A potentially embarrassing math calculation employers have long hoped to escape – one that pay experts thought was dead following President Donald Trump‘s election – can no longer be avoided. In recent…
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A potentially embarrassing math calculation employers have long hoped to escape – one that pay experts thought was dead following President Donald Trump‘s election – can no longer be avoided.
In recent weeks, a few public companies have begun disclosing a ratio, required for the first time this year, that compares the pay of their chief executive to the pay of their median employee. At industrial giant Honeywell, the largest company yet to disclose, the ratio was 333 to 1. At Teva Pharmaceuticals, the Israel-based generic pharmaceutical company, it’s 302 to 1. And at the regional bank Umpqua Holdings, it’s about 55 to 1.
As we celebrate Black History Month, we can take pride in the progress we’ve made while also acknowledging how far we have to go. One troubling sign of the work we have to do can be seen in a wealth gap between black Americans and white Americans that persists and even seems to be widening. It’s a sobering reminder of how far we are from true equality.
I have always known that this gap (or “chasm” as one author described it) existed, but I didn’t realize how large it was until I started researching this piece. The facts and figures truly frightened me. Today, I hope to raise awareness of this problem and suggest some practical steps to help resolve the issue.
The annual letter from Bill and Melinda Gates usually paints a rosy view, with carefully curated success stories from the battle against global disease and poverty, and praise for new technologies backed by the Gates Foundation.
But for this year, the co-founders of the world’s richest philanthropy have instead opted to answer a selection of critical and skeptical questions about the foundation’s work and the power it wields.
Among them: “Why don’t you give more in the United States?” “Does saving kids’ lives lead to overpopulation?” And “Is it fair that you have so much influence?”
Fifteen years ago, on Feb. 15, 2003, somewhere between 6 million to 11 million people turned out in at least 650 cities around the world to protest the United States’ push to invade Iraq. It was the largest anti-war protest and remains the largest one-day global protest the world has ever seen.
Today, there are still 5,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and continued war on terror operations in close to a dozen other Middle Eastern, Central Asian and African nations. The war is ongoing. The anti-war movement, practically speaking, is not. What happened?
One explanation is that the anti-war push of 2003-2007 was successful — not in ending the war, but in knocking out the political party that started it.
President Donald Trump’s proposal to impose steep tariffs on imported steel and aluminum have raised fears of an international trade war.
The plan, debated intensely within the White House, is to levy a 25% tax on steel imports and a 10% tax on aluminum imports by 10%.
But foreign countries that are impacted may retaliate with their own tariffs on U.S. products. In other words, a trade war. Here’s what that means, how it could impact the U.S. economy, and whether you should be worried.
On this episode of “By Any Means Necessary” hosts Eugene Puryear and Sean Blackmon are joined by James Early, Former Director of Cultural Heritage Policy at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution, and board member of Institute for Policy Studies, to talk about Donald Trump’s desire to have a large military parade in Washington, DC, the latest from Kenya’s political crisis, the state of democracy across the world, the commemoration of Hugo Chavez’s death in Venezuela, and what will be next for South Africa when Jacob Zuma steps down from leadership.
Black Americans should be inspired to convert the anger provoked by the comments and actions of President Trump into an action plan, starting with the truth, because presenting a false narrative lures people into complacency and lowers their expectations.
As much as I admire Oprah Winfrey,Madam C.J. Walker, and Annie Malone – all self-made millionaires – and the relatively few black millionaire actors, business people, rappers, and sports figures, the glass ceiling they broke regenerated itself. As such, they do not represent a change that warrants complacency, lack of unity, and a blind allegiance to the status quo.
Shockingly, California’s African Americans suffer the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, under-employment, mental illness, incarceration, and wealth, health, education, and employment inequities, and the lowest homeownership rate.
In terms of work hours, Singaporeans work the longest among the developed countries – 2,237 hours annually. People in Hong Kong work the second-longest, at 2,175 hours, while South Korea comes in third at 2,088 hours. Taiwanese endure long hours as well, but not to the same extent as their counterparts in the other Asian Tigers do, clocking in 1,915 hours per year.
Japan fares a bit better but it is the Nordics that shine – after the Germans, the Danes, Norwegians and Dutch work the shortest hours in the world.
After decades of decline unions have found a new champion in efforts to organize workers: the Black Lives Matter movement.
Unions have suffered as manufacturing has moved south away from their old strongholds in the north of the US. Membership rates were 10.7% in 2016, down from 20.1% in 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the same time the shift from manufacturing to service industry jobs has hurt them too.
These were the words of the Governor of Vermont, Phil Scott, as he signed H. 511 – legislation that makes Vermont the ninth state to legalize cannabis. H.511 is ‘an act relating to eliminating penalties for possession of limited amounts of marijuana by adults 21 years of age or older…’
This latest development in the United States means Vermont now joins Alaska, California, Colorado, Washington, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Oregon, as states that have reformed their laws around cannabis. Vermont’s reform process however, differs from the eight states preceding it, as Sanho Tree – a Fellow for Institute for Policy Studies – discusses, “Vermont is the first state to legalise cannabis via the legislative process instead of direct ballot initiative, but lawmakers did not approve a system of regulated sales. In that sense, it’s similar to the Washington DC model where adults are allowed grow and give a limited amount of cannabis, but remuneration is not permitted. Vermont’s nickname has always been “The Green Mountain State” and soon it will be truer than ever before as residents learn the finer points of cannabis cultivation.”
