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Oxfam reports that about half of the people showing up at soup kitchens in the U.S. are people with one person in the family working at a minimum or low wage job. About 3.3 million American are affected at the $7 federal minimum wage. The White House proposes a $10 minimum wage that it say would affect 28 million Americans. For most of these people working mostly in low wage retail jobs this can mean having more food and often having the money to take a bus instead of having to walk to work.

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The risks that China could be stuck in middle income status- plateauing similiar to countries like Mexico in middle income status- grow as China's remains stuck in a state enterprises driven model of growth at the expense of consumers and savers. Japan reached the level of development China is in today in 1970, Taiwan in 1980 and South Korea in 1990. Progress from now on depends on innovation and developing a more open society as shown in the experience of Japan and South Korea, which requires a shift away from most bank lending and funding investment going to state owned enterprises and towards private enterprises and tech startups. The resulting overbuilding has led to a vast misallocation of resources and starving new private enterprises of the large amounts of capital needed. Porter describes the lower level of rural education which has not kept up with the pace of improvement in urban schools, and which poses problems for the future, including a shortage of skilled workers.

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The U.S. Census Bureau shows incomes of American households, the median household income, surged in 2015 by 5.2%. This increased by $2800 to $56,500. This is the largest increase since 1967. It shows that steadily improving employment and hiring is leading to improvement in incomes for the middle and working class. Ris in minimum wage has also helped . The largest increase was for the lowest 20% of the income tiers. Full time working women did better than men, with increase annually of 2.7% for women, and 1.5% for men. Nocitizen incomes increased 10.5% to $45,100, native born households went up 4.4% to $57,200. The number of people without health insurance also declined from 33 million or 10.4% of the population to  29 million people or 9.1%. Another way the changes are helping lower income households is the decline of the official poverty rate to 13.5% in 2015 by 1.2 percentage points from 14.8% in 2014. Through a series of small incremental steps the path is being set for a recovery of household incomes for the middle class and working class. A bright spot is that the improvement has affected all age groups, household types, regions and ethnic groups, though among full time workers women did better than men. In this recession older white men have had more difficulties getting back into the workforce. This is reflected in the political scene in 2015-2016 for the election season. ...

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The European Union Commission says Ireland must recover 13 billion euros in back taxes for giving tax preferences to Apple that are against EU rules. The EU Commission says Ireland allowed Apple to pay a corporate tax rate of 1% on its European profits in 2003, and .005% in 2014. The EU Commissioner says the use of Ireland as the place where Apple pays taxes on operations in Europe has no base in reality, as most profits are earned in other countries outside Ireland. Taxable profits of Apple "did not correspond to economic reality," according to Ms. Vestager, the EU Commissioner.  In the current environment where political upheaval is unsettling the democratic process in the U.S., Britain, Spain, France and Italy, as well as in Brazil and other countries in the developing world- because of deep recessions, and efforts to cut the deficits with deep cuts in state spending including in education and healthcare, basic services- the moves by companies to reduce taxes to these absurdly low levels such as .005% when other companies in the EU are paying 12.5%, is becoming increasingly unpopular. As pointed out in this BBC News article this sounds like the way Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt operated during the late 19th century, and were seen as operating in a manner that was above the law. Janet Yellen pointed out at a Boston Fed Conference on inequality in Oct 2014 that the bottom half of the distribution or 62 million households in the U.S. in 2013, had a net worth of about $10,000, One quarter of these households had a net worth of zero dollars. The working class and blue collar workers in the U.S. provide much of the support at Trump rallies. Younger college educated people support Sanders, because of the situation of the working and middle class in the U.S., and a similar situation exists in Europe. It is for the sake of the democratic process and delivering services in education, healthcare, and other basic areas to all, that companies small and large need to pay their fair share of taxes, regardless of size, influence, or technological advantages. Today this is is seen by most leaders who draw public support as the right way forward for the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Asian countries, including proper allocation of resources to best serve the needs of working people. For example the 13 billion euros is equal to all of Ireland's healthcare budget, and 66% of its social welfare budget.    ...

