Faced with wage hikes, one way employers can respond is by switching to use capital instead of labor inputs. As prices of machines fall and their reliability increases, this becomes…
Something apparently went wrong when new St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter hit the reset button on the city’s IT department upon taking office. It seems employees in the Office of…
Last Thursday, Avik Roy, activist and co-founder of Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, came to the University of Minnesota to discuss the state of healthcare in the United States.…
My first minimum wage job in a pizza restaurant at the age of 16 taught me the most basic, important skill of all: getting my behind out of bed in…
A few hours after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, I met with several other Binghamton University students to plan a memorial event of some kind. …
Schools constantly tout high speed internet, iPads and other high tech tools and training when it comes to preparing Minnesota students to compete in a global economy. But an increasing…
There is a persistent notion among supporters of minimum wage hikes that they represent a ‘free lunch’. They argue that big businesses, awash with cash, are paying their workers less…
The Iron Range of Minnesota is set to benefit from emerging trends in the way steel mills in China purchase iron ore.
The Twin Cities was introduced to the bizarre world of New Brighton politics when Mayor Valerie Johnson went on a blistering rant in a video that racked up 150,000 views…
This is a great day for America; our First Amendment jurisprudence remains strong in the face of attacks on our Judeo-Christian culture. In a 7-2 opinion, the Supreme Court ruled…
As you probably know, we have a billboard on the Twin Cities’ traffic mess at the intersection of Highways 494 and 35W: It has gotten a lot of attention, for…
A round-up of the last week’s economic news stories in Minnesota.
Why are state taxpayers giving New Hope a $2 million “grant” for a pool? We recently helped Golden Valley put in a new clubhouse for its Brookview Golf Course. Huh.…
It is no secret that Minnesota is one of the most highly taxed states in the union. We are one of the 43 states to have its own income tax,…
Minnesota Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt (R-Crown) recently took the rare step of speaking on the floor to give an impassioned speech on the vital importance of the Enbridge…
Hoyt Lakes Mayor Mark Skelton wrote powerful letter to the editor that published in the Strib today. In it, he argues that the PolyMet copper-nickel-precious metals mine would be the Super…
A new report says that Super Bowl LII boosted Minnesota's economy by $400. But what did it cost the state to get that boost?
In an attempt to neutralize the polarizing controversy over NFL players kneeling or sitting during the national anthem, NFL owners approved a new policy requiring players to stand for the…
Minnesota Congressman Jason Lewis recently voted in favor of a bill which (in the words of the press release issued by his office) “aims to lower our prison systems’ recidivism…
This year we are serving 5,500 kids in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade over nine days, and we will start to have test scores on the impact of the program…
What does it really mean to drain the swamp that consists of two million bureaucrats nationwide? We may find out, following a series of aggressive steps announced by President Trump…
Today sees the release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of its estimates of Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment. These can be a useful way to compare economic performance. Minnesota’s…
The German-Spanish wind power company Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has recently announced it will lay off thousands of workers in their wind energy sector, will the same thing happen in…
Conservatives often complain about surprises uncovered in the fine print of legislation that gets slipped into bills late in the process. “We have to pass the bill so that you…