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Four Better Ways to Spend the $55 Million Wasted on Votes to Repeal the Affordable Care Act (Think Progress)

House Republicans will vote to repeal Obamacare for the 37th time today because they still haven't found a genie to grant their wish, but Bryce Covert and Adam Peck write that instead of paying them to pretend to work, we could pay for things we actually need.

Sequestration Cuts Taking Money Out of People's Unemployment Checks (HuffPo)

Arthur Delaney notes that 2 million long-term unemployed are seeing their benefits cut as a consequence of the sequester. Now that money can be put toward reducing the already rapidly shrinking federal deficit instead of being wasted on, say, a family's dinner.

The global epidemic of underemployed youth (Reuters)

Shane Ferro highlights a report from the International Labor Organization that finds fewer than 20 percent of young people in high- or low-income countries are fully employed, with the rest either hustling, studying, or just waiting around and wondering when life starts.

IRS Fallout: The Real Scandal Is Secret Money Influencing US Elections (The Nation)

While some critics are mad that the IRS dared to question the legitimacy of a bunch of guys in Thomas Jefferson costumes, Ari Berman argues the bigger problem is that they didn't even bother to question what the guys in the expensive suits and ties were up to.

Europe's endless recession, in one chart (WaPo)

Brad Plumer notes that the euro zone economy has now contracted for the sixth consecutive quarter, making it the longest recession the euro zone has ever experienced and, based on how its members are souring on the project, quite possibly the last.

The Fed's Credibility Problem (ProPublica)

Jesse Eisinger argues that while it might be fun to point and laugh at the hedge funders who have been complaining that the Fed doesn't know what it's doing, they kind of have a point, even if it's by accident: the central bank's track record is pretty abysmal.

Why Won't the SEC Rein in the Firms That Tanked America's Economy? (MoJo)

Erika Eichelberger writes that a handful of credit rating agencies helped blow up the economy by telling banks for a fee that the piles of toxic junk they were selling smelled like roses, but the SEC still isn't sure it sees anything wrong with that scenario.

Guerrillas in the Boardroom (TNR)

David Dayen writes that shareholder activists are learning to work the system, winning 66 percent of proposal votes this year and engineering the ouster of a Fortune 500 CEO. Now they're on the verge of making Jamie Dimon take his ball and go home.

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Mexico's Lucky to Have Just One Man Blocking Internet Equality. We've Got a Bunch (Wired)

Roosevelt Institute Fellow Susan Crawford writes that Carlos Slim uses his Mexican telecom monopoly to extract billions from customers. In America, we'd never let one man have all that power -- companies like Comcast and Verizon have already called dibs.

Why Washington Saved the Economy, Then Permanently Destroyed the Labor Market (The Atlantic)

Derek Thompson argues that while the government's swift response to the financial meltdown saved the economy from depression, the long-term unemployed have been abandoned because they don't have the kind of money needed to buy a lawmaker's time.

Half of All Jobs Created in the Past 3 Years Were Low-Paying (HuffPo)

Mark Gongloff highlights a new study reinforcing the evidence that the so-called recovery is creating a ton of low-wage retail and hospitality jobs. Even if you're able to find work, the closest you may get to making a living is by stealing from the cash register.

The Care and Feeding of Small Business (NYT)

Nancy Folbre writes that instead of going hunting for jobs by handing out subsidies and incentives to big corporations, states should pursue an economic gardening strategy and invest in local small businesses that will set down roots while the herd moves on.

The Partial Faith and Dubious Credit Act (WSJ)

Alan Blinder looks at the problematic House GOP bill designed to prioritize Treasury debt payments and Social Security checks in case someone gets the crazy idea to force the U.S. to hit the debt ceiling. But really, what are the odds of that happening... again?

Labor's Plan B (Prospect)

Abby Rapoport writes that as collective bargaining dies off along with dues-paying union membership, organized labor is pursuing experimental new strategies to achieve policy change. It could destroy unions as we know them, but time was doing that anyway.

Millions of Americans live in extreme poverty. Here's how they get by. (WaPo)

Dylan Matthews notes that while the global extreme poverty rate has been cut in half since 1990, research shows that 1.65 million U.S. households are still living on less than $2 a day per person. Without the safety net, they'd be on an all-chewing-gum diet.

This Week in Poverty: Twelve Things You Can Do to Fight Poverty Now (The Nation)

Greg Kaufmann talks to leading anti-poverty activists like Sister Simone Campbell and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers about what the average American can do to get engaged in fighting poverty while many elected leaders are busy fighting the poor.