Whatever may have been the case historically — say, for the first 200 years of U.S. history — strong economic growth does not preclude the persistence of poverty. It doesn’t even necessarily slow it down.

In fact, at various times during the first few years of this century, strong economic growth coexisted comfortably with rising poverty.

Over the past week, the talk on Capitol Hill took a welcome detour for those of us who would like to hear about something besides health care reform because, last week, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) released what has been called a “discussion draft” of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2009 [...]

You can’t tell from reading the news but members of Congress have other things to do besides fight about health care reform. They have to fight about global climate change and energy policy. They have to fight about re-writing the rules for the financial services industry. And, under the category of housekeeping, they have to [...]

Course work in entrepreneurship is becoming more and more commonplace on college campuses but, so far, little attention has been paid to the question of whether entrepreneurship education is effective. So, researchers from the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Stern School of Business and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, [...]

Here’s something I read recently on Mike Wagner’s blog that really appealed to me: “a shortage of resources opened the door to an abundance of resourcefulness.”

As often as not, it is resourcefulness that makes the difference between success and failure for the typical bootstrapping microbusiness.

Lawmakers, please: don’t underestimate them.

Misclassification of workers as independent contractors is a pretty widespread problem, according to a report released earlier this month by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The precise extent of misclassification is unknown but, for example, in 1984, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that 3.4 million workers were misclassified by employers resulting in a revenue loss [...]

Congress has not yet finished with health care reform, of course, but that hasn’t stopped them from starting to fashion what will no doubt be the next huge policy debate: energy and the environment. Which makes a new report released last week by the National Small Business Association (NSBA) not just interesting and informative, but [...]

Earlier this month, the House Committee on Small Business held a hearing to look into the challenges that face small businesses during this year’s flu season, particularly with the H1N1 virus making the rounds. According to government witnesses from the Departments of Commerce, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, an H1N1 pandemic can have [...]

President Obama, hailed back in February as a savior simply because he was ‘saving’ us from a bad case of Bush Fatigue, is now learning what it’s like when the honeymoon is over.

He certainly deserves credit for refusing to do what his predecessors have done: take one look at health care reform and run screaming from the room. This has to be one of the most thankless tasks in the universe.

Various groups complain and release studies and demand action. Then, when some brave politician comes along and proposes said action, people see change bearing down on them, freak out, and then they run screaming from the room.

The President was going to give a major speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress. This is something that doesn’t usually happen beyond the annual State of the Union Address. Said the White House Press Office, ‘Let there by hype.’ And there was hype. In the end, the Great Speech got [...]