The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its figures on employment for the month of February Friday morning, and economists will be watching closely for signs of any increase in wages. Bill McBride believes American workers will start seeing raises this year, pointing to the falling unemployment rate, the major announcements by Wal-Mart and other retailers who are moving beyond minimum wage, and strikes at refineries and ports. When workers feel as the economy is healthy enough to give them options, they're more likely to organize. "We didn't see many strikes in 2008 when the economy was collapsing," he observes.

Those wage increases haven't materialized yet, however. At Wonkblog, Matt O'Brien argues there's only one explanation: The economy is still weaker than  the headline unemployment rate suggests. Too many people have given up on looking for work, or are working fewer hours than they'd like. If so, wages won't begin to rise until those people have jobs they're satisfied with. Once they do, employers will need to offer more if they hope to attract new workers, instead of just giving their part-time employees more hours or hiring someone who's been out of work for months and desperate for a job at near minimum wage.

What's in Wonkbook: 1) Clinton's email server 2) Opinions on the Lee-Rubio tax plan 3) Monsanto has a rootworm problem, and more

Chart of the day: Incomes for younger workers today aren't rising as much as older workers' incomes did when they were young, and older people's incomes are falling ever faster. All in all, average incomes have declined since 2002 for a large majority of Americans. Jim Tankersley in The Washington Post.

1. Top story: Clinton's private server draws increasing scrutiny

The server Hillary Clinton used as Secretary of State might have breached security protocols. "The official, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, said that Clinton’s use of personal e-mail did not automatically break the rules, but the analysis could show whether work e-mails sent from her personal account included sensitive information that is typically required to be handled on a system that meets security protocols. The official said the department would not know whether Clinton followed the rules until officials review the portion of ­e-mails that she turned over last year as part of an agency effort to retrieve public records." Carol D. Leonnig, Rosalind S. Helderman and Anne Gearan in The Washington Post.

When people say Clinton had apparently set up her own server, what does that mean? The server "was probably about the size of your office desktop computer and could have been tucked quietly in a corner somewhere. ... A common and inexpensive solution might be to take an old computer running Windows; replace the guts of the machine with a free Linux operating system like Ubuntu; and install mail server software that lets you send and receive emails without the help of companies like Google or Yahoo. ... You'd have to buy a business-class connection or pay a hosting service. Even then, servers can crash and power outages occur, requiring backup generators and constant maintenance. ... You could probably work around the clock to fend off spam and teenage hackers. ... But what about the Chinese military? 'What may be a fun activity for a 20-year-old tech whiz is probably a bad idea for the secretary of state,' " one technologist concluded. Anne Flaherty and Nancy Benac for the Associated Press.

In any case, voters probably don't care about whether Clinton followed the rules. "The actual public response to the controversy is likely to be a combination of apathy and partisanship. Few Americans are paying attention to any aspect of the campaign at this point. Those who do notice will most likely divide largely along partisan lines, with Democrats interpreting her actions more charitably... It’s equally implausible that this revelation will draw a second top-tier candidate into the race for the Democratic nomination given the advantages Mrs. Clinton retains over possible rivals like Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren." Brendan Nyhan in The New York Times.

2. Top opinions

YUVAL LEVIN: Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have revised their tax proposal. What it would mean for the budget is still unclear. "The proposal would cut the business tax rate to 25 percent (including for all pass-through business income, so that large and small businesses pay the same rate); end the taxation of capital gains, dividends, and interest; allow businesses to deduct capital investments from their taxable income immediately rather than over time; and move to a territorial tax system. ... On the individual side, Lee and Rubio would bring the top rate back to Bush tax cut levels and consolidate today’s tax brackets into two (at 15 percent and that top 35 percent rate) ... One key remaining question about this proposal has to do with its effects on the deficit and debt. ... One detail that isn’t yet in the proposal—the particular design and level of the cap on the mortgage-interest deduction—will be very important to answering the fiscal question, and its absence means that it won’t actually be possible to score the plan’s net effects at this point." National Review.

PONNURU: The child tax credit remains a focal point in the debate among Republicans about taxes. "Some news coverage has treated this debate as a struggle between "supply-siders" and other conservatives. That's a mistake. Both sides consider themselves supply-siders. ... Lee and Rubio ... propose a reform that would cut tax rates on income, business investment, capital gains, dividends and estates. It's a supply-side wish list. Even so, it's controversial among supply-siders because it also expands the child tax credit. ... Pro-growth purists could rightly point out that the reform would do even more to improve economic incentives if it junked the child credit and used the revenue to bring rates down further. But that would also be a less politically viable plan." Bloomberg View.

