The index used to determined the cost of living increase for retires says costs went down in 2009, despite the standard cost of living index saying costs have increased every year.

If your elderly or disabled family member, who chooses to live at home, needed assistance with daily care, would you try to get the same babysitter you call on for date nights with your spouse? Of course you wouldn’t.

“BP has either been blocking blood panels or they have been taking blood panels and not letting really anyone see what the blood panel works look like.”

— Riki Ott the marine biologist and author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill on Virtually Speaking July 8, 2010/

The Labor Department’s March employment report came out today. 162,000 jobs were added as the unemployment rate remained steady at 9.7% – due to the fact that people are starting to reenter the job market. I have a few questions.

By Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger

While the poor judgment of top-level officials at Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget frequently makes the news, there is another, unrecognized economic crew doing terrific work: Officials at the Department of Labor are restoring workers’ rights after nearly a decade of neglect.

To top it all off, President Barack Obama appears ready to make another set of strong, though less high-profile, economic appointments that will help rein in Wall Street excess.

Another stunning reminder of the U.S. economy’s dire condition arrived last Thursday. The nation shed a total of 467,000 jobs in June according to the Department of Labor.

This week’s Audit highlights the bank lobby’s ability to torpedo critical legislation to prevent foreclosures, as everyday workers struggle to cope with the consequences of the banking industry’s excess.

In this week’s Audit, we move the focus away from Wall Street to highlight stories about workers and economic solutions that involve bolstering the circumstances of ordinary citizens. Included in today’s post are Paul Jay of The Real News interviewing Noam Chomsky, Terence Samuel’s analysis of the bubble-and-bust cycle for The American Prospect, Robert Eshelman’s piece for Salon on worker abuses, Michelle Chen’s Colorlines story on the Labor Department’s refusal to enforce worker protection laws, Scott Bransford’s expose on the rise of new Hoovervilles for High Country News and Josh Marshall’s breakdown of the different treatment Wall Street and the auto industry are receiving