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China's GDP growth for the 4th quarter of 2012 was 7.9% over prior year, increasing from 7.4% in the third quarter of 2012, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. GDP growth for 2012 was 7.8%, down from 9.3% in 2011. Growth is stabilizing at 8% which shows China is managing the economy, slowing the growth rate with a smaller stimulus planned in 2013, and working on sustainable growth for the longer term. This is a significant positive as a new leadership takes over in China and sets priorities for stable growth, and improvements in housing and health care.

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Andy Grove makes this passionate plea for the dignity of workers in America in 2010. It is worth reading in 2020 what this founder of Intel Corp and pioneering spirit of Silicon Valley has to say. Andy Grove of Intel says there is something seriously wrong when the unemployment rate in the Bay Area is higher than the 9.7% national average for the USA. American companies have added jobs like crazy in Asia, but things are sputtering back home. Hon Hai has 800,000 employees and makes most of the electronic and computer products for American companies. Grove says startups are not the answer, unless they scale up and create jobs the way Intel did starting back in 1968, with a $3 million capital infusion by investors. The move from the first production model to mass production is critical, as companies hire thousands of people. Innovation and scaling up have to go together. He makes his point clearly by pointing out that Apple has 25,000 employees. For every Apple employee there are 10 employees in China working on Apple iMacs, iPods, iPhones. And he adds that the same 10 to 1 relationship applies to other U.S. tech companies. And here Grove asks the tough question by first posing an answer. He says it sounds like- no big deal, we keep the high paying jobs, we keep most of the profits, but what kind of society are we going to have with highly paid professional workers and lots of people unemployed? And he doesn't mention that there are a lot more young people unemployed. He says the US has become very inefficient at creating tech jobs, and it would be a great mistake not to act decisively early on. And adds that the investments in such areas as solar power and electric car batteries have to be made early on to maintain leadership in these areas. Grove faults academics like Alan Blinder and others who say loss of manufacturing jobs and whole industries was no big deal. The U.S. has forgotten the value of manufacturing jobs. He wants to see America focus on jobs and rebuild its industrial base. And less of transferring engineering knowhow and new technologies overseas, technology that can help bring innovation and scaling up of factories at home. In his view individual companies doing their own thing, in a misguided fashion that jobs don't matter, is not the answer to the situation we face. The industrial economies of Asia, China at the present day, have focussed on jobs and technology, and scaled up. Grove reminds readers of the situation in America in 1932, when jobless veterans demonstrating outside the White House in large numbers were dispersed by soldiers with live ammunition and fixed bayonets. This makes him shudder at the very thought of it, and brings back memories of his early years in Hungary, as a young man in 1956. Are we listening? ...

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Economist John Spence on advice to the Chinese government to tackle problems of shifting from an export based economy to one more dependent on domestic spending. And managing the shift upscale to sophisticated technologies from basic consumer goods.

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Harold Meyerson looks into the causes of the decline of white working class Americans by 2015. A whole section of society that was helped by the work of FDR is being undone by a combination of forces, from the decline in working class wages and jobs through globalized business, social structures unravelling, and support structures weakening. Meyerson refers to the Deaton-Case Princeton study on increasing death rates for this group. The white working class is much smaller now than in 1940 when he says 82% of Americans over 25 had only an high school education, down to 29% in 2007. The result is that it has less power to affect policies, yet is close to one third of Americans. Economic recovery, the American dream, all remain hobbled without efforts to tackle this problem. Trump's effort to appeal to this class, Meyerson points out, is similiar to the National Front's effort in France, making the political dialogue even more divisive by targeting immigrants.

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A study by the National Employment Law Project shows most of the job creation in the economic recovery to 2014 in the U.S. is replacing the better paying jobs with lower paying jobs in fast food retail and similiar low paying industries.

