Michael Regan

Older Americans made dramatic gains in median net worth over the past 25 years, a new Pew analysis of Census data says, while households headed by younger adults lost ground. In 2009 the typical household headed by an adult 65 or older had $170,494 in net worth, up 42 percent from 1984. Households headed by […]

Following last month’s release of a U.S. Census Bureau report on income inequality in the nation, Al Shaw at Pro Publica has devised an interactive graphic that tracks the main measure of inequality on a county-by-county basis. And while the Census report found that Connecticut ranked in the top seven states overall for unequal distribution […]

The 2009 “cash for clunkers” program was wildly popular, Emily Badger says at Miller-McCune, but a new study finds that it did little for environment or the economy. In all, the federal government spent $2.85 billion on incentives to help consumers buy 678,359 new cars. The stated goal was to give the economy–particularly the auto […]

Most people by now have seen wind turbines towering about the trees or nearby buildings; here’s how one gets put up, in this 7-minute time-lapse video by photographer Jay Grocci.

As concerns mount about the high cost of college and the massive debt some students incur to pay it, higher-education experts met last weekend to defend their charges—and argue that a degree is still worth the price, Jon Marcus says at The Hechinger Report. “There is no crisis in college costs,” said Robert Archibald, professor […]

Overshadowed by last week’s Congressional Budget Office report on the soaring incomes of America’s wealthy was another federal study measuring income inequality at the state level–and it found Connecticut among seven states where the inequality is higher than in the country as a whole by all three standards applied (.pdf). Based on data from five […]

Newspaper editorial boards that once overwhelmingly backed Republican presidential candidates have become more likely to endorse Democrats in recent elections, Micah Cohen notes at FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s political blog for the New York Times. Looking at elections going back to 1972, Cohen found Democrats won a majority of daily newspaper endorsements in only three of […]

The after-tax incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent of American households grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, according to a new report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. For the rest of the nation’s top earners–the 81st through 99th percentiles–inflation-adjusted incomes rode by 65 percent in the same period. The bottom 20 percent […]

A group that promotes energy efficiency has rated Connecticut No. 8 in its annual assessment of states’ progress toward adopting and implementing various energy-efficiency policies and programs. The non-profit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy cited, among other things, the energy efficiency programs run by state utilities in its ranking. The state was ranked No. […]

One question raised by the burgeoning Occupy Wall Street movement, Tom Jacobs writes at Miller-McCune, is why it took three years from the time reckless financial traders caused the 2008 financial crisis for large numbers of people to collectively express outrage. A recent psychological study may provide at least part of the answer. The study […]

A group of scientists known for their skepticism about climate change has concluded that there is valid evidence that the Earth is getting warmer, Michael Marshall reports at NewScientist. After reanalyzing two centuries’ worth of global temperature records, the scientists concluded that their questions about the accuracy of the data “do not significantly change the […]

Some of the states rejected for federal Race to the Top money are reforming their school systems anyway, Ben Wieder reports at Stateline.org–and in some cases their efforts are more ambitious than those of states that won. Every state that won a grant so far has requested an amendment to the proposal that took home […]

Most Americans aren’t sure what Occupy Wall Street is all about, according to a recent poll, and the protestors’ own list of grievances is a bit fuzzy in places. Business Insider, however, lays out a case against Wall Street in a series of charts, including these:

In 2008, both Barack Obama and John McCain warned about man-made global warming, Elizabeth Rosenthal notes in the New York Times Magazine, and once elected Obama promised “a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change.” Today, most Republican presidential candidates seem to agree with Texas Gov. Rick Perry that “the science is not settled” […]

The Great Recession dragged down more than wages and housing prices: The nation’s birth rate fell sharply as well, Gretchen Livingston reports from the Pew Research Center, and the decline is closely linked to the failing economy. Provisional numbers for 2010 show the number of births in this country fell to just over 4 million, […]