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

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Trump’s Public Charge Rule Is an Attack on Legal Immigrants

Michael Paarlberg | August 15, 2019

After demonizing undocumented immigration, Trump’s new public charge rule targets legal immigrants on the basis of income and race.

Celebrate American Excellence — With Equal Pay

Brian Wakamo | July 31, 2019

In soccer and in everything else, we need to pay America’s millions of underpaid women what they’re worth.

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3 Bills to Rein in Executive Pay

Sarah Anderson | July 25, 2019

Before heading home for summer recess, members of Congress are rushing to introduce proposals for cracking down on overpaid executives.

What Kind of Trade Policy Should Progressives Support?

Ethan Earle, Manuel Perez-Rocha, Scott Sinclair | July 25, 2019

NAFTA 2.0 simply locks in existing drives toward ecological collapse and social inequality. A better deal would put people — and nature — first.

‘The Squad’ Keeps the Focus on Bold, Inequality-Busting Policies

Negin Owliaei, Sarah Anderson | July 19, 2019

Representatives Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ayanna Pressley fight hard for their constituents in the face of racist attacks.

How Congress Manufactured a Postal Crisis — And How to Fix it

Brian Wakamo, Sarah Anderson, Scott Klinger | July 15, 2019

An unprecedented congressional mandate threatens the Postal Service's ability to continue to provide good jobs and universal service.

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Will San Francisco Be the Second City to Tax Extreme CEO-Worker Pay Gaps?

Sarah Anderson | July 11, 2019

SF voters will decide the fate of a proposed tax on corporations that pay their top exec more than 100 times median worker pay.

The Wild Political Backstory to the Financial ‘Crisis’ at the Postal Service

Brian Wakamo | July 10, 2019

Budget chicanery more than 15 years ago laid the foundation for a manufactured crisis that threatens the future of the postal service.

We Have the Money to Fix Our Food System

Brian Wakamo | July 3, 2019

Imagine supporting farmers markets, child nutrition, and local agriculture with money we spend on factory farms.

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10 Inequality Takeaways From the First Democratic Debate

Negin Owliaei, Sarah Anderson | June 28, 2019

When 2020 candidates went head to head in the first Democratic debate, America's extreme economic divide was front and center.

International Civil Society Organizations Call on Honduran Government to End Abuses Against Protesters and on the U.S. Government to Denounce Security Force Abuses in Honduras

Manuel Perez-Rocha | June 27, 2019

Over the last several weeks, Honduran security forces have killed and wounded teachers, students, health care workers and other Honduran citizens protesting cuts to the health and education system.

Support the Women's World Cup Team

Brian Wakamo | June 19, 2019

The U.S. women’s soccer team outperforms its male counterpart but earns less — like women in every other field.

A Moral Economy Would Save Taxpayers Billions Every Year

Sarah Anderson | June 17, 2019

10 ways that doing the right thing would save us money.

Trump's Tariffs on Mexico and Who They'll Harm

Manuel Perez-Rocha | June 6, 2019

Manuel Perez-Rocha discusses Trump's plan to impose progressively increasing tariffs on Mexico, the second largest importer of U.S. goods.

MLB Players Are Getting Stiffed

Brian Wakamo | May 28, 2019

If corporations treat millionaire assets this way, imagine how they’ll treat you.

America Needs a Long-Term Care Program for Seniors

Sarah Anderson | May 23, 2019

By 2035, seniors will outnumber children. A new plan in Washington state shows how we can care for them — and for their caretakers.

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Victory on Elder Care Equity Sets a Marker for 2020 Debates

Sarah Anderson | May 15, 2019

Of the 11 members of Congress running for president, eight have endorsed expanded public support for long-term care. Washington Governor Inslee can claim real action.

Mining Companies Use Excessive Legal Powers to Gamble with Latin American Lives

Jen Moore, Manuel Perez-Rocha | May 13, 2019

In more than two-thirds of the mining-related lawsuits against governments in the region, communities have been actively organizing against the mining activities.

How Wall Street Drives Gender and Racial Inequality

Sarah Anderson | May 7, 2019

If the minimum wage had kept up with Wall Street bonuses, it would be worth $33 today, instead of just $7.25.

The Reality Behind the ‘Surging’ U.S. Economy

Sarah Anderson | May 6, 2019

A tiny uptick in wages won't do much to help Americans squeezed by debt and facing rising prices for medicine, child care, housing, and other essentials.