Robert B. Reich

My mother went into paid work soon after my father's clothing store was flooded out in a hurricane, almost wiping him out. She had no choice. We needed the money. This was some two decades before a tidal wave of wives and mothers went into paid work....

Just when you thought Wall Street couldn't sink any lower -- when its excesses are still causing hardship to millions of Americans and its myriad abuses of public trust have already spread a miasma of cynicism over the entire economic system -- an even...

While all eyes are on the Supreme Court and Obamacare, a quieter battle is being waged against the president's other major initiative, the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. Wall Street has already watered down or delayed most of Dodd-Frank. Now it wants...

Here's a modest proposal I offer free of charge to President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney: Every American should get a mandatory minimum of three week's paid vacation a year. Most Americans only get two weeks off right now. But many don't even take...

Rarely in history has the cause of a major economic problem been so clear, yet have so few been willing to see it. The major reason this recovery has been so anemic is not Europe's debt crisis. It's not, as right-wing economists tell us, because taxes...

Recently, I publicly debated someone who said Arizona and every other state should use whatever means necessary to keep out illegal immigrants. He wants English to be spoken in every classroom in the nation, and the Pledge of Allegiance recited every...

The vitriol is worse than I ever recall. Worse than the Palin-induced smarm of 2008. Worse than the Swift-boat lies of 2004. Worse, even, than the anything-goes craziness of 2000 and its ensuing bitterness. It's almost a civil war. I know families in...

We're closing in on Election Day, but the questions about what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would do if elected are only growing larger. Rarely before in American history has a presidential ticket campaigned on such a blank slate. Yet, paradoxically, not...

The question at the core of America's upcoming presidential election isn't merely whose story most voting Americans believe to be true -- Mitt Romney's claim that the economy is in a stall and President Barack Obama's policies haven't worked, or Mr....

Mitt Romney's chosen running mate, Paul Ryan, is the reverse of Sarah Palin. She was all right-wing flash without much substance. He's all right-wing substance without much flash. Mr. Ryan is not a firebrand. He's not smarmy. He doesn't ooze contempt for...

Members of the Class of 2012, As a former secretary of labor and current professor, I feel I owe it to you to tell you the truth about the pieces of parchment you're picking up today. You're screwed. Well, not exactly. But you won't have it easy....

However one looks at last Friday's jobs report, it's a stunning reminder of how anemic the recovery has been -- and how perilously close America is to falling into another recession. Not only has the unemployment rate risen for the first time in almost a...