government

If the government budget follows popular sentiment, education, social security and Medicare are safe. Those are the areas where fewest Americans want to see government spending cuts, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday approved a measure that gives institutional shareholders a vote on executive pay at large corporations, part of regulators' efforts to give investors greater say over top-level salaries that have been described as excessive.

After increases during 2007 and 2008 in the number of unionized workers, 2010 is following 2009 in showing a big drop. Governments now employ more union labor than the private sector does, but both categories showed declines in 2010. It's a far cry from labor's glory years.

Social-media tools like Twitter and Facebook could soon help the U.S. government respond more effectively to disasters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says it will take advantage of social media and mobile-device portals to reach people during federal disasters.

The Federal Reserve is doling out billions to buy bonds in hopes of keeping interest rates low and stimulating the economy. However, several powerful forces are working against that low-rate strategy, ranging from investor psychology to global competition for capital.

President Barack Obama will likely name a new chief economic adviser to replace Lawrence Summers later this week as his administration looks for more effective ways to reduce an unemployment rate that remains near 10%, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Now that President Obama has signed a sweeping tax bill into law, many Americans want to know how they'll be affected. The compromise deal extends Bush-era tax reductions on income, capital gains and dividends through 2012. But there were also some changes.

Just as the euro has begun recovering from Ireland's meltdown, another financial crisis is brewing in Spain. The country could be headed for a bailout or reorganization, experts say. How low could the euro go?

The Citigroup bailout is officially over: The U.S. Treasury has sold the last of its shares of the bank. Overall, the U.S. government netted $12 billion in profit from the $45 billion bailout.

Roger Altman, former deputy treasury secretary and founder of Evercore Partners Inc., is a top candidate to replace Lawrence Summers as director of President Obama's National Economic Council, Bloomberg News said. Altman, 64, met with Obama Tuesday to discuss the job, which involves coordinating...