Steven Malanga
Latest Articles
Addiction, government benefits fuel increasing 'unemployables'
Today, more than 100 million adults are not working or looking for work, up from about 95 million pre-pandemic.
Despite predictions, Baby Boomers have it made — unlike taxpayers
Otherwise, the bleak future for many Boomers, one headline predicted, would be “Work, Work, Work and Die.”
NYC residents are the victims of legislators' shoplifting policy
A problem caused by bad public policy is driving them away. Shoppers and residents are the losers.
Shoplifting is big business for organized theft, not to feed families
It remains to be seen, however, whether these efforts will be enough to reverse the incentives created by de facto retail-theft decriminalization and revolving-door bail “reform” policies.
Biden's American Rescue Plan Act bucks are just a huge waste
Not to worry: The Biden administration is coming to the rescue.
Union bosses rake it in, even as their ranks shrink
The pandemic accelerated a trend that has plagued private-sector unions for decades and public-sector unions for the past decade: declining membership.
Why shoplifting is soaring across the US — and will only get worse
Retail crime has been rising throughout the US for the past five years.
How Biden's executive orders will undo Trump’s business-friendly policies
Just as Americans gathered to vote in the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump’s White House announced that it was finalizing the administration’s effort to pull the United States out of...
New Jersey pols pick a deadly time to try to legalize pot
Even before the pandemic, New Jersey was in crisis, with huge government debt, a sluggish economy and high taxes driving out firms and residents. Amid these challenges, Jersey’s leaders have...
We need to cut police pensions and benefits — not officers
New York City has approved a new, pandemic-squeezed budget that’s making headlines because it includes a $1 billion cut to the NYPD amid calls, in the wake of the George...
The UAW’s demands would kill GM
"G.M. Workers Say They Sacrificed, and Now They Want Their Due,” a headline in The New York Times declares. Another explains, “For G.M. Workers, U.A.W. Strike Is Chance for Overdue...
Blue states are still drowning in red ink
President Trump’s presidency has been a boon for states. Thanks to major increases in state tax collections in late 2017 and mid-2018, 41 states have recovered from the Great Recession....
Why the public-pension timebomb is growing even more deadly
The second-longest bull market in American history hasn’t stopped the deterioration of state and local pension funds, whose unfunded debt has almost quadrupled, by their own accounting, from about $360...
Defusing New Jersey's pension time bomb
New Jersey is beset by one of the worst government pension problems in the nation, thanks to decades of bad management, deceptive accounting and the continual awarding of higher benefits...
Hike Jersey's gas tax? Not so fast
New Jersey’s transportation trust fund will run out of money early next year. Facing the prospect of having to bring road maintenance and construction projects to a halt, Gov. Chris...
How City Hall kills the middle class
Mayor de Blasio never tires of repeating his successful campaign theme: There are “two New Yorks,” he says, one for the rich and the other for everyone else. Too bad...
Newark voters turn on Cory Booker
Former Newark Mayor Cory Booker attracted national attention for his efforts to turn around the long-troubled New Jersey city. But the man Newark elected on Tuesday as its new mayor,...
NJ Transit’s real jam: workers' benefits
Like commuters left waiting for a train that never shows, New Jersey legislators were left cooling their heels last week by NJ Transit officials who failed to show for a...
NJ Transit's Super Bowl disaster
The Super Bowl was as much of a disaster for NJ Transit as for the Denver Broncos — and a window onto the dysfunction of New Jersey government. The transit...