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

[VIDEO] FDR Has Advice for President Obama

In this segment from The Big Picture, Sam Pizzigatti tells Thom Hartmann what lesson President Obama can learn from past presidents to get this economy working again for everyone, and not just the richest one percent.

A Case Study for Why We Need a Stiff Estate Tax

The recluse Huguette Clark was a poster child for the taxation of vast inherited fortunes.

Deconstructing a Paul Ryan Sound Bite

Ryan’s budget cuts spending that helps average Americans to fund tax cuts for rich Americans.

An Eye-Opening Window into America’s Executive Suites

A cutting-edge new Web site, from the nation’s labor movement, offers working Americans the information we need to understand CEO pay excess – and the tools we need to fight it.

Unnecessary Austerity, Unnecessary Shutdown

Reversing tax giveaways to the super-rich and the nation’s largest corporations could raise $4 trillion within a decade and avert possible government closures.

CEO Pay Bashing, Tea Party Style

Has Jim DeMint, the right-wing senator leading the assault on federal domestic spending, finally gone too far? His corporate executive benefactors may soon come to think so.

Squeezing Ordinary Californians and New Yorkers

Governors Cuomo and Brown seem hell-bent on delivering a knockout blow to the mass middle class.

Some Break Campaign Spending Records While Middle America Scrambles to Keep a Roof Overhead

The level of our political discourse has probably never been lower, while the level of cash spent on our electioneering has never been higher.

Mapping Global Wealth

Credit Suisse reveals the world’s staggering inequality.

Washington at Work–for the Wealthy

Uncle Sam is concentrating America’s wealth, not sharing it.

One Decade Down, One Decade Wasted

The 21st century has opened with ten years that have seen the vast majority of Americans go backward economically. Just-released Census stats tell that tale–but not the whole income story.

Reining in Executive Pay

The landmark financial reform legislation passed in July includes reforms advocated for years by those who believe that empowering shareholders will clean up the executive pay mess.

Surfing in Style through the Great Recession

American corporate CEOs, an eye-opening new study documents, have discovered a quick fix that almost guarantees good times for the executive set. They kill jobs.

Can We Cut CEO Pay Down to Size?

The CEOs who cut the most jobs are also the ones who make the most money. How can we stop excessive CEO pay before it leads to bad behavior?

CEOs Who Cut the Most Jobs Earn More than Peers

The 17th annual Executive Excess report shows that CEOs are squeezing workers to boost short-term profits and their own paychecks.

Executive Excess 2010: CEO Pay and the Great Recession

The 17th annual executive compensation survey looks at how CEOs laid off thousands while raking in millions.

A Century Later, Teddy Roosevelt’s Speech on Corporate Power

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the most “radical speech” an American ex-president has ever delivered.

The Million-Dollar Penny

The ulta-rich are splurging again as the rest of us muddle through the Great Recession.

Resurrect the Estate Tax

How can a civilized nation afford to hand the heirs of the super-rich billions of dollars tax-free and not afford to keep teachers in classrooms?

Greed in the Suites Gets a New Yardstick

A landmark leap on executive pay disclosure could be around the corner.