Wages no longer keep pace with productivity, the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider, education gets more expensive while college loans are cut--with all the pressure on working-class Americans, is too much being made of the role globalization plays in job loss and lower wages? In a new Issue Brief, Trade, Jobs, and Wages, EPI economist L. Josh Bivens argues that concern about globalization's effect on the majority of American workers is well-founded. Bivens looks specifically at two important pressures that globalization puts on workers: job loss due to trade deficits and downward pressure on wages.

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When students have the opportunity to participate in "Socratic seminars" on a regular basis, a different classroom culture evolves. The students collaborate more and more voices are heard. The students develop their thinking skills in a cooperative and investigative atmosphere. This is shown in a new dissertation in Pedagogy by Ann S. Pihlgren at the Stockholm University in Sweden. Read more from this post.

Obesity may increase adults' risk for having dementia, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Their analysis of published obesity and dementia prospective follow-up studies over the past two decades shows a consistent relationship between the two diseases. The results are published by the International Association for the Study of Obesity in the May 2008 issue of Obesity Reviews. Read more from this post.

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By linking HIV positive prisoners to community-based medical care prior to release through an innovative program called Project Bridge, 95 percent of ex-offenders were retained in health care for a year after being released from incarceration, according to researchers from the Miriam Hospital. Read more from this post.

Nine million men and women are jailed each year, many more than once. In an average three-week period, local jails have contact with as many people as state and federal prisons do in an entire year. Read more from this post.

The dynamics of the intersection of race and gender were the focus of research findings released today at the national symposium Research to Roadmap: Accelerating the Growth of Businesses Owned by Women of Color convened by the Center for Women's Business Research. Read more from this post.

by Vicki Turetsky; Tyler Moran (National Immigration Law Center). Written statement delivered before the Subcommittee on Social Security Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives 4 pages. Read more from this post.

As the nation observes National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day on Thursday, the University of Kentucky Center for the Study of Violence Against Children will host national experts at the scientific meeting "From Neuroscience to Social Practice: Translational Research on Violence Against Children." The two-day event, being held May 7-8, includes the unveiling of research findings on violence against children that will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Loss and Trauma. Read more from this post.

Sunday is Mother's Day, but plenty of new mothers won't get the day off. While the Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible parents 12 weeks unpaid leave to care for a new child, it is limited to workplaces of more than 50 employees, leaving out about 48.1 million working Americans. In fact, out of 19 comparable countries, the United States provides the fewest maternity leave benefits in both length of leave and paid time off. Read about it in this week's Economic Snapshot.

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Women who gain more or less than recommended amounts of weight during pregnancy are likely to increase the risk of problems for both themselves and their child, according to a new report by the RTI International-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Evidence-based Practice Center. Read more from this post.

For children of divorce, what happens after their parents split up may be just as important to their long-term well-being as the divorce itself. Read more from this post.