Meditations From the Brink of an Economic Abyss

By Sheldon Greaves The national upheaval caused by the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin has dominated the headlines for the last few days, and rightly so. You can almost feel a qualitative difference in the anger, … Continue reading

What Working From Home Reveals About Work in America

By Sheldon The working lives of Americans–at least the ones who are still working–has been upended with more and more of us working from home. For our family, this is old stuff. Tor the last ten years at least, and … Continue reading

Debunked: The Myth That We’re All Potential Parasites

By Sheldon Greaves There is an assumption that lies behind much of the opposition to efforts by people of good will to provide aid and support to people who find themselves in tight economic times. That myth is that if … Continue reading

How Marketable is a Liberal Arts Degree, Really?

By Sheldon Greaves It’s something we all heard in graduate school, those of us who were in some kind of humanities or liberal arts program: employers love liberal arts graduates. They are looking for people who can communicate, express themselves … Continue reading

The Long-Term Costs of Poverty and Unemployment

By Sheldon Readers (both of you) will have noticed that I’ve been stuck on a particular theme lately, which is the problem of long-term unemployment and the larger problem of poverty, which touches many–far too many–people who have jobs. A … Continue reading

The New Economy: Unemployment and the Return of the American Hobo

By Sheldon Greaves A few years ago I read somewhere about a trend in the “gig economy” in which people who had been reduced to living in their cars or RVs roamed the country by the thousands; homeless, nomadic workers … Continue reading