Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).

Posts by Joe Carter

May 19, 2016

5 Ways Obama’s New Overtime Rule Will Harm Workers

In announcing the Obama administration’s new overtime rule (for more on this news, see this explainer), Vice President Joe Biden says companies will “face a choice” to either pay their workers for the overtime that they work, or cap the hours that their salaried workers making below $47,500 at 40 hours each work week. Continue Reading...
May 19, 2016

Explainer: Obama’s New Overtime Rule

What just happened? On May 18, the Obama administration announced the publication of a new Department of Labor rule updating and expanding overtime regulations. Why did the overtime rule change? Since the 1930s some white collar jobs (i.e., Continue Reading...
May 18, 2016

How Does the Economy Actually Work?

In every stage of my formal schooling – from high school to college to graduate school – I took courses in economics. Yet with all that education I struggled to understand a seemingly simple question: How does the economy actually work? Continue Reading...
May 17, 2016

Does Capitalism Exploit Workers?

One of the most common criticisms of capitalism is that the system exploits workers. It’s an old claim (dating back to at least Karl Marx). But is it true? Philosopher Matt Zwolinski argues that even if individual capitalists want to exploit workers the free market tends to prevent them from doing so. Continue Reading...
May 16, 2016

Explainer: Supreme Court Punts on Little Sisters Religious Liberty Case

What just happened? The Supreme Court avoided issuing a major ruling today in a combined religious liberty case, Zubik v. Burwell. In a unanimous decision, the justices wrote that the Court “expresses no view on the merits of the cases” but were instead sending the case back down to the lower courts for opposing parties to work out a compromise. Continue Reading...
May 13, 2016

4 Theories About the Business Cycle

Expansion. Contraction. Repeat. For almost 200 years, we’ve recognized this boom-and-bust pattern as the business cycle, the downward and upward movement of gross domestic product (GDP) around its long-term growth trend. Continue Reading...
May 11, 2016

The Captain of Conscience

The new Marvel film Captain America: Civil War examines the conflict between conscience and coercion, says Jordan Ballor in this week’s Acton Commentary. The latest superhero blockbuster Captain America: Civil War opened to a huge box office as well as to critical acclaim last weekend. Continue Reading...