ELIZABETH STOKER BRUENIG: Lee and Rubio are still refusing to extend that tax credit to poor children. "Those who stand to gain the most from the new credit are small, high-income, dual-earning families that delay childbearing until they are advanced in their careers. This model describes many of the urban professionals who crafted the plan, but it is far from the familial reality of working class people who are most in need of financial assistance to care for their children. Rubio and Lee's plan simply does not benefit those who need the most help, or even live up to their own claims of payroll tax relief." The New Republic.

CHAIT: It looks as though the supply side has won out among Republicans. "The new Rubio-Lee plan keeps most of its old structure, with its stingy treatment of low-income workers. It layers on top of that two changes: a far more generous treatment of business income, and a complete elimination of all taxes on capital gains and dividends. The plan would also, unbelievably, completely eliminate the tax on inherited estates, which for a married couple only begins to apply to inheritances above $10 million. Both of these new features would lavish massive additional tax cuts on the rich, in addition to those already in the original version." New York.

MacGILLIS: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush changes his stance on the Export-Import Bank. "This new position of Bush’s is not just hard to reconcile with his politics—it’s hard to reconcile with his own business career. ... In 1988, as his father was in the process of moving from the vice presidency to the Oval Office, Bush branched out from the real-estate development work he’d been doing in Miami to go into business with David Eller, the head of a Deerfield Beach, Florida, manufacturer of water pumps called MWI Corp. The two men formed a partnership called Bush-El Corp. to market MWI’s pumps overseas. Some of the sales abroad were financed with the help of the Ex-Im bank, including the partnership’s most successful deal, by far: a 1992 agreement to sell pumps to Nigeria that was financed with $74.3 million from Ex-Im." Slate.

CARNEY: Liberals refuse to argue, instead choosing to call names. "Much of the liberal commentariat is simply done arguing with the Right. ... Conservatives ought to be charitable, and assume that the Lefties who play this game are doing so because they honestly believe the other side is fundamentally dishonest. (The alternative is that they play this game simply because they think it helps them win.) This is a scary place to be, where one side in a debate has decided that it's war, and thus all is fair. If you value public debate, such tactical closed-mindedness is concerning. There's probably no way to convince these liberals to reopen debate. They've decided they won't let themselves be persuaded. If they want to close their minds, that's their decision." The Washington Examiner.

3. In case you missed it

The federal report on Michael Brown's death suggests he didn't have his hands up. "They were four words that became the national rallying cry of a new civil rights movement: 'Hands up, don’t shoot.' ... But in its final report this week clearing the police officer, Darren Wilson, of civil rights violations in Mr. Brown’s death, the Justice Department said it may not have happened that way." Jack Healy, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Vivian Yee in The New York Times.

Instead of inverting, U.S. firms are now just selling out to new foreign owners. "Just months after the Obama administration cracked down on mergers that helped U.S. companies skirt domestic taxes, a wave of foreign takeovers is steering more tax revenue away from Uncle Sam. ... Take Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. Last year, the North Carolina drug maker tried an inversion. But the deal wasn’t completed before the Treasury changed the rules. Now, Salix is headed toward a lower-tax jurisdiction, but as prey, not predator, being acquired by Canada’s Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. for $10 billion." Liz Hoffman and John D. McKinnon in The Wall Street Journal.

Where are we going to put all that oil? "U.S. crude-oil supplies are at their highest level in more than 80 years, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, equal to nearly 70% of the nation’s storage capacity. ... Some analysts predict prices, already down 50% since June, could spiral even lower as producers sell oil at a discount to the few remaining buyers with room to store it. Consumers, though, would continue to be big winners as refineries convert an ocean of crude into gasoline and other fuels." Nicole Friedman in The Wall Street Journal.

The Environmental Protection Agency wants to regulate genetically modified corn, saying it's breeding stronger bugs. "The plan is aimed at widely grown corn varieties sold by Monsanto Co. , the first to sell rootworm-resistant corn, and rival seed makers including DuPont Co. and Dow Chemical Co. Such corn seeds have been genetically modified to secrete proteins that are toxic to destructive insects, but safe for human consumption, helping to reduce farmers’ reliance on synthetic pesticides. ... Midwestern farmers’ embrace of pest-resistant corn since the first varieties’ launch in 1996 has diminished its power over some bugs like the corn rootworm, however. Repeated exposure to the corn’s bug-killing proteins means that the small number of rootworms that are able to consume the BT toxin and live can reproduce by the thousands and spread across fields that are used to grow corn year after year." Jacob Bunge in The Wall Street Journal.

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