Trump’s ‘offensive and prejudicial rhetoric’ skews how white people view minorities, research finds

Voters take cues from political leaders, even when they violate long-standing norms against prejudice.

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The Trump tax cuts were supposed to set off an investment boom. They haven’t so far.

The problem is that while the tax-cutting story the Trump administration was telling might be true for a small, open economy, it was never going to be for a large and slightly closed one like our own.

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Thousands of polling places were closed over the past decade. Here’s where.

Reasons for the closures vary, and in some cases are the result of expanded opportunities for early and absentee voting.

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Giving everyone health care doesn’t make you a communist

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Per capita lottery spending has doubled since 1995

The lottery is basically a tax. Who's paying, and how much?

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Low voter turnout is no accident, according to a ranking of the ease of voting in all 50 states

A new report shows that the time and effort required to vote has a significant effect on turnout.

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Italy’s game of chicken with Europe is getting serious again

For a long time, Italy has been Europe’s hidden crisis. Now, though, it’s becoming much more open.

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Trump thinks the Fed has gone ‘loco.’ Wait until he sees what it does next.

The Fed is going to be driving Trump crazy for a while.

from Wonkblog https://ift.tt/2S7E8TM

It’s not just the young: Middle-age voters aren’t showing up at the polls like they used to

Everybody knows that young Americans don't tend to go to the polls. But data shows steep midterm turnout declines among 30-, 40- and 50-somethings, too.

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Government-job manipulation: How U.S. governors have been putting their thumb on the scales at election time

Governors face every temptation to put their thumb on the scale in the run-up to an election. Veto budget cuts. Hold off on that hiring freeze. But it's always been difficult to prove that such manipulation happened on a nationwide scale.

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Even janitors have noncompetes now. Nobody is safe.

The proliferation of the wage-depressing contracts is a natural consequence of capitalists' paradoxical aversion to competition. That doesn't mean courts and politicians have to go along with it.

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America has a record 7.1 million job openings, making it an especially advantageous time to ask for a raise.

The United States had 7,136,000 million job openings in August and 6,234,000 unemployed people.

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Where people show up to vote — and where they don’t

It all comes down to turnout.

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U.S. ranks 25th for men and 32nd for women when it comes to helping residents reach their potential

Portugal, Italy, Slovenia and 20 other nations rank higher than the United States on a new economic indicator from the World Bank.

from Wonkblog https://ift.tt/2CBsqfl

It’s better to be born rich than gifted

The least-gifted children of high-income parents graduate from college at higher rates than the most-gifted children of low-income parents, and other dispatches from the point where genetics intersects with economics.

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Your boss has a huge effect on your happiness, even when you’re not in the office

Happiness-wise, having the right kind of boss is equivalent to doubling your income.

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Trump’s tariffs will harm growth in 2019, IMF predicts

'The world will be a poorer and more dangerous place' without trade and multi-lateralism, the IMF warned.

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Scotland declares war on “lazy mapping practice”

Residents of the Shetland Islands take offense at inset maps.

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William Nordhaus and Paul Romer win Nobel Prize in economics

The two Americans received the Nobel Prize in economics for their work on the relationship of climate change and technological innovation to economics.

from Wonkblog https://ift.tt/2CxH73j

Employers are courting less-educated workers — finally — but they aren’t offering pay increases

Workers without a college degree are switching jobs at a historic rate, as employers cast a wider net. But for now, workers aren't getting raises, they're only getting opportunities.

from Wonkblog https://ift.tt/2Qokgdl