plans, bankrupting states, and stories of unions protecting incompetent workers. on the flip side, though, unions have kept wages up for their members. bill rogers, former chief economist for the labor department, says because of a collective bargaining, because of collective bargaining, union workers earn 15% to 20% more than their nonunion counterparts. rogers argues, without collective bargaining available to much of the middle class, wages have stagnated. consider this. in 1983 union workers made up about 20% of the work force. last year unions represented less than 12% of the work force. and rogers says with that decline the wage gap has widened precipitously and the poverty level has risen to its highest level since 1948. so talk back today. should union power be curtailed? let me know what you think at facebook.com/carol cnn. facebook.com/carol cnn. your answer is within the hour.
reporter: certainly side-stepping those questions, very key questions in all of this, but she was very clear on the fact that she had never procured prostitutes for the prime minister and was very clear as well that she said that the parties she attended at the prime minister s house did not involve sex, did not involve prostitutes. they were just normal dinner parties. dan, thank you so much. we will see how all of this unfolds. obviously a story that continues to give us a lot of nugs there. another case unfolding in italy. the judge has indicted the parents of american student amanda knox on charges slander, two years after he was convicted of murdering her roommate. knox mother spoke to cnn s drew griffin. reporter: as an american citizen, you are going to ask yourself what this is all about. in 2009, the parents gave an
maybe it s time for an egyptian style protest on congress. please continue the conversation. facebook.com/carol cnn. the question, is this the right time for congress to debate the abortion issue or do you want them working on things like, you know, creating jobs and deficit reduction? a lot of responses there, carol. wow. yeah. an emotional issue. absolutely. i said, welcome back to the culture wars. they re in the here and now once again. okay. carol, we have a next segment on movies. have you seen matrix movies, the three-part series? just the first one. it was great. that was the best actually. yeah. these are one of the few films i ve actually seen. those three, they made hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. they gained this cult following. and of course we know actor keanu reeves played the main character. well, looking back, it is hard to imagine that anyone else playing that role but another high profile hollywood actor was actually the director s firs
people so they re really going to exceed that figure. what the broader implications are for california and the rest of the country really remains to be seen but obviously a huge optimistic tone here in california and silicon valley. going to be hearing a little bit more about facebook in a few minutes. all right. dan simon, thank you so much. well, it is back. that is right. the cnn challenge that is we re going to test how much you re in the know. so here s a question one of our producers chose. did hugh heffner leave the date off of the first issue of playboy? why? it was forgotten during the cover design, he didn t know if the magazine would succeed, adding the date cost extra at the printers, he wanted the first issue to be timeless? the answer straight ahead. time now for the help desk. joining me jock otter the executive editor of money watch.com and carmen ulrich
well, check your political calendar, the iowa caucuses are a year away. republicans are divided over their choice for the nominee but they are united in the main goal of beating president obama. in a new cnn research opinion poll, 7 in 10 republicans say it is more important to find a nominee who can beat mr. obama than someone who agrees with them on the issue. the race for the gop nomination is wide open but as you can see, mike huckabee, sarah palin, mitt romney and newt gingrich are all in double ditches followed by ron paul at 7%. the one thing the leads republicans have in common is name recognition. you ve herd their napes before but there is time for lesser known gop hopefuls to become serious contenders. i want to bring in my friend joe johnson in washington. we might have heard of those