Click here to receive the Daily Digest via e-mail.

Gatsby and the McJobs Rebellion (KC Star)

Roosevelt Institute Fellow Dorian Warren notes that the new adaptation of The Great Gatsby is timed nicely with fast food and retail workers' push for fairer wages. The story of unbridled greed keeps being retold, but this time they plan to write their own ending.

Millennials reject 'lazy, entitled' label: 'Who are they talking about?' (Today)

Roosevelt Institute | Pipeline Fellow Nona Willis Aronowitz writes that while pundits sneer at Millennials, members of the generation that came of age during the Great Recession are too busy working to improve the bad hand they've been dealt to have time for haters.

84 Percent of NYC Fast Food Workers Report Wage Theft in a New Survey (The Nation)

Josh Eidelson highlights a new report that finds many fast food restaurants are pulling a fast one on their workers, who are forced to work without pay or denied breaks and overtime. Even the Hamburglar himself would never have stooped to this kind of petty thievery.

That's a 'Depression': Europe's Double-Dip Is Officially Longer Than Its Great Recession (The Atlantic)

Matthew O'Brien notes that GDP data prove Europe's response to the recession has been worse than the recession itself, but polls still show widespread support for the euro and austerity, so the continent may just have an unusually large population of masochists.

Surprise! Inflation is too low almost everywhere on earth (WaPo)

Neil Irwin writes that in contrast to inflationistas' repeated warnings that quantitative easing would lead to a grim, dark future in which there is only Bitcoin, none of the leading central banks have even been able to hit the 2 percent inflation rate they were aiming for.

Foreclosure Crisis Cost U.S. $192.6 Billion in Lost Wealth Last Year, Study Finds (HuffPo)

Jillian Berman writes that even as the housing market rebounds, millions continue to lose their homes or struggle in vain to save them, with minority borrowers hit particularly hard. Is there no "moral hazard" in leaving enough people underwater to re-settle Atlantis?

The real IRS scandal: Targeting by class (Salon)

David Dayen points out that unfairly scrutinizing one group over another isn't new behavior for the IRS. That's why the working poor get audited while big corporations get away with just about anything as long as they employ a sufficiently intimidating number of lawyers.

Billionaires Unchained (TomDispatch)

Andy Kroll argues that you can't measure the impact of money in politics by simply chalking up big donors' wins and losses and calculating the score. The point is that something's off when one person can spend more in one election than most voters will ever make.

Click here to receive the Daily Digest via e-mail.

Creating an Economics for the 21st Century (Yahoo! Finance)

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Rob Johnson argues that the problem with much of modern economics is that it offers no useful guidance for society, instead treating messy human decisions and interactions as if they could all be performed on a graphing calculator.

How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled (NYRB)

Paul Krugman writes that the revelations about Reinhart-Rogoff's research errors wouldn't have been so embarrassing to so many proponents of austerity if they hadn't been looking for intellectual cover like a UFO believer searching the night sky with a telescope.

U.S. Budget Deficit Shrinks Far Faster Than Expected (NYT)

Annie Lowrey notes that the CBO estimates the deficit will be $200 billion lower than projected this fiscal year and could shrink to just 2.1 percent of GDP by 2015, allowing Washington to shift focus and get serious about jobs. Just kidding; who wants a tax cut?

Why Washington scandal-mania may save Medicare and Social Security (WaPo)

Greg Sargent writes that President Obama may give up on a Grand Bargain to avoid alienating the core progressive supporters he'll need to see him through the furor over the IRS's Tea Party targeting, the AP's phone records, and something something Benghazi.

Warren asks regulators to justify not taking Wall Street to trial (The Hill)

Peter Schroeder reports that Elizabeth Warren has sent a letter to the SEC, the Fed, and the Justice Department asking for any analysis they have to back up their strategy of settling out of court. Unlike the banks, they may just have to answer for their decisions. 

Student Loan Debt Horror Stories, Revealed (U.S. News & World Report)

Jim Lardner notes that the 28,000 personal statements about student loan debt published by the CFPB express something about the human costs of the crisis that statistics alone can't, though nothing's quite as frightening as those bills waiting in the mailbox.

Mending factory conditions after Bangladesh (WaPo)

Harold Meyerson writes that American companies like Wal-Mart have been reluctant to sign onto a plan to commit to improving factory safety, partly because they've worked so hard to ensure that consumers can only afford to buy the most cheaply made products.

Everyday Socialism, American-Style, Is Happening Now (Truthout)

Gar Alperovitz writes that, beyond the right treating Obama as the reincarnation of Chairman Mao, the U.S. is filled with real examples of publicly owned resources, from utilities to railways to pension systems, that democratize wealth and efficiently meet public needs.