There are some encouraging signs in the latest figures from the Case-Shiller housing index, released Tuesday, which found that the rate of decline in home prices slowed nationally during May for the fourth straight month, and has begun to level off and even reverse itself in certain metropolitan areas. The numbers echo other indications that the housing market may be stabilizing, as both new home construction and sales increased significantly in June. After sixteen consecutive months of record price declines between October 2007 and January 2009, the recent hints of a turnaround, though…

Roughly four-and-a-half million low-wage workers are set to receive a special economic stimulus today, as the federal minimum wage rises from $6.55 to $7.25. Despite grumblings from some economists, conservative pundits, and members of the business community about the dire consequences of a seventy-cent raise for the country’s poorest during this time of uncertainty and tightened belts, increasing the minimum wage is only a good thing—for minimum wage workers and for all of us.

Some quick thoughts on CIT Group, the mid-size commercial lender that seems to have exhausted the patience of the Obama administration and has been denied a request for further assistance after a $2 billion bailout last December failed to stem mounting losses on risky loans. If CIT fails, it would be the largest bank to go under since Lehman Brothers. Millions of small and mid-size businesses, many in the struggling retail sector, would lose a major creditor. But the Treasury Department has concluded that a CIT bankruptcy does not pose a systemic risk to the economy and that CIT is not…