Before becoming a columnist, I worked as a foreign correspondent and investigative reporter for The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor for seventeen years. Taking out those triple digit salaries, even perhaps double digit ones as most CEO Executives earn now would lend itself to a better reflection of where the "middle" really lies in relation to incomes in this country. In 2011 for every dollar earned of income only 44 cents went to workers wages and salaries. Are you poor, middle or rich? What do we mean by “middle class”? But definitions vary. MORE >>

The irony is why this industry has taken a huge hit the CEO's of major home builder firms salaries have not declined. The HPI was down in all of the nine Census divisions, with the Mountain (-3.7%), East North Central (-2.6%) and New England (-2.0%) divisions experiencing the largest declines. The Middle Atlantic (-6.1%) division (New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) also experienced a significant decline over the past 12 months, however it was less affected by the housing market downturn and its overall decline since the peak has been more gradual. MORE >>

The New York Times Company threatened to close The Boston Globe if its employees didn’t make substantial sacrifices in salaries and benefits. But, as the anchorwoman assures us at the end, with a two-hour download time (at $5 an hour), “the new telepaper won’t be much competition for the 20-cent street edition.” This new household appliance threatened to strangle radio, movies, the Broadway theater, nightclubs and the circus. And newspapers too: “NBC’s New ‘Today’ Attacked by Papers as Competition” screamed a front-page Variety headline in 1952. Or did. MORE >>

With 10 years of welding experience, Keelan Prados was able to pass an employer’s test and quickly begin a new job. That trajectory, requiring years, is no longer so easy in America, said Richard Sennett, a New York University sociologist. People are told they can’t get back to work unless they retrain for a new skill,” he said. The Conference Board, a business organization in New York, comes closer. What swayed her was not the $65,000 salary — there will be raises and bonuses soon, Ms. Only now, 18 months later, is he completing the roster. MORE >>

The heads of the Canadian and Italian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman — not to mention … But then, any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. Treasury or maybe the state of New Jersey. Period. Just make it. percent. MORE >>