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

The Rich and Those Who Serve Them, Then and Now

We’ve already rejected the servant state once. We certainly can once again.

Some Corporate-Suite Context for the Fun and Games at GameStop

Amid a rising billionaire tide, could a blip help change our national economic conversation?

Greed in the Suites, from Walgreens to Walmart

Donald Trump may have made his exit, but the CEOs his years smiled upon haven’t gone anywhere.

In 2021, Let’s Ring a Global Alarm — on Inequality — That Everyone Can Hear

Our task ahead: preventing a deeply unequal world from recreating pre-pandemic business as usual.

Our Youngest ‘Self-Made’ Billionaire, Our Wealthy’s Oldest Bogus Claim

The super rich owe their super fortunes to factors that have little to do with ‘genius.’

Nothing Fundamental Will Change Without Mass Movements

Real change only happens, the New Deal era suggests, when a president’s ear is hearing the shouts of mass movements.

The Rich Are Cheering Wall Street’s Latest Records. Americans of Modest Means Are Draining 401(k)s.

The nation’s woefully inadequate response to the pandemic is jeopardizing millions of retirement futures.

The Rain on Our Yes-We-Now-Have-a-Vaccine! Parade

What could be better than a drug that can stop COVID? A society that doesn’t let someone make billions off a drug millions can’t access.

Why Can’t Inner-Ring Democrats Just Say ‘No’ to Billionaires?

The problem runs even deeper than Donor Class donations.

One Key Overlooked Reason We Need the 2017 Trump Tax Act Axed — ASAP

The longer the law remains on the books, the tighter the squeeze on funding for state and local public services.

The 2020 Election as a Triumph for Democracy? Hold the Hosannas

Higher voter turnouts mask the reality of the ‘affluent authoritarianism’ the now governs America.

California Dreamin’ for Much More Equal Days

Mommas and papas everywhere ought to be watching closely to see how Californians vote on two key initiatives this Election Day.

Out of the UK, a Bold Pay Prescription for a Post-Trump America

Two British think tanks are calling for a cap on the compensation that goes to corporate chiefs.

The Biden Tax Plan: The More Progressives Look, the More Progressives Like

This package of serious tax-the-rich proposals will have no easy road through Congress.

Will Today’s Millennials Ever Live in a More Equal USA?

If current distributional trends continue, new Fed wealth data suggest, our future divides will be even wider.

Can You Imagine Ivanka Trump Consulting for a Pizza Parlor?

At tax time in a plutocratic America, anything goes for a family like the Trumps.

Let’s Start Debating What Deeply Dooms Democracy: Concentrated Wealth

Why we need to shove inequality onto America’s political center stage.

Remembering Ike, Our Unexpected Egalitarian

Former president Dwight Eisenhower deserves his new memorial. We deserve the greater economic equality he worked to help achieve.

Why Don’t People Call You a Genius? You Don’t Have a Billion Dollars.

The latest Forbes 400 can help us see why you don’t need a great intellect to become insanely wealthy.

Killing Someone Is Not Like Missing a Golf Putt

Trump’s vile equivalence of a golf putt to police violence says a lot about the bubble America’s super rich live in.