Melissa Bruninga-Matteau is a single mother who relies on food stamps and Medicaid to survive. Her take-home pay is $900 a month, of which $750 goes to rent and $40 goes to gas. Where does she work? If you're thinking a fast food chain, think again. She's a PhD who...

As an advocate for 401(k) participants I should be grateful that Frontline produced "Why You Can't Afford to Retire," which aired last night on PBS at 10 p.m.

Unfortunately, not only did the episode inaccurately portray the biggest flaws in the plans as high fees and risky stocks and not...

1. Not enough people even have a 401(k) plan -- 53 percent of the population isn't covered. Since fewer than 10 percent of the population has a regular pension, a huge chunk of Americans depend solely on Social Security, whose typical benefit is around $12,000 to $20,000 a year.

2....

The only thing more maddening than the media's refusal to cover the retirement crisis -- with the exception of the Washington Post -- is the fact that most of us don't realize that our eggs aren't in the right baskets.

Despite the fact that two-thirds of the...

It seems that every day there is new speculation over whether Hillary Clinton will run for president in 2016. For the life of me I can't fathom what these folks are excited about. Don't get me wrong, as a feminist I've always celebrated the accomplishments of the superior sex but...

On Saturday Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) announced his intentions to retire after completing his fifth term in 2015.

Like Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren, Harkin comes from a humble background, making him more sensitive to the financial stress facing...

Americans are largely split in their reaction to the "fiscal cliff" agreement, but united in their dislike for the role played by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), according to a Washington Post/ABC poll released Jan. 8.

While President Obama won a majority of support for his handling...

If you think that the Dodd-Frank bank reform legislation will put the kibosh on future bad bank bailouts, think again. A virtually unknown federal agency known as the Financial Stability Oversight Council can formally designate certain large banks and nonbank financial companies as "systemically important financial institutions" (SIFIs) -- a.k.a....

Abraham Lincoln would not be the only one turning over in his grave at the disgraceful state of the Republican party 147 years after he left office -- other dead progressive Republican leaders would, as well.

Contrast the current Republican leadership with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who...

What do you regard as the most infuriating experience you ever endured -- dealing with the cranky Patty/Selma clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles? Driving behind slow-driving geezers? Watching Fox News?

How about discovering you have a less-than-stellar credit reports despite having a stellar credit history?

After I...

David Petraeus' cheating was somewhat, if not entirely predictable. As Lisa Belkin points out, the Men Behaving Badly phenomenon is quite common when it comes to politics: FDR, JFK and Slick Willie Clinton are three egregious examples.

It isn't just that male politicians who sleazy, but women in...

Those moderate voters who may be tempted to vote for Romney because our economy's performance has been dismal -- and who figure what do we have to lose? -- should seriously reconsider. Unlike his father, George, Mitt forgoes principle for pursuing policies that pander to the lunatic right fringe in...

As far as I'm concerned Obama's re-election campaign is the most important one since that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an extraordinary President who not only rescued America from the Great Depression but enacted the country's most important social programs, including Social Security, along with winning World War II.

At the...

What is the future of work? Which party will prevail in not only lowering our unhealthy unemployment rate but ensuring that job growth will continue based on genuine prosperity and not the "bubble economics" such as the housing and Internet bubble enabled by Bill Clinton? Let's call it "Bubba economics."

It's not surprising that Bill Clinton was picked to deliver the nominating speech at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night. Two thirds of Americans have a favorable opinion of the 42nd president, the highest approval rating of any president, including Ronald Reagan and John F Kennedy.

On Friday Sen. Tom Harkin, who heads up the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, announced a proposal to make "bold changes to the private retirement system and Social Security."

The changes? No reforms at all to the drastically underfunded 401(k) plans. Employers who don't offer a...

Nobody loves Apple products more than I do. I've got an iMac, MacBook, iPad, iPhone and four iPod shuffles. But as a progressive who is concerned about the job security of Americans I hate the fact that Apple chose to offshore the assembly of its products to China and plan...

The most bizarre aspect of our current political environment is that while President Obama's future ostensibly is in peril because he's only got a 43 percent approval rating, only 7 percent of likely U.S. voters approve of the Republican-dominated Congress, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll

My dad, who normally didn't mind spending money, was appalled when I was accepted to Syracuse University in 1966 because the bill would be $3,000 a year -- compared to about $35,000 today. Most likely he was shocked because the Canadian government subsidized most or all of my dad's education...

President Obama is correct to be going after Mitt Romney's questionable record at Bain Capital. As fellow blogger Robert Scheer pointed out, 90% of the deals at the end of Romney's tenure involved dismembering once-thriving industries and selling off the parts, destroying jobs in the process.

But...