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

What’s Worse Than Ticket Scalpers? Stock Scalpers.

Sarah Anderson | March 5, 2019

A new Wall Street Tax proposal would crack down on the high frequency traders that are cheating the rest of us.

What States Can Do to Reduce Poverty and Inequality Through Tax Policy

Chuck Collins, Sarah Anderson | February 22, 2019

State governments have many options for recouping the windfalls large corporations and the wealthy received through the 2017 Republican federal tax law.

Bernie Sanders' 77 Percent Estate Tax for Billionaires is Not Enough

Bob Lord | February 17, 2019

The tax will raise revenues. But unless a glaring loophole is closed, the corrosive effects on our democracy will continue.

If You Hate Campaign Season, Blame Money in Politics

Sarah Anderson | February 13, 2019

The fact that 2020 candidates are announcing now is a testament to the huge expense of elections. Can a new law change that?

For Dell’s Billionaire CEO, Taxing the Ultra-Rich is a Joke

Sarah Anderson | January 29, 2019

Michael Dell falsely argues that top marginal tax rates as high as 70 percent have never worked.

U.S. Tax Policy Can Turn on a Dime. Has Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Just Turned It?

Sam Pizzigati | January 11, 2019

The youngest lawmaker in Congress delivers a history lesson America has needed for years.

The Postal Worker’s Christmas

Sarah Anderson | December 18, 2018

My grandfather was part of a long tradition of postal workers who sacrificed Christmas Eve with their families to deliver holiday packages.

AMLO Goes Full Throttle Against Neoliberalism — But What About NAFTA?

Manuel Perez-Rocha | December 17, 2018

Mexico’s first left-wing president gave a fiery inaugural speech against neoliberalism in Mexico. But he barely mentioned NAFTA.

Businessman with a briefcase full of money

Corporations Should Share the Wealth Before Buying Back Stock

Sarah Anderson | November 15, 2018

Senator Sanders has introduced a bill that would ban Walmart and other big corporations from repurchasing their stock unless they narrow the gaps between CEO and worker pay.

6 Women of Color Who Campaigned for Congress on Inequality and Won

Sarah Anderson | November 7, 2018

Each is heading to Washington to advance a bold social and economic justice agenda, with a strong focus on reversing inequality.

Time For Duterte to Shut Down This Mining Company

Catherine Coumans, John Cavanagh, Rico La Vina, Robin Broad | October 31, 2018

OceanaGold has not adhered to its commitments under its mining permit and various Philippine laws and regulations.

Busload of Activist Nuns Log 5,600 Miles for Tax Justice

Sarah Anderson | October 29, 2018

The renowned 'Nuns on the Bus' are heading to Mar-A-Lago, the final stop in a cross-country campaign to undo the damage of the Republican tax reform.

The Midterms and Inequality: What We’re Watching

Negin Owliaei, Sarah Anderson | October 29, 2018

From ballot initiatives to anti-inequality candidates, the 2018 election offers plenty of opportunities to chip away at our economic divide.

Any Senior Who Needs Home Care Should Get It

Sarah Anderson | October 22, 2018

Caring for loved ones with dementia is hard enough. Families shouldn't have to bear a financial crisis on top of that.

US, UK Progressive Leaders Aim to Open Corporate Boardrooms to Workers

Sarah Anderson | October 15, 2018

UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren have both launched plans to shift the balance of power from shareholders to workers, including requiring worker representation on boards.

What Amazon Adds To The Fight For $15

Sarah Anderson | October 3, 2018

Amazon will raise its minimum wage to $15 for all U.S. employees. Will other's follow suit?

If CEOs Earn 1,000 Times More Than Us, They Don't Need Taxpayer Dollars

Sarah Anderson | September 13, 2018

Companies practicing racial or gender inequality cannot receive government dollars. It's time to do the same for economic inequality.

Does the United States Have a ‘Strong’ Economy?

Sam Pizzigati | September 12, 2018

For average Americans, the U.S. economy hardly merits any kudos. Two new data dumps make that reality even plainer.

Is This the End of NAFTA as We Know It?

Manuel Perez-Rocha | September 10, 2018

And why is Mexico being complicit in Trump’s attempt to bully Canada?

Trump Launches Aggressive Poverty Disinformation Campaign

Aaron Noffke, Saurav Sarkar | September 10, 2018

The middle class is starting to look poor, but the president’s Council of Economic Advisers now argues that not even the poor are poor—all the better to cut programs that serve both groups.