Global Economy

The Global Economy Program provides research, communications, and networking support to dynamic economic justice movements in the United States and around the world. Our goal is to speed the transition to an equitable and sustainable economy while reversing today’s extreme levels of economic and racial inequality and excessive corporate and Wall Street power. The program focuses its work on six inter-related areas:

Inequality and CEO Pay

The program collaborates with a broader IPS team to produce Inequality.org and a related weekly newsletter that highlights the latest data and the sharpest strategies to reverse extreme inequality in the United States and around the world. The program is also a leading resource on one key driver of inequality — runaway CEO pay. For more than two decades, our annual report series “Executive Excess” has drawn extensive media coverage to the issue of CEO pay and practical solutions. A newer report series, “A Tale of Two Retirements,” is the first to track the staggering gap in retirement benefits between wealthy CEOs and ordinary Americans.

Featured Resource

Toolkit: State and City Taxes on Extreme CEO-worker Pay Gaps

Recent Posts Related to CEO Pay

Trade, Investment, and Mining

The program works with grassroots activists around the world to advance alternative international trade and investment policies that elevate environmental, human, and labor rights above narrow corporate interests. In recent years program staff have played a lead role in supporting a successful campaign in El Salvador to defend against global mining corporations’ attempts to steamroll local resistance to harmful extractives projects.

Featured Article

How An International Grassroots Campaign Beat Metal Mining Corporations

Recent Posts Related to Trade, Investment, and Mining

Black Workers Initiative

The Black Worker Initiative aims to help expand opportunities for black worker organizing and thereby greatly contribute to the revitalization of the U.S. labor movement as a whole. This program is deeply committed to helping achieve both the historic and contemporary aims of the labor and civil rights movements.

Featured Report

“And Still I Rise”

Recent Posts Related to Black Worker Initiative

Wall Street and Global Finance

IPS staff play lead roles in coalitions working to restore the financial sector to its proper purpose of serving the real economy. We track the reckless Wall Street bonus culture, for example through our annual “Off the Deep End” report on the size of the financial industry bonus pool versus the cost of paying restaurant servers and domestic workers a living wage. We also advance innovative reforms such as a small tax on Wall Street speculation to curb short-term trading and generate massive revenue for urgent public needs, such as fixing our crumbling national infrastructure.

Featured Report

Republican Tax Plan Giveaways to Wall Street (co-published with Americans for Tax Fairness and the Take On Wall Street campaign

Recent Posts Related to Global Finance

Low-Wage Workers

Featured Report

Report: The Human Trafficking of Domestic Workers in the United States

Recent Posts Related to Low-Wage Workers

Inequality.org

Inequality.org and a related weekly newsletter are key resources for the public at large, journalists, teachers, students, academics, activists, and others seeking information and analysis on wealth and income inequality. Here, we collect the latest developments on inequality and keep readers abreast of relevant information concerning the widening wealth gap. We highlight stories from activists on the front lines of the fight against extreme inequality and share information that can be used for ongoing campaigns.

Latest Work

Photo of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, a light skinned Hispanic man with grey hair and a black jacket and red tie, speaking with a raised hand in front of the UN flag, EU flag, and several other flags.

A Voice at the United Nations the World Needs to Hear

Sam Pizzigati | September 22, 2022

The UN’s secretary-general is speaking truth – about inequality — to our world’s leaders.

A landscape devastated by coal mines in La Guajira, Colombia (Shutterstock)

IPS Brief: Mining Companies Use Trade Agreements to Attack Indigenous Rights in Colombia and Beyond

Jennifer Moore | September 13, 2022

With our allies, we've prepared a legal brief to support the Wayúu people’s rights to water, health, and food sovereignty in Colombia.

Barbara Ehrenreich at the 2008 Letelier-Moffitt Awards

Remembering Barbara Ehrenreich

Tope Folarin, John Cavanagh | September 2, 2022

The acclaimed author and activist had a 40-year history with the Institute for Policy Studies, first as a staff member and later as a project leader and board member.

Photo of Rep. Jamie Raskin (white man in black suit and red tie) standing next to iron monument of General Sheridan on a horse, speaking at a memorial event in 2019 with an embassy in the background.

