Labor

As stagnant wages and rising tuition and medical costs squeeze middle class families, Bloomberg reports that US employers cut employee bonuses this year for the first time in seven years, further straining household budgets despite an ostensibly bright economic outlook. Bonuses slipped a tenth of a percentage point to 12.7% of total compensation this year, according to data from Aon Hewitt, which conducts an annual survey of more than 1,000 employers.

We've written frequently of late about the pension crisis in Kentucky where pensioners are facing potentially catastrophic benefit cuts as their politicians finally admit that they've been sold a fantasy for decades (see: Pension Consultant Offers Dire Outlook For Kentucky: Freeze Pension And Slash Benefits Or Else).

The Great Recession destroyed the job market for workers without college degrees, and the situation hasn’t gotten any better.

This begs the question - can you still enjoy a high standard of living without a college degree? And what are the highest paying jobs for people without a traditional higher education?

This new chart, from HowMuch.net, sheds some light on these pressing questions.

We've spent a lot of time of late discussing the impact of opioids on the American workforce.  While it is unclear exactly how much of an impact opioids are having on the steadily declining labor force participation rate, one thing is clear: nearly half of working age men not in the labor force today take some form of opioids on a daily basis.

We've spent a lot of time of late discussing the inevitable public pension crisis that will eventually wreak havoc on global financial markets.  And while the scale of the public pension underfunding is unprecedented, with estimates ranging from $3 - $8 trillion, there is another taxpayer-funded retirement benefit that has been promised to union workers over the years that puts pensions to shame...at least on a percentage funded basis.