The US should break up monopolies – not punish working Americans for rising prices | Robert Reich

The Fed is putting people out of work to reduce workers' bargaining power and reduce inflation. They've got it all wrong

Job growth and wages are slowing. Employers added 223,000 jobs in December, the labor department reported on Friday - lower than the average in recent months.

Average hourly wages rose by 4.6% in December, according to Friday's report. That's a slowdown from 4.8% in November.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com