unemployment benefits

With SNAP benefits about to be cut back, this isn't the time to force millions of Americans out of the program

Instead of fighting over imaginary crises, the federal government needs to focus on the real one: the weak economy.

Right-wing lawmakers govern by lurching from one manufactured crisis to another

Roughly half of Maryland employers will see their unemployment insurance tax drop by about 70 percent next year, the result of the state's rebound from recession, the governor said Wednesday.

Some food pantries and aid programs in Maryland are experiencing an increase in requests for help as the federal government shutdown continues — a jump program officials believe is due partly to federal furloughs.

Maryland retained its tenth-worst ranking in the Tax Foundation's latest study of state tax climates for businesses.

At least one group of government employees remained busy Monday as the state worked to process more than 16,000 unemployment insurance applications from federal workers in Maryland filed during the first six days of the U.S. government shutdown.

CitiMortgage says its local borrowers should come to Towson on Tuesday if they need help with their loan payments.

Though stock prices are rising, unemployment is falling and the economy is growing, more and more workers are choosing to stay in the labor force longer.

President Obama's rush to attack Syria betrays the hope that he would lead us away from violence and war.

Millions rely on the SNAP program, yet Republicans propose to balance the budget on their backs

Sequestration cuts are being felt but not heard

Veteran Harford County Public Schools educator Barbara Boksz has spent the past week looking through her options since learning she was one of 46 teachers and other school staffers to lose their jobs, the result of a slew of measures approved by the Board of Education to reconcile its budget for the 2014 fiscal year this month.

An Indiana university said Monday that it gave Maryland a "D" for its manufacturing-industry health, adding that state and local taxes are likely a turnoff for the sector.

Even on foreign policy, Ehrlich descends to a mere hack attack on Obama

Sandy and Jeff Johnson, a mother and son from Columbia, are graduating from Howard Community College this week after spending nearly a year of homelessness.

Peter Morici says taxing Internet sales is a matter of fairness, but more small businesses should be excluded

If flight delays can tug the heartstrings in Washington, why not cancer patients, children, the elderly and others harmed by sequester cuts?

As thousands of federal workers prepare for to be furloughed, many are concerned about how to deal with a pay cut.

Why should giant defense contractor Lockheed Martin get a hotel tax break that it doesn't need and Maryland can't afford?

Robert Reich writes that U.S. government policy favors the wealthy and punishes the rest of us.

Robert Reich writes that his hero's fight for social justice is just as relevant today as in 1967.

A Bel Air company that handled payroll taxes for many employers in the area is being sued by clients for allegedly stealing years of payments rather than sending them on to the tax collectors as required — leaving the companies on the hook.

Nearly one in six Marylanders did not have enough money to buy food their family needed at times during 2012, according to a report released Thursday by the Food Research and Action Center.

A Perry Hall man was sentenced Friday to 12.5 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $42 million in restitution after being convicted of selling $9 million worth of fake biodiesel fuel credits.

Fewer dropouts suggest schools CEO Andres Alonso's reforms are producing results

After postponing the vote from its Jan. 29 meeting, the Aberdeen City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve legislation updating the town's Ethics Ordinance.

Robert Reich says that by squeezing the middle class, America is headed in exactly the wrong direction.

Maryland and America have turned left, Mr. Ehrlich

Worker advocates and law enforcement officials say a growing number of employers have violated wage and labor laws enacted 75 years ago in response to mistreatment prevalent during the Depression.

Robert Reich says cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits is the wrong way to tame the debt

Congressional action to avert a "fiscal cliff" of higher taxes and across-the-board federal budget cuts means that government agencies will avoid many dreaded spending reductions — at least for now.

Robert Reich says the conflict in Washington is not over deficits but the size of government

Peter Morici says high-regulation, low-growth policies will keep economy stagnant in 2013

A bipartisan plan to avoid federal spending reductions and tax increases that would hit Maryland especially hard won final approval Tuesday night in the House of Representatives even as outside groups warned that the bill would simply delay difficult decisions for a few months.

The agreement between the president and Republicans in Congress over the fiscal cliff sets the stage for more damaging fights over federal spending and taxes.

Hours before a midnight deadline would have ushered in an enormous tax hike on ordinary Americans, the White House reached a tentative deal with Congress on Monday to raise taxes on the wealthiest households while putting off tougher spending decisions for another battle in a couple of months.

For years, Jeff Mikula collected United Way donations from his fellow steelworkers at Sparrows Point. On Thursday, he — and 500 co-workers at the now-closed plant — stood in line to receive them.

Several hundred former Sparrows Point workers gathering Monday for details of their steel mill's demise heard from union leaders that at least two groups had wanted to restart the plant but weren't given the chance.

Children stand to lose the most from a deal to avert the fiscal cliff.

The planned demolition of the Sparrows Point mill means an end to steelmaking in eastern Baltimore County, but not necessarily the end of manufacturing and heavy industry there.

Regardless of whether the president and Congress strike a deal or take the nation headfirst over the "fiscal cliff," federal taxes for some Marylanders will increase next year — and under some scenarios the pain could be worse than in other states.

The effort to connect former Sparrows Point workers with training for new careers gained even more urgency last week as the final hopes of reopening the steel mill were dashed — and as the deadline to apply for the help or forever lose it fast approaches for hundreds.

Cal Thomas says the West could learn from a thriving Asian nation's work ethic

The owners of the Sparrows Point steel mill plan to raze the closed plant, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said Thursday, as political leaders from Towson to Washington mourned the loss of a landmark that once employed tens of thousands.

An out-of-state steelmaker has bought the most valuable piece of the Sparrows Point plant to use as spare parts, likely signaling the death knell for hopes that the steel mill would be purchased by an operator and reopened.

A 48-year-old Baltimore man was sentenced to five years in prison for fraudulently claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits from the state using false identities, a scheme he conducted in part while already behind bars on unrelated charges, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office.

Baltimore County officials are urging workers who were laid off from the Sparrows Point steel mill this year to ensure they meet deadlines for receiving federal assistance.