By Tim Price, originally published on Next New Deal
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How much money do you make? (WaPo)
Roosevelt Institute Fellow Mike Konczal examines a question that complicates income inequality—partly because no one wants to answer it, but also because when liberals and conservatives are asked to show their work, they don't even agree on the math.
Where Have All the Secretaries Gone? (Businessweek)
Sheelah Kolhatkar notes that Mad Men's return highlights changes in the workplace. Fewer bosses are getting soused in the middle of the day, and their assistants are disappearing entirely. Research by Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert explains the latter.
The Promise of Abenomics (Project Syndicate)
Roosevelt Institute Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that Japanese PM Shinzo Abe's "three arrows" of economics, focused on monetary policy, fiscal stimulus, and growth, will get better results than U.S. and European policymakers' empty quivers.
Destroying the Economy and the Democrats (Prospect)
Robert Kuttner writes that while there was probably no good time for President Obama to leak that he was putting Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block, the week we found out the economy added just 88,000 jobs in March definitely wasn't it.
Insurance and Freedom (NYT)
Paul Krugman notes that since "Poor people: gross!" is no longer a winning message for opponents of the safety net, the Republicans blocking Medicaid expansion are framing it as a blow to the soul-crushing tyranny of insurance and affordable health care.
This Week in Poverty: Sequestration, Housing, Homelessness (The Nation)
Greg Kaufmann writes that sequestration is anything but abstract for the 140,000 low-income families who will have their housing vouchers cut off, which should generate at least 3 percent as much outrage as the canceled tours of the president's house.
Debtors' prisons are back: how heart-warmingly Dickensian! (Washington Monthly)
Kathleen Geier highlights a report from Ohio's ACLU on the state's new debtors' prisons and the various ways in which they violate local law, constitutional law, and plain old standards of human decency, all for the chance to claim that glorious $300 bounty.
The Fries-With-That Economy (NYT)
Catherine Rampell notes that employment in food services and drinking places accounted for one in 13 American jobs in March, with an average hourly wage of $11.98. And the more this news spreads, the more popular those "drinking places" get.
Tim Price is Editor of Next New Deal. Follow him on Twitter @txprice.