September 3 - Reclaiming The American Dream; The State of Working America; "A Bold New Call for a Maximum Wage"

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Part 1	Today on Labor Day we examine the state of working and middle class Americans who for the last few decades have seen the American dream recede out of reach for many, while a few wealthy families like the Waltons, the heirs to the WalMart fortune, have seen their wealth grow to the extent that just one family has wealth equivalent to the combined total of the bottom 40% of all Americans. Dr Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who studies labor, information technology, the organization of work, global economic integration, and trade joins us.
Part 2	Then we speak with Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute and principal author of the authoritative text on the American workforce, “The State of Working America”. We will discuss his latest report “Unions, inequality, and faltering middle-class wages”.
Part 3	Then finally veteran labor journalist Sam Pizzigati joins us. He is the editor of the online newsletter Too Much and his most recent article is “A Bold New Call for a Maximum Wage”. We discuss his proposal of tying the minimum wage to a maximum wage and how working and middle class Americans can reverse the erosion of their standard of living and their share of the American pie.
	MUSIC: Billy Bragg - Power in a Union; Against Me! - Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious; Pete Seeger - Union Maid; Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues