Minnesota’s Working Poor Still Hurting

by | Aug 4, 2016

About a quarter of a million Minnesota workers had cause to celebrate earlier this week, as the state’s minimum wage increased. However, millions of workers in Minnesotans and other states are still stuck in low wage jobs that do not adequately compensate them for the...

Fiscal Policy Doesn’t Explain Below Average Employment Growth

by | Jul 28, 2016

Minnesota has lagged modestly behind the national average in terms of employment growth during the 21st century. However, there is no reason to blame Minnesota’s sub-par employment growth upon progressive fiscal policy. Rather, the state’s below average job growth is...

The Economic Case for Reducing Income Inequality

by | Jul 26, 2016

The trend in declining wages and increased income inequality has been well documented, most recently in a July 18 North Star article. Concern over these trends goes beyond the gut level response to the impropriety of concentrating a larger and larger share of societal...

Minnesota Wage Growth Stronger Under Progressive Policies

by | Jul 21, 2016

Conservatives have blamed “blue-state” policies for what they consider to be lackluster performance by Minnesota’s economy during the 21st century. However, wage growth in Minnesota has been slightly stronger vis-à-vis the national and adjacent state averages under...

Wendell Anderson and “A State That Works”

by | Jul 19, 2016

Sunday marked the passing of a Minnesota icon, as former Governor Wendell Anderson died at age 83. Governor Anderson faded from the political scene over the course of the 1970s, but even Minnesotans borne long after Anderson’s heyday have seen the August 1973 Time...