CEPR Co-Director Dean Baker spoke at the JOBS NOW Annual Meeting at the Minnesota Nurses Association headquarters in St. Paul. Minnesota’s JOBS NOW Coalition has seen recent victories in establishing family-supporting wages and benefits in the Minnesota Nurses Association’s settlement with Twin Cities hospitals. And there has been a public outcry against letting Minnesota restaurant servers’ earnings drop any further below a family-supporting wage than they already are. Baker talked about his epic struggle with the economics profession. He has dedicated his career to breaking down the barriers to understanding the economy and how it works. Or, more precisely, how it doesn’t work. Best of all, he uses the tools of the profession to distinguish between reality-based economics and its academic counterpart.