dollars.

This graph by World Bank economist Branko Milanovic made the rounds last week. Income ventiles, USA, Brazil, China, and India Source: Branko Milanovic, The Haves and the Have Nots To construct the figure, Milanovic first took the population of each of th

Dean Baker
The Guardian Unlimited, February 7, 2011

Mark WeisbrotSacramento Bee (CA), February 3, 2011McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, February 3, 2011 Bellingham Herald (WA), February 3, 2011Lima News (OH), February 3, 2011Juneau Empire (AK), February 4, 2011White Plains Journal News (NY), February

Despite the announcement last week by CEP spokesperson Richardson Dumel, numerous media reports, and laudatory statements from by the United States, France and other foreign governments, it now appears that the CEP did not in fact make a decision as to wh

Dean Baker
Truthout, February 7, 2011

Dean Baker
Boston Review, February 7, 2011