Veteran labor journalist and Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow Sam Pizzigati co-edits Inequality.org, the Institute’s weekly newsletter on our great divides. He also contributes a regular column to OtherWords, the IPS national nonprofit editorial service.

Sam, now retired from the labor movement, spent two decades directing the publishing program at America’s largest union, the 2.8-million-member National Education Association, and before that edited the national publications of three other U.S. trade unions.

Sam’s own writing has revolved around economic inequality since the early 1990s. His op-eds on income and wealth concentration have appeared in periodicals all around the world, from the New York Times to Le Monde Diplomatique.

Sam has authored four books and co-edited two others. His 2004 book, Greed and Good: Understanding the Inequality that Limits Our Lives, won an “outstanding title” honor from the American Library Association’s book review journal. His 2012 title, The Rich Don’t Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970, explores how average Americans ended the nation’s original Gilded Age. Sam’s most recent book, The Case for a Maximum Wage, offers a politically plausible path toward ending that Gilded Age’s second coming.

Latest

Pothole Nation

We can thank inequality for America’s inadequate — and increasingly unsafe — basic infrastructure.

Happy Days Here Again, 21st Century-Style

Great economic cataclysms have in the past knocked the super rich off their stride. Our Great Recession’s deep pockets, stunning new income data show, are bucking the historical tide.

The Spirit Level: Inequality Coming to a Theater Near You

The landmark 2010 book by British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett gets a fresh new visual dimension.

Another Wealthy Executive Seeks To Dodge Prison

Last week, in a New York courtroom, memories of a forgotten tragedy edged back onto the public stage.

Should We All Start Praying for Mitt Romney?

Absolutely. The GOP Presidential hopeful from Bain Capital has become a walking, talking object lesson on how plutocracy works – and why we desperately need to end it.

Wealthy Tax Cheats

The rich don’t much like paying taxes when tax rates run high — or low.

Law and Order 24/7, Except at Tax Time

The rich don’t much like paying taxes when tax rates run high. They don’t much like paying taxes when tax rates run low either.

Uncle Sam Is Sheltering the SWAG Economy

Silver, wine, art, and gold are scarce, transportable, and long-lasting physical assets that make handy tax shelters.

Behold and Beware Our New ‘SWAG’ Economy

Today’s swaggering rich are increasingly stuffing their dollars into investments that do America’s 99 percent not one whit of good.

The 10 Greediest Americans of 2011

Whether they manage football pageants or Ford Motor Co., these guys remind us how much needs to change, economically and politically, in 2012 and beyond.

Tis the Season to Be Jolly on Wall Street, Still

Financial industry insiders are grousing about a big downturn in annual bonuses. They should be thanking the rest of us – bombshell new research shows – for their continuing awesome good tidings.

The Global Super-Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion

Still another financial firm has tallied how much net worth is sloshing in the pockets of the world’s most spectacularly wealthy. So when will the time finally come to stop the counting and start the taxing?

Not Our Golf Games! CEO Worries Reach New Levels

The rich and their handlers are doing a good deal more than rethink security. They’re recalibrating their ideological defenses.

For the Corporate 1 Percenters, a 50 Percent Tax Discount

Corporations have achieved total tax loophole parity with America’s individual super rich.

Rick Perry: Reverse Robin Hood

The Texas governor’s new plan is to give more money to the rich, but he says he “doesn’t care.”

OWS Revives the Struggle for Economic Equality

Inspired by struggles overseas and in the past, the protests have brought the wealth gap back to the center of political debate.

All Money Trails Lead to Wall Street

An anthropologist estimates that one out of five dollars Americans earn ends up in Wall Street coffers, one way or another.

Do We Need ‘Student Loans’ for Billionaires?

Students of modest means must pay a stiff price to build their capacity to contribute to society – and pay interest if they can’t afford that price. A wealth tax could apply this same principle to America’s rich.

How Corporations Built to Loot Lobby to Win

With a small army of lobbyists, WIN America corporations twist politicians into giving them tax breaks that hurt the rest of us.

WIN America Coalition Seeks to Pad Pockets with “Tax Holiday”

Tax holiday proponents have delivered losses to American workers.