Rep. Jamie Raskin on Chile’s Proposed New, More Equitable and Democratic Constitution

Sarah Anderson | August 31, 2022

The Maryland Democrat draws from his constitutional scholarship in analyzing the proposal that will be on the September 4 ballot in Chile.

A smiling Black father and daughter put change into a piggy bank.

Biden’s Debt Cancellation Plan Is a Step Forward on the Racial Wealth Divide

Sarah Anderson, Brian Wakamo | August 25, 2022

Black students have had to take out larger loans and faced greater difficulty paying them back than other borrowers.

The Huge Pay Gaps at Low-Wage Federal Contractors

Sarah Anderson, Brian Wakamo | August 17, 2022

New federal contracting standards could incentivize corporations to narrow the economic divides that undermine employee morale and business effectiveness.

Congress Takes Historic Step to Tax Stock Buybacks

Natalia Renta | August 10, 2022

This provision of the Inflation Reduction Act will discourage corporations from siphoning resources from worker wages and productive investments for share repurchases that inflate CEO pay.

Global Allies Stand With Walden Bello as Social Justice Champion Posts Bail

John Cavanagh | August 9, 2022

As a new generation of Phillippines leadership tries to target Walden Bello and accuse him of libel, John Cavanagh explained to Common Dreams why "they picked the wrong person to go after.”

Photo of Juan Soto in red and white baseball jersey and helmet, in motion with a baseball bat in his right hand.

Baseball Immortality Meets Ungodly Inequality

Sam Pizzigati | August 7, 2022

Superstar Juan Soto gets a new team. His fans get heartbreak. His owners get richer.

gustavo petro and francia marquez celebrating their victory in the colombian elections

A Proposed Wealth Tax on Colombia’s 4,700+ Richest Would Raise $1 Billion

Omar Ocampo | August 3, 2022

An Institute for Policy Studies analysis of the progressive tax proposed by incoming Colombian President Gustavo Petro would impact a small percentage of the nation's wealthiest while raising millions to address widening inequality.

Members of Amazon Workers United, who won their union election in Staten Island, New York

It’s Time to Crack Down on Excessive CEO Pay

Sarah Anderson | July 27, 2022

The pay gap between workers and CEOs at America’s largest low-wage employers is now 670 to 1. That’s obscene.

How Mining Companies Profited off the Pandemic

Jen Moore | July 14, 2022

The pandemic provided opportunities for more exploitation, but communities kept rising up despite greater adversity.

How to Crack Down on Greedy CEOs, Massive Employee Pay Gaps

Sarah Anderson | July 11, 2022

There's an easy way to cap sky-high CEO salaries and limit outrageous pay gaps — and it would actually work.

With CEO Pay Skyrocketing, the Unionization Surge is Hardly Surprising

Brian Wakamo | June 23, 2022

Pandemic disparities have driven workers at Starbucks and several other low-wage employers to demand a fair reward for their labor.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Latin American Leaders Should Stand Up for People, Not Corporate Profits

Manuel Perez-Rocha | June 8, 2022

As leaders gather in Los Angeles, a reflection on the past two decades of battles against neoliberalism and for a more just and equitable alternative in the Americas.

Low-Wage Employers Spent Billions Inflating CEO Pay Through Stock Buybacks

Sarah Anderson | June 7, 2022

President Biden has the power to crack down on executive excess by imposing new CEO pay and buyback restrictions on federal contractors.

President of the Pueblo Shuar Arutam of Ecuador, Josefina Tunki, during a protest along with other Shuar women.

The Struggle for What’s Essential

Jen Moore | May 24, 2022

Global mining companies have used the pandemic to push unwanted projects on vulnerable communities, who are fighting back — and sometimes winning.

An Equal Pay Victory for Our Winningest National Team

Brian Wakamo | May 20, 2022

The landmark collective bargaining agreement for the United States Women’s National Team creates a blueprint for equity across global sports organizations.

JPMorgan Might Kneel for ‘Justice’ But It Isn’t Standing For True Racial Equity

Marc Bayard, Saqib Bhatti | May 13, 2022

As is clear from the immense harm corporations continue to cause to communities of color, a racial equity audit is just the first step of many to hold these companies accountable.