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Krugman points out the gains on three fronts evident from the Census Bureau report of 5.2% gain in median income of households in the U.S. He says the first is the growth in incomes of ordinary working class and middle class families, second the large decline in the poverty rate, and third the further rise in insurance coverage in 2015 for people without health insurance. He points to the steady efforts of the Obama administration to improve lives of ordinary families as working based on the Census report though results have taken time, and could have been better. The Stimulus, says Krugman could have been larger following the blow of the 2009 financial crisis and increased unemployment at the time. Janet Yellen at the inequality conference of the Boston Fed in 2014 pointed out the problems of 62 million households having net worth of about $10,000, and why this was running against the American idea of a better life for all Americans. In that sense the Census report is a movement in the right direction but a lot remains to be done.   ...

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Browne describes the excessive focus on "hard" GDP targets in China and the results in wasteful spending and neglect of other vital indicators of development such as healthcare, education, environment.

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Montes and Cordoba of the WSJ provide this exceptional account of corruption at the state level in Mexico. Ironically the very effort to reduce the power of centralized administration with PRI winning repeated elections and having a monopoly in power for many years, led to the decentralization and passing on power and money to the state governments in Mexico after the 1990's. But this was done without putting in the checks and balances required. Instead too much power was now concentrated in the hands of the state governments which appointed even the judges and officials at all levels including election bodies. Federal transfers of tax money to states increased 20 fold to $88 billion in 2016, according to this report.  The result 41 state governors faced corruption charges between 2000 and 2013, according to the Mexican Competitiveness Institute. This includes the state of Veracruz where state coffers are almost empty and there is no money to pay municipal bodies. The PRI governor of Veracruz Mr. Duarte supported president Pena Nieto, and was at 43 years age cited as the new face of the young PRI. This report  says he is nowhere to be found now that $2.5 billion in state funds cannot be verified. Other states are Tamaulipas, Quintana Roo, Coahuila, Sonora, where corruption charges remain. The Veracruz scandal is among the worst and is the focus of attention for the public in Mexico. At this point president Pena Nieto of PRI has about 12% popularity rating, lowest of any modern Mexican president.   ...

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Meltzer points to the huge impact on wages in the U.S. from the millions of workers added to the global economy- as people from India, China and other developing countries competed for the same jobs as American workers- as a principal cause for increasing income inequality. The wages of the one percent were insulated from this and actually benefitted in the case of banking and finance. Current pricing practices in health care insulated the medical and hospital related professions. The effects of the global financial crisis- loss of construction jobs, foreclosures, and effects on savings hit the middle class and working classes hard, something Meltzer overlooks.

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Italy's finance minister Carlo Padoan, the EU president Jean-Claude Juncker, and Vitor Constancio, vice president of the ECB, express the need for increased public spending and investment to reverse increasingly sluggish economic growth by Septembr 2014. In a letter to Paduan, finance ministers of France and Germany, Sapin and Schauble, express support for a new investment program in 2014-2015.

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Krugman points out that the federal tax rate for the top 1% is 34% in 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office, because president Obama let the high end Bush tax cuts to expire. It is the number to remember says Krugman- 34. In 2008 the figure was 28.2. Under Hillary Clinton the average tax rate for the top 1% would go up by 3.4 percentage points, according to the Tax Policy Center. Some of this would help pay for the tution plan to provide access to the middle class to public universities. Under populist Trump, Krugman points to the elimination of the inheritance tax and tax rates going down substantially, and no such programs to promote the upward mobility that everyone is talking about, and no way to pay for a big infrastructure building effort for growth and jobs- upward mobility that is the focus of every candidate's election campaign including Sanders, Trump in appealing to older white working class families, Clinton, Ryan, Bush, and others in both parties.   ...

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Wallsten describes the tense and now frayed relationship between Obama and immigration groups and the way this has evolved from idealism to frustration to mere coexistence amid loss of faith. Obama's frustration expressed in words such as "I am not a king." And the immigration groups voicing their concerns about Obama's loss of credibility, as minorities especially Hispanics have fared poorly during his adminsitration, hit by rising deportations, foreclosures and the impact of high unemployment in construction and other sectors.